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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Legends of the Bastille - -Author: Frantz Funck-Brentano - -Translator: George Maidment - -Release Date: July 16, 2013 [EBook #43231] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEGENDS OF THE BASTILLE *** - - - - -Produced by Chris Curnow, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - DOWNEY & CO.'S - - _NEW PUBLICATIONS_. - - - =MEDICINE AND THE MIND.= Translated from the French of MAURICE DE - FLEURY by S. B. COLLINS, M.D. 16_s._ - - *** This work has been crowned by the French Academy. - - =OLD LONDON TAVERNS.= By EDWARD CALLOW. Illustrated. 6_s._ - - =THE GOOD QUEEN CHARLOTTE.= By PERCY FITZGERALD. With a Photogravure - reproduction of Gainsborough's Portrait and other Illustrations. - Demy 8vo. 10_s._ 6_d._ - - =THE LIFE OF JOHN MYTTON.= By NIMROD. An entirely new edition printed - from new type. With 20 Coloured Plates reproduced from Alken's - Drawings. 42_s._ net. - - =GOSSIP OF THE CENTURY.= By Mrs. PITT BYRNE. 4 vols. with numerous - Illustrations. 42_s._ - - =THE ACTOR AND HIS ART.= By STANLEY JONES. Crown 8vo. With Cover - designed by H. MITCHELL. 3_s._ 6_d._ - - - - - LEGENDS OF THE BASTILLE - -[Illustration: MODEL OF THE BASTILLE, CARVED IN ONE OF THE STONES OF THE -FORTRESS. - -_One of these models, made by the instructions of the architect Palloy, -was sent to the chief-town of every department in France._] - - - - - Legends of - the Bastille - - BY - FRANTZ FUNCK-BRENTANO - - _WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY VICTORIEN SARDOU_ - - AUTHORISED TRANSLATION BY - GEORGE MAIDMENT - - WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS - - LONDON - DOWNEY & CO. LIMITED - 1899 - - - - -BIBLIOGRAPHY - - - _Legendes et Archives de la Bastille._ Paris: Hachette et Cie., - 1898; second edition, 1899. Crowned by the French Academy. - - _Die Bastille in der Legende und nach historischen Documenten._ - German translation by Oscar Marschall von Bieberstein. Breslau: - Schottlaender, 1899. - - - - -TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE - - -In his own entertaining way, Mr. Andrew Lang has recently been taking -the scientific historian to task, and giving him a very admirable lesson -on "history as she ought to be wrote." But though the two professors to -whom he mainly addresses himself are Frenchmen, it would be doing an -injustice to France to infer that she is the _alma mater_ of the modern -dryasdust. The exact contrary is the case: France is rich in historical -writers like the Comte d'Haussonville, M. de Maulde la Clavière, M. -Gaston Boissier, to name only a few, who know how to be accurate without -being dull. - -M. Funck-Brentano, whom I have the honour of introducing here to the -English public, belongs to the same class. Of literary parentage and -connections--his uncle is Professor Lujo Brentano, whose work on the -English trade gilds is a standard--he entered in his twentieth year the -École des Chartes, the famous institution which trains men in the -methods of historical research. At the end of his three years' course, -he was appointed to succeed François Ravaisson in the work of -classifying the archives of the Bastille in the Arsenal Library,--a work -which occupied him for more than ten years. One fruit of it is to be -seen in the huge catalogue of more than one thousand pages, printed -under official auspices and awarded the Prix Le Dissez de Penanrum by -the Académie des Sciences morales et politiques. Another is the present -work, which has been crowned by the French Academy. Meanwhile M. -Funck-Brentano had been pursuing his studies at the Sorbonne and at -Nancy, and his French thesis for the doctorate in letters was a volume -on the origins of the Hundred Years' War, which obtained for him the -highest possible distinction for a work of erudition in France, the -Grand Prix Gobert. This volume he intends to follow up with two others, -completing a social rather than a military history of the war, and this -no doubt he regards as his _magnum opus_. He is known also as a lecturer -in Belgium and Alsace as well as in Paris, and being general secretary -of the Société des Etudes historiques and deputy professor of history at -the College of France as well as sub-librarian of the Arsenal Library, -he leads a busy life. - -Trained in the rigorous methods of the École des Chartes and inspired by -the examples of Fustel de Coulanges and M. Paul Meyer, M. Funck-Brentano -has developed a most interesting and conscientious method of his own. He -depends on original sources, and subjects these to the most searching -critical tests; but this is a matter of course: his individuality -appears in regard to the publication of the results of his researches. -When he has discoveries of importance to communicate, he gives them to -the world first in the form of articles or studies in reviews of -standing, thus preparing public opinion, and at the same time affording -opportunities for the search-light of criticism to play on his work. -Some of the chapters of this book thus appeared in the various _revues_, -and have subsequently gone through a severe process of pruning and -amending. It is now eleven years since the first appearance, in the -pages of the _Revue des deux Mondes_, of the study of Latude which, in a -much altered shape, now forms one of the most interesting portions of -this book. The coming autumn will see the publication in France of a -striking work by M. Funck-Brentano on the amazing poison-dramas at Louis -XIV.'s court, and of this book also the several sections have been -appearing at intervals for several years past. - -The present work, as I have already said, is the fruit of many years of -research. Its startling revelations, so well summarized in M. Victorien -Sardou's Introduction, have revolutionized public opinion in France, and -in particular the solution of the old problem of the identity of the Man -in the Iron Mask has been accepted as final by all competent critics. -The _Athenæum_, in reviewing the book in its French form the other day, -said that it must be taken cautiously as an ingenious bit of special -pleading, and that the Bastille appears in M. Funck-Brentano's pages in -altogether too roseate hues, suggesting further that no such results -could be obtained without prejudice from the same archives as those on -which Charpentier founded his _La Bastille dévoilée_ in 1789. This -criticism seems to me to ignore several important points. Charpentier's -book, written in the heat of the revolutionary struggle, is not a -history, but a political pamphlet, which, in the nature of the case, was -bound to represent the Bastille as a horror. Moreover, Charpentier could -only have depended superficially on the archives, which, as M. -Funck-Brentano shows, were thrown into utter disorder on the day of the -capture of the Bastille. The later writer, on the other hand, approached -the subject when the revolutionary ardours had quite burnt out, and with -the independent and dispassionate mind of a trained official. He spent -thirteen years in setting the rediscovered archives in order, after his -predecessor Ravaisson had already spent a considerable time at the same -work. He was able, further (as Charpentier certainly was not), to -complete and check the testimony of the archives by means of the memoirs -of prisoners--the Abbé Morellet, Marmontel, Renneville, Dumouriez, and a -host of others. In these circumstances it would be surprising if his -conclusions were not somewhat different from those of Charpentier a -hundred years ago. - -The gravamen of the _Athenæun's_ objection is that M. Funck-Brentano's -description of the treatment of prisoners in the Bastille applies only -to the favoured few, the implication being that M. Funck-Brentano has -shut his eyes to the cases of the larger number. But surely the reviewer -must have read the book too rapidly. M. Funck-Brentano shows, by means -of existing and accessible documents, that the fact of being sent to the -Bastille at all was itself, in the eighteenth century at least, a mark -of favour. Once at the Bastille, the prisoner, whoever he might be, was -treated without severity, unless he misbehaved. Prisoners of no social -importance, such as Renneville, Latude (a servant's love-child), -Tavernier (son of a house-porter), were fed and clothed and cared for -much better than they would have been outside the prison walls. A young -man named Estival de Texas, who was being exiled to Canada because he -was a disgrace to his family, wrote to the minister of Paris on June 22, -1726, from the roadstead of La Rochelle: "Your lordship is sending me to -a wild country, huddled with mean wretches, and condemned to a fare very -different from what your lordship granted me in the Bastille." Here was -a friendless outcast looking back regretfully on his prison fare! On -February 6, 1724, one of the king's ministers wrote to the lieutenant -of police: "I have read to the duke of Bourbon the letter you sent me -about the speeches of M. Quéhéon, and his royal highness has instructed -me to send you an order and a _lettre de cachet_ authorizing his removal -to the Bastille. But as he thinks that this is _an honour the fellow -little deserves_, he wishes you to postpone the execution of the warrant -for three days, in order to see if Quéhéon will not take the hint and -leave Paris as he was commanded." It is on such documents as these, -which are to be seen in hundreds at the Arsenal Library in Paris, that -M. Funck-Brentano has founded his conclusions. Anyone who attacks him on -his own ground is likely to come badly off. - -With M. Funck-Brentano's permission, I have omitted the greater part of -his footnotes, which are mainly references to documents inaccessible to -the English reader. On the other hand, I have ventured to supply a few -footnotes in explanation of such allusions as the Englishman not reading -French (and the translation is intended for no others) might not -understand. On the same principle I have attempted rhymed renderings of -two or three scraps of verse quoted from Regnier and Voltaire, to whom I -make my apologies. The proofs have had the advantage of revision by M. -Funck-Brentano, who is, however, in no way responsible for any -shortcomings. The Index appears in the English version alone. - -The portrait of Latude and the views of the Bastille are reproduced from -photographs of the originals specially taken by M. A. Bresson, of 40 Rue -de Passy, Paris. - -GEORGE MAIDMENT. - -_August, 1899._ - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - -INTRODUCTION 1 - - -CHAPTER I. - -THE ARCHIVES 47 - - -CHAPTER II. - -HISTORY OF THE BASTILLE 57 - - -CHAPTER III. - -LIFE IN THE BASTILLE 85 - - -CHAPTER IV. - -THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK 114 - - -CHAPTER V. - -MEN OF LETTERS IN THE BASTILLE 147 - - I. VOLTAIRE 148 - - II. LA BEAUMELLE 152 - -III. THE ABBÉ MORELLET 155 - - IV. MARMONTEL 158 - - V. LINGUET 163 - - VI. DIDEROT 165 - -VII. THE MARQUIS DE MIRABEAU 166 - - -CHAPTER VI. - -LATUDE 168 - - -CHAPTER VII. - -THE FOURTEENTH OF JULY 238 - -INDEX 277 - - - - -LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - -Model of the Bastille _Frontispiece_ - -Facsimile of Du Junca's note regarding the -entry of the Iron Mask _Facing page_ 115 - -Facsimile of Du Junca's note regarding the -death of the Iron Mask " 116 - -Facsimile of the Iron Mask's burial certificate " 142 - -Facsimile of the cover of Latude's explosive box " 173 - -Facsimile of Latude's writing with blood on linen " 188 - -Portrait of Latude " 229 - -The Capture of the Bastille " 257 - - - - -INTRODUCTION - - -At the great Exhibition of 1889 I visited, in company with some friends, -the reproduction of the Bastille, calculated to give all who saw it--and -the whole world must have seen it--an entirely false impression. - -You had barely cleared the doorway when you saw, in the gloom, an old -man enveloped in a long white beard, lying on the "sodden straw" of -tradition, rattling his chains and uttering doleful cries. And the guide -said to you, not without emotion, "You see here the unfortunate Latude, -who remained in this position, with both arms thus chained behind his -back, for thirty-five years!" - -This information I completed by adding in the same tone: "And it was in -this attitude that he so cleverly constructed the ladder, a hundred and -eighty feet long, which enabled him to escape." - -The company looked at me with surprise, the guide with a scowl, and I -slipped away. - -The same considerations that prompted my intervention have suggested to -M. Funck-Brentano this work on the Bastille, in which he has set the -facts in their true light, and confronted the legends which everyone -knows with the truth of which many are in ignorance. - -For in spite of all that has been written on the subject by Ravaisson, -in the introduction to his _Archives of the Bastille_, by Victor -Fournel, in his _Men of the Fourteenth of July_, and by other writers, -the popular idea of the internal administration of the Bastille in 1789 -holds by the description of Louis Blanc: "Iron cages, recalling -Plessis-les-Tours[1] and the tortures of Cardinal La Balue![2]--underground -dungeons, the loathsome haunts of toads, lizards, enormous rats, -spiders--the whole furniture consisting of one huge stone covered with a -little straw, where the prisoner breathed poison in the very air.... -Enveloped in the shades of mystery, kept in absolute ignorance of the -crime with which he was charged, and the kind of punishment awaiting -him, he ceased to belong to the earth!" - -If this Bastille of melodrama ever had any existence, the Bastille of -the eighteenth century bore the least possible resemblance to it. In -1789, these dungeons on the ground floor of the fortress, with windows -looking on the moats, were no longer reserved, as under Louis XV., for -prisoners condemned to death, dangerous madmen, or prisoners who had -been insolent, obstreperous, or violent; nor for warders guilty of -breaches of discipline. At the time of Necker's first ministry, the use -of these dungeons had been abolished altogether. - -The prisoner, put through an interrogation in the early days of his -detention, was never left in ignorance of the "delinquency" with which -he was charged, and had no reason to be concerned about the kind of -punishment awaiting him; for there had been neither torture nor -punishment of any kind at the Bastille for a hundred years. - -Instead of a dungeon or a cage of iron, every prisoner occupied a room -of fair size, its greatest defect being that it was rather poorly -lighted by a narrow window, secured by bars, some of them projecting -inwards. It was sufficiently furnished; and there was nothing to hinder -the prisoner from getting in more furniture from outside. Moreover, he -could procure whatever clothing and linen he desired, and if he had no -means to pay for them, money was supplied. Latude complained of -rheumatism, and furs were at once given him. He wanted a dressing-gown -of "red-striped calamanco"; the shops were ransacked to gratify him. A -certain Hugonnet complained that he had not received the shirts "with -embroidered ruffles" which he had asked for. A lady named Sauvé wanted a -dress of white silk spotted with green flowers. In all Paris there was -only a white dress with green stripes to be found, with which it was -hoped that she would be satisfied. - -Every room was provided with a fireplace or a stove. Firewood was -supplied, and light; the prisoner could have as many candles as he -pleased. Paper, pens, and ink were at his disposal; though he was -deprived of them temporarily if he made bad use of them, like Latude, -who scribbled all day long only to heap insults in his letters on the -governor and the lieutenant of police. He could borrow books from the -library, and was at liberty to have books sent in from outside. La -Beaumelle had six hundred volumes in his room. He might breed birds, -cats, and dogs--by no means being reduced to taming the legendary spider -of Pellisson,[3] which figures also in the story of Lauzun,[4] and, -indeed, of all prisoners in every age. Instruments of music were -allowed. Renneville played the fiddle, and Latude the flute. There were -concerts in the prisoners' rooms and in the apartments of the governor. - -Every prisoner could work at embroidery, at the turning lathe, or the -joiner's bench, at pleasure. All whose conduct was irreproachable were -allowed to come and go, to pay each other visits, to play at -backgammon, cards, or chess in their rooms; at skittles, bowls, or -_tonneau_[5] in the courtyard. La Rouërie asked for a billiard table for -himself and his friends, and he got it. - -The prisoners were permitted to walk on the platform of the fortress, -from which they could see the people passing up and down the Rue -Saint-Antoine and the vicinity, and watch the animated crowds on the -boulevard at the hours when fashionable people were accustomed to take -their drives. By the aid of telescopes and big letters written on boards -they were able to communicate with the people of the neighbourhood, and, -like Latude, to keep up a secret correspondence with the grisettes of -the district. Michelet, with too obvious a design, declares that under -Louis XVI. the regulations of the prison were more severe than under -Louis XV., and that this promenade on the platform was done away with. -There is not a word of truth in it. The promenade was forbidden only to -those prisoners who, like the Marquis de Sade, took advantage of it to -stir up riots among the passers-by; and from the accession of Louis -XVI. and the visitation of Malesherbes,[6] the rule of the prison grew -milder day by day. - -Certain of the prisoners were invited to dine with the governor, and to -walk in his gardens, in excellent company. Some were allowed to leave -the fortress, on condition of returning in the evening; others were even -allowed to remain out all night! - -Those who had servants could have them in attendance if the servants -were willing to share their captivity. Or they had room-mates, as was -the case with Latude and Allègre. - -In regard to food, the prisoners are unanimous in declaring that it was -abundant and good. "I had five dishes at dinner," says Dumouriez, "and -five at supper, without reckoning dessert." The Provost de Beaumont -declared that he had quitted the Bastille with regret, because there he -had been able to eat and drink to his heart's content. Poultier -d'Elmotte says: "M. de Launey had many a friendly chat with me, and -sent me what dishes I wished for." Baron Hennequin, a hypochondriac who -found fault with everything, confesses nevertheless that they gave him -more meat than he could eat. The Abbé de Buquoy affirms that he fared -sumptuously, and that it was the king's intention that the prisoners -should be well fed. The splenetic Linguet owns, in his pamphlet, that he -had three good meals a day, and that meat was supplied to him in such -quantities that his suspicions were aroused: "They meant to poison me!" -he says. But he omits to say that de Launey sent him every morning the -menu for the day, on which he marked down with his own hand the dishes -he fancied, "choosing always the most dainty, and in sufficient -quantities to have satisfied five or six epicures." - -In Louis XIV.'s time, Renneville drew up the following list of dishes -served to him: "Oysters, prawns, fowls, capons, mutton, veal, young -pigeons; forcemeat pies and patties; asparagus, cauliflower, green peas, -artichokes; salmon, soles, pike, trout, every kind of fish whether -fresh-water or salt; pastry, and fruits in their season." We find Latude -complaining that the fowls given him were not stuffed! M. -Funck-Brentano tells the amusing story of Marmontel's eating by mistake -the dinner intended for his servant, and finding it excellent. - -Mdlle. de Launay, afterwards Madame de Staal, who was imprisoned for -complicity in the Cellamare[7] plot, relates that on the first evening -of her sojourn in the Bastille, she and her maid were both terrified by -the strange and prolonged sound, beneath their feet, of a mysterious -machine, which conjured up visions of an instrument of torture. When -they came to inquire, they found that their room was over the kitchen, -and the terrible machine was the roasting-jack! - -The prisoners were not only allowed to receive visits from their -relations and friends, but to keep them to dinner or to make up a -rubber. Thus Madame de Staal held receptions in the afternoon, and in -the evening there was high play. "And this time," she says, "was the -happiest in my life." - -Bussy-Rabutin received the whole court, and all his friends--especially -those of the fair sex. M. de Bonrepos--an assumed name--was so -comfortable in the Bastille that when he was directed to retire to the -Invalides,[8] he could only be removed by force. - -"I there spent six weeks," says Morellet, "so pleasantly, that I chuckle -to this day when I think of them." And when he left, he exclaimed: "God -rest those jolly tyrants!" - -Voltaire remained there for twelve days, with a recommendation from the -lieutenant of police that he should be treated with all the -consideration "due to his genius." - -The objection may be raised that these cases are all of great lords or -men of letters, towards whom the government of those days was -exceptionally lenient. (How delightful to find writers put on the same -footing with peers!) But the objection is groundless. - -I have referred to Renneville and Latude, prisoners of very little -account. The one was a spy; the other a swindler. In the three-volume -narrative left us by Renneville, you hear of nothing but how he kept -open house and made merry with his companions. They gambled and smoked, -ate and drank, fuddled and fought, gossiped with their neighbours of -both sexes, and passed one another pastry and excellent wine through the -chimneys. How gladly the prisoners in our jails to-day would accommodate -themselves to such a life! Renneville, assuredly, was not treated with -the same consideration as Voltaire; but, frankly, would you have wished -it? - -As to Latude--who was supplied with dressing-gowns to suit his -fancy--the reader will see from M. Funck-Brentano's narrative that no -one but himself was to blame if he did not dwell at Vincennes[9] or in -the Bastille on the best of terms--or even leave his prison at the -shortest notice, by the front gate, and with a well-lined pocket. - -For that was one of the harsh measures of this horrible Bastille--to -send away the poor wretches, when their time was expired, with a few -hundred livres in their pockets, and to compensate such as were found to -be innocent! See what M. Funck-Brentano says of Subé, who, for a -detention of eighteen days, received 3000 livres (£240 to-day), or of -others, who, after an imprisonment of two years, were consoled with an -annual pension of 2400 francs of our reckoning. Voltaire spent twelve -days in the Bastille, and was assured of an annual pension of 1200 -livres for life. What is to be said now of our contemporary justice, -which, after some months of imprisonment on suspicion, dismisses the -poor fellow, arrested by mistake, with no other indemnity than the -friendly admonition: "Go! and take care we don't catch you again!" - -Some wag will be sure to say that I am making out the Bastille to have -been a palace of delight. We can spare him his little jest. A prison is -always a prison, however pleasant it may be; and the best of cheer is no -compensation for the loss of liberty. But there is a wide difference, it -will be granted, between the reality and the notion generally -held--between this "hotel for men of letters," as some one called it, -and the hideous black holes of our system of solitary confinement. I -once said that I should prefer three years in the Bastille to three -months at Mazas.[10] I do not retract. - - * * * * * - -Linguet and Latude, unquestionably, were the two men whose habit of -drawing the long bow has done most to propagate the fables about the -Bastille, the falsity of which is established by incontrovertible -documents. Party spirit has not failed to take seriously the interested -calumnies of Linguet, who used his spurious martyrdom to advertise -himself, and the lies of Latude, exploiting to good purpose a captivity -which he had made his career. - -Let us leave Linguet, who, after having so earnestly urged the -demolition of the Bastille, had reason to regret it at the Conciergerie -at the moment of mounting the revolutionary tumbril, and speak a little -of the other, this captive who was as ingenious in escaping from prison, -when locked up, as in hugging his chains when offered the means of -release. - -For the bulk of mankind, thirty-five years of captivity was the price -Latude paid for a mere practical joke: the sending to Madame de -Pompadour of a harmless powder that was taken for poison. The punishment -is regarded as terrific: I do not wonder at it. But if, instead of -relying on the gentleman's own fanfaronades, the reader will take the -trouble to look at the biography written by M. Funck-Brentano and amply -supported by documents, he will speedily see that if Latude remained in -prison for thirty-five years, it was entirely by his own choice; and -that his worst enemy, his most implacable persecutor, the author of all -his miseries was--himself. - -If, after the piece of trickery which led to his arrest, he had followed -the advice of the excellent Berryer, who counselled patience and -promised his speedy liberation, he might have got off with a few months -of restraint at Vincennes, where his confinement was so rigorous that he -had only to push the garden gate to be free! - -That was the first folly calculated to injure his cause, for the new -fault was more serious than the old. He was caught; he was locked in the -cells of the Bastille: but the kind-hearted Berryer soon removed him. -Instead of behaving himself quietly, however, our man begins to grow -restless, to harangue, to abuse everybody, and on the books lent him to -scribble insulting verses on the Pompadour. But they allow him an -apartment, then give him a servant, then a companion, Allègre. And then -comes the famous escape. One hardly knows which to wonder at the most: -the ingenuity of the two rogues, or the guileless management of this -prison which allows them to collect undisturbed a gimlet, a saw, a -compass, a pulley, fourteen hundred feet of rope, a rope ladder 180 feet -long, with 218 wooden rungs; to conceal all these between the floor and -the ceiling below, without anyone ever thinking to look there; and, -after having cut through a wall four and a half feet thick, to get clear -away without firing a shot! - -They were not the first to get across those old walls. Renneville -mentions several escapes, the most famous being that of the Abbé de -Buquoy.[11] But little importance seems to have been attached to them. - -With Allègre and Latude it was a different matter. The passers-by must -have seen, in the early morning, the ladder swinging from top to bottom -of the wall, and the escape was no longer a secret. The Bastille is -discredited. It is possible, then, to escape from it. The chagrined -police are on their mettle. There will be laughter at their expense. The -fugitives are both well known, too. They will take good care to spread -the story of their escape, with plenty of gibes against the governor, -the lieutenant of police, the ministry, the favourite, the king! This -scandal must be averted at any cost; the fugitives must be caught! - -And we cannot help pitying these two wretches who, after a flight so -admirably contrived, got arrested so stupidly: Allègre at Brussels, -through an abusive letter written to the Pompadour; Latude in Holland, -through a letter begging help from his mother. - -Latude is again under lock and key, and this time condemned to a -stricter confinement. And then the hubbub begins again: outcries, -demands, acts of violence, threats! He exasperates and daunts men who -had the best will in the world to help him. He is despatched to the -fortress of Vincennes, and promised his liberty if he will only keep -quiet. His liberation, on his own showing, was but a matter of days. He -is allowed to walk on the bank of the moat. He takes advantage of it to -escape again! - -Captured once more, he is once more lodged at Vincennes, and the whole -business begins over again. But they are good enough to consider him a -little mad, and after a stay at Charenton,[12] where he was very well -treated, he at last gets his dismissal, with the recommendation to -betake himself to his own part of the country quietly. Ah, that would -not be like Latude! He scampers over Paris, railing against De Sartine, -De Marigny; hawking his pamphlets; claiming 150,000 livres as -damages!--and, finally, extorting money from a charitable lady by -menaces! - -This is the last straw. Patience is exhausted, and he is clapped into -Bicêtre[13] as a dangerous lunatic. Imagine his fury and disgust! - -Let us be just. Suppose, in our own days, a swindler, sentenced to a few -months' imprisonment, insulting the police, the magistrates, the court, -the president; sentenced on this account to a longer term, escaping -once, twice, a third time; always caught, put in jail again, sentenced -to still longer terms: then when at last released, after having done his -time, scattering broadcast insulting libels against the chief of police, -the ministers, the parliament, and insisting on the President of the -Republic paying him damages to the tune of 150,000 francs; to crown it -all, getting money out of some good woman by working on her fears! You -will agree with me that such a swaggering blade would not have much -difficulty in putting together thirty-five years in jail! - -But these sentences would of course be public, and provide no soil for -the growth of those legends to which closed doors always give rise. Yet -in all that relates to the causes and the duration of the man's -imprisonment, his case would be precisely that of Latude--except that -for him there would be no furs, no promenading in the gardens, no -stuffed fowls for his lunch! - -Besides some fifty autograph letters from Latude, addressed from Bicêtre -to his good angel, Madame Legros, in which he shows himself in his true -character, an intriguing, vain, insolent, bragging, insupportable -humbug, I have one, written to M. de Sartine, which Latude published as -a pendant to the pamphlet with which he hoped to move Madame de -Pompadour to pity, and in which every phrase is an insult. This letter -was put up at public auction, and these first lines of it were -reproduced in the catalogue:-- - -"I am supporting with patience the loss of my best years and of my -fortune. I am enduring my rheumatism, the weakness of my arm, and a ring -of iron around my body for the rest of my life!" - -A journalist, one of those who learn their history from Louis Blanc, had -a vision of Latude for ever riveted by a ring of iron to a pillar in -some underground dungeon, and exclaimed with indignation: "A ring of -iron! How horrible!" - -And it was only a linen band! - -That fabulous iron collar is a type of the whole legend of the -unfortunate Latude! - - * * * * * - -Everything connected with the Bastille has assumed a fabulous character. - -What glorious days were those of the 13th and 14th of July, as the -popular imagination conjures them up in reliance on Michelet, who, in a -vivid, impassioned, picturesque, dramatic, admirable style, has -written, not the history, but the romance of the French Revolution! - -Look at his account of the 13th. He shows you all Paris in revolt -against Versailles, and with superb enthusiasm running to arms to try -issues with the royal army. It is fine as literature. Historically, it -is pure fiction. - -The Parisians were assuredly devoted to the "new ideas," that is, the -suppression of the abuses and the privileges specified in the memorials -of the States General; in a word, to the reforms longed for by the whole -of France. But they had no conception of gaining them without the -concurrence of the monarchy, to which they were sincerely attached. That -crowd of scared men running to the Hôtel de Ville to demand arms, who -are represented by the revolutionary writers as exasperated by the -dismissal of Necker and ready to undermine the throne for the sake of -that Genevan, were much less alarmed at what was hatching at Versailles -than at what was going on in Paris. If they wished for arms, it was for -their own security. The dissolution of the National Assembly, which was -regarded as certain, was setting all minds in a ferment, and -ill-designing people took advantage of the general uneasiness and -agitation to drive matters to the worst extremities, creating disorder -everywhere. The police had disappeared; the streets were in the hands of -the mob. Bands of ruffians--among them those ill-favoured rascals who -since the month of May had been flocking, as at a word of command, into -Paris from heaven knows where, and who had already been seen at work, -pillaging Réveillon's[14] establishment--roamed in every direction, -insulting women, stripping wayfarers, looting the shops, opening the -prisons, burning the barriers. On July 13 the electors of Paris resolved -on the formation of a citizen militia for the protection of the town, -and the scheme was adopted on the same day by every district, with -articles of constitution, quoted by M. Funck-Brentano, which specify the -intentions of the signatories. It was expressly in self-defence against -the "Brigands," as they were called, that the citizen militia was -formed: "To protect the citizens," ran the minutes of the -Petit-Saint-Antoine district, "against the dangers which threaten them -each individually." "In a word," says M. Victor Fournel, "the -dominating sentiment was fear. Up till the 14th of July, the Parisian -middle-classes showed far more concern at the manifold excesses -committed by the populace after Necker's dismissal than at the schemes -of the court." And M. Jacques Charavay, who was the first to publish the -text of the minutes in question, says not a word too much when he draws -from them this conclusion: "The movement which next day swept away the -Bastille might possibly have been stifled by the National Guard, if its -organization had had greater stability." - -All that was wanting to these good intentions was direction, a man at -the helm, and particularly the support of Besenval. But his conduct was -amazing! He left Versailles with 35,000 men and an order signed by the -king--obtained not without difficulty--authorizing him "to repel force -by force." Now let us see a summary of his military operations:-- - -On the 13th, towards four o'clock in the afternoon, a skirmish of the -German regiment on the Place Vendôme, where it came into collision with -the "demonstration"--as we should say to-day--which was displaying busts -of Necker and the Duke of Orleans, and dispersed it. - -At six o'clock, a march of the same horse soldiers to the -swinging-bridge of the Tuileries, where they had five or six chairs -thrown at their head; and the massacre, by M. de Lambesc, of the -legendary grey-beard who, an hour after, was describing his tragic end -at the Palais-Royal! - -At nine o'clock, a military promenade of the same regiment along the -boulevards. A volley from the Gardes Françaises slew two of their -number, and the regiment beat a retreat without returning fire, to the -great surprise of M. de Maleissye, officer of the Guards. For, by his -own confession, if the cavalry had charged, it would easily have routed -the Gardes Françaises "in the state of drunkenness in which they then -were." - -And Besenval, terrified at such a resistance, assembled all his troops, -shut himself up with them in the Champ de Mars, and did not move another -step! - -We ask ourselves, "Was he a fool? or was he a traitor?" He was a fool, -for he thought he had "three hundred thousand men" in front of him, took -every excited person for a rebel, and did not understand that out of -every hundred Parisians there were ninety who were relying on him to -bring the mutineers to reason. - -He had no confidence in his troops, he said. - -It was rather for them to have no confidence in him, and to lose heart -utterly at such a spectacle of cowardice. But he was slandering them. -One solitary regiment showed disloyalty. And if he had only given the -Swiss the word to march, their conduct on August 10 gives ample proof -that they could have been depended on. - -"And then," says he again, "I was fearful of letting loose civil war!" - -Indeed! And so a soldier going to suppress a revolt is not to run the -risk of fighting! - -Last reason of all: "I requested orders from Versailles--and did not get -them!" - -What, then, had he in his pocket? - -Finally, after having sent word to Flesselles and De Launey to maintain -their position till he arrived, and after having allowed the arms of the -Invalides to be looted under his eyes without a single effort to save -them, he waited till the Bastille was taken before making up his mind to -leave the Champ de Mars, and to return quietly to Versailles with his -35,000 men, who had not fired a shot! - -Ah! those were the days for rioting! - - * * * * * - -"On July 13," says Michelet, "Paris was defending herself." (Against -whom?) "On the 14th, she attacked! A voice wakened her and cried, 'On, -and take the Bastille!' And that day was the day of the entire People!" - -Admirable poetry; but every word a lie! - -Listen to Marat, who is not open to suspicion, and who saw things at -closer quarters. "The Bastille, badly defended, was captured by a -handful of soldiers and a gang of wretches for the most part Germans and -provincials. The Parisians, those everlasting star-gazers, came there -out of curiosity!" - -In reality, Michelet's "entire people" reduces itself to a bare thousand -assailants, of whom three hundred at most took part in the fight: Gardes -Françaises and deserters of all arms, lawyers' clerks, and citizens who -had lost their heads: fine fellows who thought themselves engaged in -meritorious work in rushing on these inoffensive walls; bandits -attracted by the riot which promised them theft and murder with -impunity. And a number of mere spectators--spectators above all! - -"I was present," says Chancellor Pasquier, "at the taking of the -Bastille. What is called the fight was not serious. The resistance was -absolutely nil. The truth is, that this grand fight did not cause an -instant's alarm to the spectators, who had flocked up to see the result. -Among them there were many ladies of the greatest elegance. In order to -get more easily to the front they had left their carriages at a -distance. By my side was Mdlle. Contat, of the Comédie Française. We -stayed to see the finish, and then I escorted her on my arm to her -carriage in the Place Royale." - -"The Bastille was not taken; truth must be told, it surrendered." It is -Michelet himself who makes this statement, and he adds: "what ruined it -was its own evil conscience!" - -It would be too simple to acknowledge that it was the incapacity of its -governor. - -There is no connoisseur in old prints but is acquainted with those -last-century views which represent the taking of the Bastille. The -platform of the fortress bristles with cannon all firing together, -"belching forth death,"--without the slightest attention on the part of -the assailants, for all the balls from this artillery, passing over -their heads, would only kill inoffensive wayfarers without so much as -scratching a single one of the besiegers! - -And the Bastille did not fire a single shot in self-defence! - -In the morning, at the request of Thuriot de la Rozière, De Launey had -readily consented to the withdrawal of the fifteen cannon of the -platform from their embrasures, and had blocked up the embrasures with -planks. Of the three guns which later on he ranged batterywise before -the entrance gate, not one was effective, and the discharge attributed -to one of them came from a piece of ordnance on the wall. - -He placed such absolute reliance on succour from Besenval that, on -evacuating the arsenal and getting the whole garrison together into the -Bastille--eighty-two Invalides and M. de Flue's thirty-two Swiss--he had -forgotten to increase his stock of provisions. Now, the Bastille had no -reserve of provisions. Every morning, like a good housewife, it received -the goods ordered the night before, brought by the different purveyors; -on this day, they were intercepted. So it happened that at three o'clock -in the afternoon the garrison was without its usual rations, and the -Invalides, who had been for a week past going in and out of all the inns -in the neighbourhood, and were disposed to open the doors to their good -friends of the suburbs, used the scantiness of their rations as a -pretext for mutiny, for refusing to fight, and for muddling the brains, -never very clear, of the unhappy De Launey. - -"On the day of my arrival," says De Flue, "I was able to take this man's -measure from the absolutely imbecile preparations which he made for the -defence of his position. I saw clearly that we should be very poorly led -in case of attack. He was so struck with terror at the idea of it that, -when night came on, he took the shadows of trees for enemies! Incapable, -irresolute, devoting all his attention to trifles and neglecting -important duties--such was the man." - -Abandoned by Besenval, instead of cowing his Invalides into obedience by -his energy, and maintaining his position to famishing point behind walls -over which the balls of the besiegers flew without killing more than -one man, De Launey lost his head, made a feint of firing the powder -magazine, capitulated, and opened his gates to men who, as Chateaubriand -says, "could never have cleared them if he had only kept them shut." - -If this poor creature had done his duty, and Besenval had done his, -things would have had quite a different complexion. That is not to say -that the Revolution would have been averted--far from it! The Revolution -was legitimate, desirable, and, under the generous impulse of a whole -nation, irresistible. But it would have followed another bent, and would -have triumphed at a slighter cost, with less ruin and less bloodshed. -The consequences of the 14th of July were disastrous. The mere words, -"The Bastille is taken!" were the signal for the most frightful -disorders throughout France. It seemed as though those old walls were -dragging down with them in their fall all authority, all respect, all -discipline; as though the floodgates were being opened to every kind of -excess. Peasants went about in bands, ravaging, pillaging, firing the -châteaux, the burghers' houses, and burning alive those who fell into -their hands. The soldiers mutinied, insulted their chiefs, and fell to -carousing with the malefactors whom they set free. There was not a town -or village where the mob did not put on menacing airs, where decent -people were not molested by the brawlers of the clubs and the -street-corners. Such violence led to a rapid reaction, and there were -numerous defections--of men who, on the very eve of the outbreak, among -the magistracy, the army, the clergy, the nobility, though sympathizing -with the new ideas, abruptly cut themselves loose from the movement, -like the good Duke de la Rochefoucauld, who exclaimed, "Liberty is not -entered by such a door as this!" Hovering between the desire and the -fear of granting the promised reforms, urged on one side to resistance, -on the other to submission, and more than ever destitute of all -political acumen and all will power, the king went to Paris, and, -bending before the revolt, approved of the assassination of his most -faithful servants--and took, on that fatal day, his first step towards -the scaffold! Henceforth, under the pressure of the populace, to whom -its first success had shown the measure of its strength, and who became -every day more exacting, more threatening, the Revolution was to go on -in its perverse course, stumbling at every step, until it came to the -orgy of '93, which, properly speaking, was only the systematizing of -brigandage. Malouet was right indeed: what we symbolize in our festival -of the 14th of July is not the rising sun, the dawn of Liberty; it is -the first lurid lightning flash of the Terror! - -Doctor Rigby, after having walked up and down the whole afternoon in the -Jardin Monceau without the least idea of what was going on in the Suburb -Saint-Antoine, returned in the evening to his house near the -Palais-Royal. He saw the mob reeling in drunkenness. Men and women were -laughing, crying, and embracing one another: "The Bastille is taken! At -last we are free!" And not the least enthusiastic were those very men of -the citizen militia who, ready yesterday to fight the insurrection, were -to-day hailing its triumph! The first sabre brandished by the first -national guard was in point of fact that of Joseph Prudhomme![15] - -All at once this delirious crowd shudders, parts asunder with cries of -horror! - -Down the Rue Saint-Honoré comes a yelling mob of wine-soaked -malefactors, bearing along, at the ends of two pikes, the still bleeding -heads of De Launey and De Flesselles! - -And the silly folk, so madly rejoiced by the fall of an imaginary -tyranny which has not even the wits to defend itself, go their several -ways, struck dumb with consternation. - -For here the Real is making its entrance! - - * * * * * - -Do not fancy that because the Bastille has opened its gates, the legends -which give it so cruel a name are going to vanish into thin air, like -the phantoms of an ancient château when light is let in. - -While Michelet's "entire Paris" is making short work of the Invalides -who surrendered the place; cutting in pieces the man who prevented its -blowing up; slaughtering Major de Losme, the friend and benefactor of -the prisoners; torturing the hapless De Launey, who, from the Bastille -to the Hôtel de Ville, stabbed, slashed, hacked with sabres and pikes -and bayonets, is finally decapitated by the aid of a short knife--an -episode which Michelet skilfully slurs over--while all the criminals of -the district, crowding along in the wake of the combatants, are rushing -to the official buildings, looting, smashing, throwing into the moats -furniture, books, official papers, archives, the remnants of which will -be collected with such difficulty--some good people are saying to -themselves: "But come now, there are some prisoners! Suppose we go and -set them free?" - -Here let us see what Louis Blanc has to say:-- - -"Meanwhile the doors of the cells" (he insists on the cells) "were burst -in with a mighty effort; the prisoners were free! Alas! for three of -them it was too late! The first, whose name was the Comte de Solages, a -victim for seven years of the incomprehensible vengeance of an -implacable father, found neither relatives who would consent to -acknowledge him, nor his property, which had become the prey of covetous -collateral heirs! The second was called Whyte. Of what crime was he -guilty, accused, of, at any rate, suspected? No one has ever known! The -man himself was questioned in vain. In the Bastille he had lost his -reason. The third, Tavernier, at the sight of his deliverers, fancied he -saw his executioners coming, and put himself on the defensive. Throwing -their arms round his neck they undeceived him; but next day he was met -roaming through the town, muttering wild and whirling words. He was -mad!" - -As many wilful errors as there are words! - -The Comte de Solages was an execrable libertine, confined at the request -of his family for "atrocious and notorious crimes." His relatives -nevertheless had the humanity to take him in after his deliverance, and -it was with them that he died in 1825. - -Whyte and Tavernier did not go mad in the Bastille. They were in the -Bastille because they were mad; and the second was, further, implicated -in an assassination. Finding shelter with a perruquier of the -neighbourhood, he set about smashing all his host's belongings, which -necessitated his banishment to Charenton, where Whyte soon rejoined him. -It was not worth the trouble of changing their quarters! - -Four other prisoners who were set free, Corrège, Béchade, Pujade, and -Laroche, were imprisoned for forgery. And so Louis Blanc is careful -silently to pass them over! - -Ten days before, another victim of tyranny had been groaning in -irons--the Marquis de Sade, who, from the height of the platform, used -to provoke the passers-by with the aid of a speaking trumpet. De Launey -was compelled to transfer him to Vincennes, thus depriving the victors -of the glory of liberating the future author of _Justine_. The Republic -took its revenge in making him later secretary of the "Pike" ward,[16] -an office for which he was marked out by his virtues! - -But of all these prisoners the most celebrated, the most popular, the -man whose misfortunes all Paris deplored, was the famous Comte de -Lorges, who, according to the biographical sketch devoted to him by the -unknown author of his deliverance, had been shut up for thirty-two -years. The story must be read in the pamphlet of Citizen Rousselet, -conqueror of the Bastille: "The tide of humanity penetrates into ways -narrowed by mistrust. An iron door opens: what does one see? Is this a -man? Good heavens! this old man loaded with irons! the splendour of his -brow, the whiteness of his beard hanging over his breast! What majesty! -the fire still flashing from his eyes seems to shed a gentle light in -this lugubrious abode!" - -Surprised at seeing so many armed men, he asks them if Louis XV. is -still alive. They set him free, they lead him to the Hôtel de Ville. - -For fifteen days all Paris went to visit the black dungeon in which this -unhappy wretch had been shut up for so many years without other light -than that which escaped "from his eyes"! A stone from that dungeon had a -place in the Curtius Museum. His portrait was published. A print -represents him at the moment when his chains were broken, seated on a -chair in his cell, a pitcher of water by his side! - -And this hapless greybeard--he was never seen! He never existed! - -In reality there were in the Bastille, on the 14th of July, only seven -prisoners--two madmen, a _Sadique_,[17] and four forgers. But about -their number and their right to imprisonment Michelet remains dumb: to -discuss that would spoil his epic! And he excels in making the most of -everything that can support his case, and in ignoring everything that -damages it. And so he contents himself with speaking of the two who had -"gone mad"!--a prevarication worthy of Louis Blanc, nay, unworthy even -of him! - -The conquerors were somewhat surprised at the small number of victims, -more surprised still to find them comfortably installed in rooms, some -of which were furnished with arm-chairs in Utrecht velvet! The author of -_The Bastille Unmasked_ exclaims: "What! No corpses! No skeletons! No -men in chains!" "The taking of the Bastille," said "Cousin Jacques,"[18] -"has opened the eyes of the public on the kind of captivity experienced -there." - -But in this he was greatly mistaken. Legends die hard! A Bastille -without cells, dungeons, cages of iron! Public opinion did not admit -that it could have been deceived on that point. - -"Several prisoners," says the _History of Remarkable Events_, "were set -at liberty; but some, and perhaps the greater number, had already died -of hunger, because men could not find their way about this monstrous -prison. Some of these prisoners confined within four walls received food -only through holes cut in the wall. A party of prisoners was found -starved to death, because their cells were not discovered till several -days had elapsed!" - -Another pamphlet on the underground cells discovered in the Bastille, -resuscitating an old fable which had already done duty for the Cardinal -de Richelieu, shows us a prisoner taken from his cell and led by the -governor into "a room which had nothing sinister in its appearance. It -was lit by more than fifty candles. Sweet-scented flowers filled it with -a delicious perfume. The tyrant chatted amicably with his prisoner.... -Then he gave the horrible signal: a bascule let into the floor opened, -and the wretched man disappeared, falling upon a wheel stuck with razors -and set in motion by invisible hands." And the author winds up with this -magnificent reflection:--"Such a punishment, so basely contrived, is not -even credible--and yet it was at Paris, in that beautiful and -flourishing city, that this took place!" - -Dorat-Cubières, who was one of the literary disgraces of the eighteenth -century, goes further! He saw, with his own eyes, one of those dens -where the captive, shut up with enough bread to last him a week, had -thereafter nothing else to subsist on but his own flesh. "In this den," -he says, "we came upon a horrible skeleton, the sight of which made me -shrink back with horror!" - -And the popular picture-mongers did not fail to propagate these -insanities. I have an engraving of the time nicely calculated to stir -sensitive hearts. Upon the steps of a gloomy cellar the conquerors are -dragging along a man whom his uniform shows to be one of the defenders -of the Bastille, and are pointing out to him an old man being carried -away, another being cut down from the ceiling where he is hanging by the -arms; yet others lying on a wheel furnished with iron teeth, chained to -it, twisted into horrible contortions by abominable machines; and in a -recess behind a grating appears the skeleton--which Dorat-Cubières never -saw! - -The non-existence of these dungeons and holes with skeletons was too -great a shock to settled beliefs. This Bastille _must_ contain concealed -below ground some unknown cells where its victims were moaning! And -naturally enough, when one bent down the ear, one heard their despairing -appeals! But after having pierced through vaults, sunk pits, dug, -sounded everywhere, there was no help for it but to give up these -fancies, though--an agreeable thing to have to say!--with regret. - -They fell back then on instruments of torture. For though the rack had -been abolished for a hundred years, how was it possible to conceive of -the Bastille without some slight instruments of torture? - -They had no difficulty in finding them--"chains," says Louis Blanc, -"which the hands of many innocent men had perhaps worn, machines of -which no one could guess the use: an old iron corslet which seemed to -have been invented to reduce man to everlasting immobility!" - -As a matter of fact, these chains belonged to two statuettes of -prisoners which stood on either side of the great clock in the -courtyard. The machines, the use of which no one could guess, were the -fragments of a clandestine printing-press that had been pulled to -pieces. And the iron corslet was a piece of fifteenth-century armour! - -Skeletons, too, were missing, though indeed some bones were found in the -apartment of the surgeon of the fortress; but the utmost bad faith could -not but be compelled to acknowledge that these were anatomical -specimens. Happily for the legend, a more serious discovery was made: -"two skeletons, chained to a cannon-ball," as the register of the -district of Saint-Louis la Culture declared. - -They both came to light in the rubbish dug out during the construction -of the bastion afterwards turned into a garden for the governor. "One," -says the report of Fourcroy, Vicq-d'Azyr, and Sabatier, instructed to -examine them, "was found turned head downwards on the steps of a steep -staircase, entirely covered with earth, and appears to be that of a -workman who had fallen by accident down this dark staircase, where he -was not seen by the men working at the embankment. The other, carefully -buried in a sort of ditch, had evidently been laid there a long time -previously, before there was any idea of filling up the bastion." - -As to the cannon-ball, it must have dated back to the Fronde.[19] - -But skeletons were necessary! They had found some: they might as well -profit by them! - -The demolisher of the Bastille, that charlatan Palloy, exhibited them to -the veneration of the faithful in a cellar by the light of a funereal -lamp, after which they were honoured with a magnificent funeral, with -drums, clergy, a procession of working men, between two lines of -National Guards, from the Bastille to the Church of St. Paul. And -finally, in the graveyard adjoining the church, they raised to them, -amid four poplars, a monument of which a contemporary print has -preserved the likeness. - -After such a ceremony, dispute if you dare the authenticity of the -relics! - - * * * * * - -The memory of the Man in the Iron Mask is so closely bound up with the -story of the Bastille that M. Funck-Brentano could not neglect this -great enigma about which for two hundred years so much ink has been -spilt. He strips off this famous mask--which, by the way, was of -velvet--and shows us the face which the world has been so anxious to -see: the face of Mattioli, the confidant of the Duke of Mantua and the -betrayer of both Louis XIV. and his own master. - -M. Funck-Brentano's demonstration is so convincing as to leave no room -for doubt. But one dare not hope that the good public will accept his -conclusions as final. To the public, mystery is ever more attractive -than the truth. There is a want of prestige about Mattioli; while about -a twin brother of Louis XIV.--ah, _there_ is something that appeals to -the imagination! - -And then there are the guides, the showmen, to reckon with--those -faithful guardians of legends, whose propaganda is more aggressive than -that of scholars. When you reflect that every day, at the Isles of -Saint-Marguerite, the masked man's cell is shown to visitors by a good -woman who retails all the traditional fables about the luxurious life of -the prisoner, his lace, his plate, and the attentions shown him by M. -de Saint-Mars, you will agree that a struggle with this daily discourse -would be hopeless. And you would not come off with a whole skin! - -I was visiting the Château d'If before the new buildings were erected. -The show-woman of the place, another worthy dame, pointed out to us the -ruined cells of the Abbé Faria and Edmond Dantès.[20] And the spectators -were musing on the story as they contemplated the ruins. - -"It seems to me," I said, "that these cells are rather near one another, -but surely Alexandre Dumas put them a little farther apart!" - -"Oh, well!" replied the good creature, withering me with a glance of -contempt, "if, when I'm relating gospel truth, the gentleman begins -quoting a novelist--!" - -To come nearer home. Follow, one of these days, a batch of Cook's -tourists at Versailles, shown round by an English cicerone. You will see -him point out the window from which Louis XVI. issued, on a flying -bridge, to reach his scaffold, erected in the marble court! The guide is -no fool. He knows well enough that the Place de la Concorde would not -appeal to the imagination of his countrymen; while it is quite natural -to them to draw a parallel in their minds between the scaffold of Louis -XVI. at Versailles and that of Charles I. at Whitehall. - -And the conclusion of the whole matter is this: that whatever may be -said or written, nothing will prevail against the popular beliefs that -the Bastille was "the hell of living men," and that it was taken by -storm. Legends are the history of the people, especially those which -flatter their instincts, prejudices, and passions. You will never -convince them of their falsity. - -M. Funck-Brentano must also expect to be treated as a "reactionary," for -such is, to many people, any one who does not unreservedly decry the -_ancien régime_. It had, assuredly, its vices and abuses, which the -Revolution swept away--to replace them by others, much more tolerable, -to be sure; but that is no reason for slandering the past and painting -it blacker than it really was. The fanatical supporters of the -Revolution have founded in its honour a sort of cult whose intolerance -is often irritating. To hear them you would fancy that before its birth -there was nothing but darkness, ignorance, iniquity, and wretchedness! -And so we are to give it wholehearted admiration, and palliate its -errors and its crimes; even gilding, as Chateaubriand said, the iron of -its guillotine. These idolaters of the Revolution are very injudicious. -By endeavouring to compel admiration for all that it effected, good and -ill without distinction, they provoke the very unreasonable inclination -to regard its whole achievement with abhorrence. It could well dispense -with such a surplusage of zeal, for it is strong enough to bear the -truth; and its work, after all, is great enough to need no justification -or glorification by means of legends. - -VICTORIEN SARDOU. - - - - -LEGENDS OF THE BASTILLE - - - - -CHAPTER I. - -THE ARCHIVES. - - -"The Bastille," wrote Sainte-Foix, "is a castle which, without being -strong, is one of the most formidable in Europe, and about it I shall -say nothing." "Silence is safer than speech on that subject," was the -saying in Paris. - -At the extremity of the Rue Saint-Antoine, as one entered the suburb, -appeared the eight lofty towers, sombre, massive, plunging their -moss-grown feet into pools of muddy water. Their walls were pierced at -intervals with narrow, iron-barred windows: they were crowned with -battlements. Situated not far from the Marais, the blithe and wealthy -quarter, and quite near to the Suburb Saint-Antoine, where industry -raised its perpetual hum, the Bastille, charged with gloom and silence, -formed an impressive contrast. - -The common impression it made is conveyed by Restif de la Bretonne in -his _Nights of Paris_: "It was a nightmare, that awesome Bastille, on -which, as I passed each evening along the Rue Saint-Gilles, I never -dared to turn my eyes." - -The towers had an air of mystery, harsh and melancholy, and the royal -government threw mystery like a cloud around them. At nightfall, when -the shutters were closed, a cab would cross the drawbridge, and from -time to time, in the blackness of night, funeral processions, vague -shadows which the light of a torch set flickering on the walls, would -make their silent exit. How many of those who had entered there had ever -been seen again? And if perchance one met a former prisoner, to the -first question he would reply that on leaving he had signed a promise to -reveal nothing of what he had seen. This former prisoner had, as a -matter of fact, never seen anything to speak of. Absolute silence was -imposed upon the warders. "There is no exchanging of confidences in this -place," writes Madame de Staal, "and the people you come across have all -such freezing physiognomies that you would think twice before asking the -most trifling question." "The first article of their code," says -Linguet, "is the impenetrable mystery which envelops all their -operations." - -We know how legends are formed. Sometimes you see them open out like -flowers brilliant under the sun's bright beams, you see them blossom -under the glorious radiance that lights up the life of heroes. The man -himself has long gone down into the tomb; the legend survives; it -streams across the ages, like a meteor leaving its trail of light; it -grows, broadens out, with ever-increasing lustre and glow: in this light -we see Themistocles, Leonidas, Alexander, Cæsar, Charlemagne, Napoleon. - -Or may be, on the contrary, the legend is born in some remote corner, -covered with shade and silence. There men have lived their lives, there -it has been their lot to suffer. Their moans have risen in solitude and -confinement, and the only ears that heard them were harder than their -stone walls. These moans, heard by no compassionate soul, the great -resounding soul of the people catches up, swelling them with all its -might. Soon, among the mass of the people, there passes a blast -irresistible in its strength, like the tempest that upheaves the -restless waves. Then is the sea loosed from its chains: the tumultuous -breakers dash upon the affrighted shore: the sea-walls are all swept -away! - -In a letter written by Chevalier, the major of the Bastille, to Sartine, -the chief of the police, he spoke of the common gossip on the Bastille -that was going about. "Although utterly false," he said, "I think it -very dangerous on account of its dissemination through the kingdom, and -that has now been going on for several years." No attention was paid to -Chevalier's warning. Mystery continued to be the rule at the Bastille -and in all that related to it. "The mildness of manners and of the -government," writes La Harpe, "had caused needlessly harsh measures in -great part to disappear. They lived on in the imagination of the -people, augmented and strengthened by the tales which credulity and hate -seize upon." Ere long the _Memoirs_ of Latude and of Linguet appeared. -Latude concealed his grievous faults, to paint his long sufferings in -strokes of fire. Linguet, with his rare literary talent, made of the -Bastille a picture dark in the extreme, compressing the gist of his -pamphlet into the sentence: "Except perhaps in hell, there are no -tortures to approach those of the Bastille." At the same period, the -great Mirabeau was launching his powerful plea against _lettres de -cachet_, "arbitrary orders." These books produced a mighty -reverberation. The Revolution broke out like a clap of thunder. The -Bastille was disembowelled. The frowning towers crumbled stone by stone -under the picks of the demolishers, and, as if they had been the -pedestal of the _ancien régime_, that too toppled over with a crash. - -One of the halls of the Bastille contained, in boxes carefully arranged, -the entire history of the celebrated fortress from the year 1659, at -which date the foundation of this precious store of archives had been -begun. There were collected the documents concerning, not only the -prisoners of the Bastille, but all the persons who had been lodged -there, either under sentence of exile, or simply arrested within the -limits of the generality of Paris in virtue of a _lettre de cachet_. - -The documents in this store-room had been in charge of archivists, who -throughout the eighteenth century had laboured with zeal and -intelligence at putting in order papers which, on the eve of the -Revolution, were counted by hundreds of thousands. The whole mass was -now in perfect order, classified and docketed. The major of the château, -Chevalier, had even been commissioned to make these documents the basis -of a history of the prisoners. - -The Bastille was taken. In the disorder, what was the fate of the -archives? The ransacking of the papers continued for two days, writes -Dusaulx, one of the commissioners elected by the Assembly for the -preservation of the archives of the Bastille. "When, on Thursday the -16th, my colleagues and myself went down into the sort of cellar where -the archives were, we found the boxes in very orderly arrangement on the -shelves, but they were already empty. The most important documents had -been carried off: the rest were strewn on the floor, scattered about the -courtyard, and even in the moats. However, the curious still found some -gleanings there." The testimony of Dusaulx is only too well confirmed. -"I went to see the siege of the Bastille," writes Restif de la Bretonne; -"when I arrived it was all over, the place was taken. Infuriated men -were throwing papers, documents of great historical value, from the top -of the towers into the moats." Among these papers, some had been burnt, -some torn, registers had been torn to shreds and trailed in the mud. The -mob had invaded the halls of the château: men of learning and mere -curiosity hunters strove eagerly to get possession of as many of these -documents as possible, in which they thought they were sure to find -startling revelations. "There is talk of the son of a celebrated -magistrate," writes Gabriel Brizard, "who went off with his carriage -full of them." Villenave, then twenty-seven years of age and already a -collector, gathered a rich harvest for his study, and Beaumarchais, in -the course of a patriotic ramble through the interior of the captured -fortress, was careful to get together a certain number of these papers. - -The papers purloined from the archives on the day of the capture and the -day following became dispersed throughout France and Europe. A large -packet came into the hands of Pierre Lubrowski, an attaché in the -Russian embassy. Sold in 1805, with his whole collection, to the Emperor -Alexander, the papers were deposited in the Hermitage Palace. To-day -they are preserved in the Imperial Library at St. Petersburg. - -Fortunately, the custody of the captured fortress was entrusted on July -15 to the company of arquebusiers, which received orders to prevent the -removal of any more papers. On July 16 one of the members present at a -sitting of the Electoral Assembly, sprang forward to the table and -cried, "Ah, gentlemen, let us save the papers! It is said that the -papers of the Bastille are being plundered; let us hasten to collect the -remnants of these old title-deeds of an intolerable despotism, so that -we may inspire our latest posterity with their horror!" There was -rapturous applause. A committee was nominated, consisting of Dusaulx, De -Chamseru, Gorneau, and Cailleau. Let us follow the style of the period: -"Before the Bastille the commissioners received a triumphant reception. -Amid the cheers of the people, who had been informed of their mission, -ten distinguished men of letters besought them to lead the commissioners -into the heart of that famous fortress, so long detested." When they got -into the Bastille, the commissioners were not long in perceiving that -they were a little behind the fair: "Many boxes were empty, and there -was an immense heap of papers in complete disorder." - -The question of the papers of the Bastille grew day by day -extraordinarily popular. The Electoral Assembly had just appointed -commissioners to collect them; La Fayette, commander of the National -Guards, imposed a similar duty on the St. Elizabeth district; Bailly, -the mayor of Paris, delegated Dusaulx to the same office. In the -Constituent Assembly, the Comte de Châtenay-Lanty proposed that the -municipality of Paris should be instructed to get together the papers -found at the Bastille, so that they might be arranged, and that extracts -from them might be printed and published, "in order to keep for ever -alive in the hearts of Frenchmen, by means of this reading, the -detestation of arbitrary orders and the love of liberty"! This book was -to be the preface to the constitution. Finally, the district of St. Roch -took the initiative in calling upon the electors to restore to the -nation the papers carried off from the Bastille by Beaumarchais. - -In the sitting of July 24, the Electoral Assembly passed a resolution -enjoining such citizens as were in possession of papers from the -Bastille to bring them back to the Hôtel de Ville. The appeal was -responded to, and the restitutions were numerous. - -When the pillage and destruction had been stopped and possession had -been regained of a part of the stolen documents, the papers were -consigned to three different depositories; but it was not long before -they were deposited all together in the convent of St. Louis la Culture. -At length, on November 2, 1791, the Commune of Paris resolved to have -the precious documents placed in the city library. The decision was so -much the more happy in that the transfer, while placing the papers under -the guardianship of trained men and genuine librarians, did not -necessitate removal, since the city library at that date occupied the -same quarters as the archives of the Bastille, namely, the convent of -St. Louis la Culture. - -To the revolutionary period succeeded times of greater calm. The -archives of the Bastille, after being the object of so much discussion, -and having occupied the Constituent Assembly, the Electoral Assembly, -the Paris Commune, the press, Mirabeau, La Fayette, Bailly, all Paris, -the whole of France, fell into absolute oblivion. They were lost from -sight; the very recollection of them was effaced. In 1840, a young -librarian named François Ravaisson discovered them in the Arsenal -library at the bottom of a veritable dungeon. How had they got stranded -there? - -Ameilhon, the city librarian, had been elected on April 22, 1797, keeper -of the Arsenal library. Anxious to enrich the new depository of which he -had become the head, he obtained a decree handing over the papers of the -Bastille to the Arsenal library. The librarians recoiled in dismay -before this invasion of documents, more than 600,000 in number and in -the most admired disorder. Then, having put their heads together, they -had the papers crammed into a dusty back-room, putting off the sorting -of them from day to day. Forty years slipped away. And if it happened -that some old antiquary, curious and importunate, asked to be allowed to -consult the documents he had heard spoken of in his youth, he was -answered--no doubt in perfect good faith--that they did not know what he -was talking about. - -In 1840 François Ravaisson had to get some repairs done in his kitchen -at the Arsenal library. The slabs of the flooring were raised, when -there came to view, in the yawning hole, a mass of old papers. It -happened by the merest chance that, as he drew a leaf out of the heap, -Ravaisson laid his hand on a _lettre de cachet_. He understood at once -that he had just discovered the lost treasure. Fifty years of laborious -effort have now restored the order which the victors of the 14th of July -and successive removals had destroyed. The archives of the Bastille -still constitute, at the present day, an imposing collection, in spite -of the gaps made by fire and pillage in 1789, for ever to be regretted. -The administration of the Arsenal library has acquired copies of the -documents coming from the Bastille which are preserved at St. -Petersburg. The archives of the Bastille are now open to inspection by -any visitor to the Arsenal library, in rooms specially fitted up for -them. Several registers had holes burnt in them on the day of the -capture of the Bastille, their binding is scorched black, their leaves -are yellow. In the boxes the documents are now numbered, and they are -daily consulted by men of letters. The catalogue has been compiled and -published recently, through the assiduity of the minister of public -instruction. - -It is by the light of these documents, of undeniable genuineness and -authority, that the black shade which so long brooded over the Bastille -has at length been dispelled. The legends have melted away in the clear -light of history, as the thick cloak of mist with which night covers the -earth is dissipated by the morning sun; and enigmas which mankind, -wearied of fruitless investigations, had resigned itself to declare -insoluble, have now at last been solved. - - - - -CHAPTER II. - -HISTORY OF THE BASTILLE. - - -Julius Cæsar describes a structure three stories high which his -legionaries used rapidly to erect in front of towns they were besieging. -Such was the remote origin of the "bastides" or "bastilles," as these -movable fortresses were called in the Middle Ages. Froissart, speaking -of a place that was being invested, says that "bastides were stationed -on the roads and in the open country" in such a manner that the town -could get no food supplies. It was not long before the designation was -applied to the fixed towers erected on the ramparts for the defence of -the towns, and more particularly to those which were constructed at the -entrance gates. - -In 1356, the chroniclers mention some important works that had been done -on the circumvallations of Paris. These were constructions interrupting -the wall at intervals, and so placed as to protect either an entrance -gate or the wall itself. The special designations of _eschiffles_, -_guérites_, or _barbacanes_ were applied to such of these buildings as -rose between two gates of the city, while the _bastilles_ or _bastides_ -were those which defended the gates. The first stone of the edifice -which for more than four centuries was to remain famous under the name -of the Bastille was laid on April 22, 1370, by the mayor of Paris in -person, Hugh Aubriot, the object being to strengthen the defences of the -city against the English. To reproach the king, Charles V., with the -construction of a cruel prison would be almost as reasonable as to -reproach Louis-Philippe with the construction of the fortress of Mont -Valérien. We borrow these details from M. Fernand Bournon's excellent -work on the Bastille in the _Histoire générale de Paris_. - -"The Bastille," writes M. Bournon, "at the time of its capture on July -14, 1789, was still identical, except in some trifling particulars, with -the work of the architects of the fourteenth century." The Place de la -Bastille of the present day does not correspond exactly to the site of -the fortress. Mentally to restore that site it is necessary to take away -the last houses of the Rue Saint-Antoine and the Boulevard Henri IV.; -the ground they occupy was then covered with the château and its glacis. -The round towers, however, must have extended considerably in advance of -the line of the houses and have encroached upon the pavement. The plan -reproducing the site exactly is to-day marked by lines of white stones, -by means of which all Parisians may get some notion of it if they go to -the Place de la Bastille. - -M. Augé de Lassus, who drew so largely upon the works of M. Bournon and -ourselves for his lecture on the Bastille,[21] will permit us in our -turn to borrow from him the description he gave of the Bastille, so far -as its construction is concerned. Prints of the commonest kind which -have circulated in thousands, the more recent reconstruction which in -1889 gave Paris so much entertainment, have familiarized us with the -aspect of the Bastille, whose eight circular towers, connected by -curtains of equal height, give us the impression of a box all of a -piece, or, if you prefer it, an enormous sarcophagus. The eight towers -all had their names. There were the Corner, the Chapel, and the Well -towers, names readily accounted for by their position or by details of -their construction. Then came the Bertaudière and Bazinière towers, -baptized by the names of two former prisoners. The Treasure tower was so -called because it had received on many occasions, notably under Henri -IV., the custody of the public money. The excellent poet Mathurin -Regnier alludes to this fact in these oft-quoted lines:-- - - "Now mark these parsons, sons of ill-got gain, - Whose grasping sires for years have stolen amain, - Whose family coffers vaster wealth conceal, - Than fills that royal store-house, the Bastille." - -The seventh tower was known as the County tower, owing its name, as M. -Bournon conjectures, to the feudal dignity called the County of Paris. -"The hypothesis," he adds, "derives the greater weight from the fact -that the mayors of Paris were called, up to the end of the _ancien -régime_, mayors of the town and viscounty of Paris." The eighth tower -bore a name which, for the tower of a prison, is very remarkable. It was -called the Tower of Liberty. This odd appellation had come to it from -the circumstance that it had been the part of the Bastille where -prisoners were lodged who enjoyed exceptionally favourable treatment, -those who had the "liberty" of walking during the day in the courtyards -of the château. These prisoners were said to be "in the liberty of the -court"; the officers of the château called them the "prisoners of the -liberty" in contradistinction to the prisoners "in durance"; and that -one of the eight towers in which they were lodged was thus, quite -naturally, called "the Tower of Liberty." - -The towers of the Chapel and the Treasure, which were the oldest, had -flanked the original gateway, but this was soon walled up, leaving -however in the masonry the outline of its arch, and even the statues of -saints and crowned princes that had been the only ornaments of its bare -walls. "In accordance with custom," says M. Augé de Lassus, "the -entrance to the Bastille was single and double at the same time; the -gate for vehicles, defended by its drawbridge, was flanked by a smaller -gate reserved for foot passengers, and this, too, was only accessible -when a small drawbridge was lowered." - -In the first of the two courtyards of the Bastille, D'Argenson had -placed a monumental clock held up by large sculptured figures -representing prisoners in chains. The heavy chains fell in graceful -curves around the clock-face, as a kind of ornamentation. D'Argenson and -his artists had a ferocious taste. - -On the morrow of the defeat at St. Quentin,[22] the fear of invasion -decided Henri II., under the advice of Coligny, to strengthen the -Bastille. It was then, accordingly, that there was constructed, in front -of the Saint-Antoine gate, the bastion which was at a later date to be -adorned with a garden for the prisoners to walk in. - -Around the massive and forbidding prison, in the course of the -seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, quite a little town sprang up and -flourished, as in the Middle Ages happened around lofty and impressive -cathedrals. Barbers, cobblers, drink-sellers, poulterers, cheesemongers, -and general dealers had their shops there. These new buildings -encroached on the Rue Saint-Antoine, and extended as far as the convent -of the Visitation, the chapel of which, converted into a Protestant -place of worship, still exists. - -"In its latter days," writes M. de Lassus, "the Bastille with its -appendages presented an appearance somewhat as follows:--On the Rue -Saint-Antoine, a gateway of considerable size, and, with its trophies of -arms, making some pretensions to a triumphal arch, gave access to a -first court skirted with shops, and open, at least during the day, to -all comers. People might pass through it freely, but were not allowed to -loiter there. Then appeared a second entrance, a double one for horse -and foot traffic, each gate defended by its drawbridge. Admittance -through this was more difficult, and the sentry's instructions more -rigorous; this was the outer guard. As soon as this entrance was passed, -one came to the court of the governor, who received the more or less -voluntary visitor. On the right stretched the quarters of the governor -and his staff, contiguous to the armoury. Then there were the moats, -originally supplied by the waters of the Seine--at that time people -frequently fell in and were drowned, the moats not being protected by -any railing--in later times they were for the most part dry. Then rose -the lofty towers of the citadel, encircled, nearly a hundred feet up, by -their crown of battlements; and then one found the last drawbridge, most -often raised, at any rate before the carriage gate, the door for foot -passengers alone remaining accessible, under still more rigorous -conditions." - -These conditions, so rigorous for contemporaries--the Czar Peter the -Great himself found them inflexible--are removed for the historian: -thanks to the numerous memoirs left by prisoners, thanks to the -documents relating to the administration of the Bastille now in the -Arsenal library, and to the correspondence of the lieutenants of police, -we shall penetrate into the interior of these well-fenced precincts and -follow the life of the prisoners day by day. - -In its early days, then, the Bastille was not a prison, though it became -such as early as the reign of Charles VI. Yet for two centuries it kept -its character as a military citadel. Sometimes the kings gave lodgment -there to great personages who were passing through Paris. Louis XI. and -Francis I. held brilliant fêtes there, of which the chroniclers speak -with admiration. - -It is Richelieu who must be considered the founder of the Bastille--the -Bastille, that is, as a royal prison, the Bastille of the seventeenth -and eighteenth centuries. Before him, imprisonment in the old fortress -was merely casual; it is to him that we must trace the conception of the -state prison as an instrument of government. Here we shall be arrested -by the question, what is to be understood by a state prison? The term, -vague and open to discussion, is explained by M. Bournon. "By a state -prison--taking the Bastille as a particular instance--must be understood -a prison for those who have committed a crime or misdemeanour not -provided for by the common law; for those who, rightly or wrongly, have -appeared dangerous to the safety of the state, whether the nation itself -is concerned, or its head, or a body more or less considerable of -citizens, a body sometimes no larger than the family of the suspect. If -we add to this class of prisoners personages too conspicuous to be -punished for a crime at common law on equal terms with the ordinary -malefactor, and for whom it would appear inevitable that an exceptional -prison should be reserved, we shall have passed in review the different -kinds of delinquents who expiated their misdeeds at the Bastille from -the time of Richelieu to the Revolution." - -The administration of the Bastille, which, up to the reign of Louis -XIII., was entrusted to great lords, dukes, constables, marshals of -France--the Marshal de Bassompierre, the Constable de Luynes, the -Marshal de Vitry, the Duke of Luxemburg, to mention only the last of -them--was placed by Richelieu in the hands of a real jailer, Leclerc du -Tremblay, brother of Père Joseph.[23] - -Documents throwing any light on the Bastille at the time when the Red -Man, as Victor Hugo named Richelieu, was supreme, are however very -rare. An advocate, Maton de la Varenne, published in 1786, in his -_Revolutions of Paris_, a letter which ostensibly had been written on -December 1, 1642, to Richelieu, at that time ill. In it we read: "I, -whom you are causing to rot in the Bastille for having disobeyed your -commandment, which would have brought upon my soul condemnation to -eternal hell, and would have made me appear in eternity with hands -stained with blood----" It is impossible to guarantee the authenticity -of this document. To us it appears suspicious, the text having been -published at a time when many apocryphal documents were produced as -coming from the archives of the Bastille. More worthy of arresting our -attention is the "return of the prisoners who are in the château of the -Bastille," a document of Richelieu's time which M. Bournon discovered in -the archives of the Foreign Office. This catalogue, containing -fifty-three names, is the oldest list of prisoners of the Bastille known -up to the present time. Among the prisoners several are suspected or -convicted of evil designs against "Monsieur le cardinal," some are -accused of an intention to "complot," that is, to conspire against the -throne, or of being spies. There is an "extravagant" priest, a monk who -had "opposed Cluni's election," three hermits, three coiners, the -Marquis d'Assigny, condemned to death, but whose punishment had been -commuted to perpetual imprisonment, a score or so of lords designated as -"madmen, vile scoundrels, evil wretches," or accused of some definite -crime, theft or murder; finally, those whose name is followed by the -simple note, "Queen-mother," or "Monsieur,"[24] whence we may conclude -that the clerk had no exact information about the prisoners of the -cardinal. We shall give later the list of the prisoners in the Bastille -on the day of its capture, July 14, 1789; and the comparison between the -two lists at the two periods, the remotest and the most recent that we -could select, will be instructive. We have also, to assist us in forming -a judgment of the Bastille in Richelieu's time, the memoirs of -Bassompierre and of Laporte, which transport us into a state prison, -elegant, we might almost say luxurious, reserved for prisoners of birth -and breeding, where they lived observing all social usages in their -mutual relations, paying and returning calls. But the Bastille preserved -its military character for many more years, and among the prisoners we -find especially a number of officers punished for breaches of -discipline. Prisoners of war were confined there, and foreign personages -of high rank arrested by way of reprisal, secret agents and spies -employed in France by hostile nations; finally, powerful lords who had -incurred the king's displeasure. The court intrigues under Richelieu and -Mazarin contributed to the diversion of the Bastille from its original -intention: they began to incarcerate there _valets de chambre_ who had -somehow become mixed up in the plots of sovereigns. - -Religious persecution was revived by the government of Louis XIV., and -ere long a whole world of gazetteers and "novelists," the journalists of -the period, were seen swarming like flies in the sun. Louis XIV. was not -precisely a stickler for the liberty of the press, but on the other hand -he shrank from cooping up men of letters, Jansenists and Protestants -convinced of the truth of their beliefs, pell-mell with the vagabonds -and thiefs confined at Bicêtre, Saint-Lazare, and the other prisons of -Paris. He threw open to them, too generously no doubt, the portals of -his château in the Suburb Saint-Antoine, where they mixed with young men -of family undergoing a mild course of the Bastille at the request of -their parents, and with quarrelsome nobles whom the marshals of France, -anxious to avoid duels, used to send there to forget their animosities. -Further, the reign of Louis XIV. was marked by some great trials which -produced a strange and appalling impression, and threw around the -accused a halo of mystery--trials for magic and sorcery, cases of -poisoning and base coining. The accused parties in these cases were -confined in the Bastille. And here we encounter a fresh departure from -the primitive character of the old fortress; prisoners were sent there -whose cases were tried by the regularly constituted judges. Henceforth -prisoners who appeared before the court of the Arsenal were divided -between the Bastille and the fortress of Vincennes. - -This is the grand epoch in the history of the Bastille: it is now a -veritable prison of state. Writers can speak of its "nobleness." It -shows itself to us in colours at once charming and awe-inspiring, -brilliant, majestic, now filled with sounds of merriment, now veiled -with an appalling silence. From the gloomy regions within the massive -walls there come to us the sounds of song and laughter mingled with -cries of despair, with sobs and tears. This is the period of the Iron -Mask: the period when the governor receives mysterious letters from the -court. "I beg you, sir, to see that, if anyone comes to ask for news of -the prisoner whom Desgrez conducted to the Bastille this morning by -order of the king, nothing be said about him, and that, if possible, in -accordance with the intention of His Majesty and the accompanying -instructions, no one may get to know him or even his name." "M. de -Bernaville (the name of one of the governors of the Bastille), having -given orders for the conveyance of an important prisoner to the prison -of my château of the Bastille, I send this letter to inform you of my -intention that you receive him there and keep him closely guarded until -further orders, warning you not to permit him, under any pretext -whatever, to hold communication with any person, either by word of mouth -or in writing." The prisoners surrounded with so absolute a silence -almost all belonged to the same category, namely, distinguished spies, -who seem to have been rather numerous in France at the full tide of -Louis XIV.'s wars, and who were hunted down with an eagerness which grew -in proportion as fortune frowned on the royal armies. We read in the -Journal kept by the King's lieutenant, Du Junca: "On Wednesday, -December 22, about ten o'clock in the morning, M. de la Coste, provost -of the King's armies, came here, bringing and leaving in our custody a -prisoner whom for greater secrecy he caused to enter by our new gate, -which allows us to pass into or out of the garden of the Arsenal at all -hours--the which prisoner, M. d'Estingen by name, a German, but married -in England, was received by the governor by order of the King sent by -the hand of the Marquis de Barbezieux, with explicit instructions to -keep the prisoner's presence a secret and to prevent him from holding -communication with anyone, in speech or writing: the which prisoner is a -widower, without children, a man of intelligence, and doing a brisk -trade in news of what is happening in France, sending his information to -Germany, England, and Holland: a gentlemanly spy." On February 10, 1710, -Pontchartrain wrote to Bernaville, governor of the Bastille: "I cannot -refrain from telling you that you and the Chevalier de la Croix speak a -good deal too much and too openly about the foreign prisoners you have. -Secrecy and mystery is one of your first duties, as I must ask you to -remember. Neither D'Argenson nor any other than those I have apprized -you of should see these prisoners. Give explicit warning to the Abbé -Renaudot and to de la Croix of the necessity of maintaining an -inviolable and impenetrable secrecy." - -It happened also at that period that a prisoner remained in complete -ignorance of the reason of his incarceration: "The prisoner at the -Bastille named J. J. du Vacquay," writes Louvois to the governor, "has -complained to the King that he has been kept there for thirteen years -without knowing the reason: be good enough to let me know what minister -signed the warrant under which he is detained, so that I may report to -His Majesty." - -As the greater part of the papers relating to the arrest were destroyed -as soon as the incarceration was effected, it sometimes happened that in -certain cases the reasons were not known even in the offices of the -ministers. Thus Seignelay writes to the governor, M. de Besmaus: "The -King has commanded me to write and ask you who is a certain prisoner -named Dumesnil, how long he has been at the Bastille, and for what -reason he was placed there." "The demoiselle de Mirail, a prisoner at -the Bastille, having demanded her liberty of the King, His Majesty has -instructed me to write and ask you the reason of her detention; if you -know it, be good enough to inform me at your earliest convenience." -Again, we find Louvois writing to the same effect: "I am sending you a -letter from M. Coquet, in regard to which the King has commanded me to -ask who signed the warrant under which he was sent to the Bastille, and -whether you know the reason of his being sent there." "Sir, I am writing -a line merely to ask you to let me know who is Piat de la Fontaine, who -has been five years at the Bastille, and whether you do not remember why -he was placed there." - -Letters of this kind are, it is true, very rare; yet if one compares the -state of things they disclose with the extraordinary comfort and luxury -with which the prisoners were surrounded, they help to characterize the -celebrated prison at this epoch of its history, namely, the seventeenth -century. - -In 1667 the office of lieutenant of police had been created. The first -to hold the title was Gabriel Nicolas de la Reynie, a man of the -greatest worth. It is very important to note that under the _ancien -régime_ the lieutenant of police had a double function, being at the -same time a subordinate of the minister of Paris[25] and a member of the -Châtelet.[26] His duties were thus of a twofold nature, administrative -and judicial. Now the Bastille, as a state prison, was more especially -an administrative institution; but gradually, owing to the character of -the persons brought there as prisoners, it became difficult to avoid -turning it also into a judicial institution, and the minister of Paris -became accustomed to delegate his subordinate, the lieutenant of police, -to conduct the examination of the prisoners at the Bastille. Though La -Reynie took practically the whole responsibility of the administration -of the Bastille, his visits to the prison itself were nevertheless -relatively rare, and on every occasion a permit signed by Louis XIV. or -by Colbert was necessary. - -La Reynie was succeeded by D'Argenson. Under him the powers of the -lieutenant of police were very largely extended, and the Bastille was -comprised within his jurisdiction. Henceforth the lieutenant of police -will enter the state prison whenever it seems good to him, as lord and -master, accompanied by his subordinates at the Châtelet, clerks and -inspectors of police; the prisoners will be in direct and constant -communication with him, and he will make an inspection of all the -chambers at least once a year. We find that at every change in the -lieutenancy of police, it sufficed for the minister of Paris to send the -name of the new officer to the governor. Dating from this period, the -prison in the Suburb Saint-Antoine remained under the authority of a -magistrate. - -The Regency was a transition period between the reigns of Louis XIV. and -Louis XV., and there was a corresponding transition period in the -history of the Bastille. The incarcerations were less numerous and less -rigorous, but the rule of the prison lost something of that aristocratic -air which had characterized it. The most important episode in the -history of the Bastille during the Regency was the incarceration of -those who were accused of complicity in the Cellamare conspiracy. Among -these was Mdlle de Launay, later to be known as Madame de Staal. She -has left some charming pages about her imprisonment, in which we find, -related with a fluent and subtle pen, the little romance which we -proceed to outline. - -Mdlle de Launay was secretary to the Duchess of Maine. She had had some -part in drawing up the scheme of the Cellamare conspiracy, which, if it -had succeeded, would have placed the king of Spain on the throne of -France. On December 10, 1718, the Regent sent her, with several of her -accomplices, to the Bastille, less with the idea of punishing her for -machinations against the state than to obtain from her details of the -conspiracy. At that period of her life she was of but moderate fortune -and rank, and it would not have been strange if she had been treated -with rigour. She found at the Bastille, on the contrary, unexpected -comfort and consideration. In her _Memoirs_, she writes that her sojourn -at the Bastille was the pleasantest time of her life. Her maid, Rondel, -was permitted to live with her. She was installed in a veritable suite -of rooms. She complained of the mice there, and a cat was given her, to -drive out the mice and provide some amusement. By and by there were -kittens, and the sportive tricks of the numerous little family cheered -her wonderfully, she said. Mdlle de Launay was regularly invited to dine -with the governor; she spent her days in writing and card-playing. The -king's lieutenant, Maisonrouge, a man well on in years, who held, after -the governor, the first place in the administration of the château, -conceived a profound and pathetic passion for the fair prisoner. He -declared that nothing would give him greater happiness than to make her -his wife. His apartments happened to be near those of Mdlle de Launay. -Unhappily for the king's lieutenant, there was in the neighbourhood a -third suite, occupied by a young and brilliant nobleman, the Chevalier -de Ménil, who also was implicated in the Cellamare affair. The fair -prisoner was not acquainted with him. Maisonrouge impresses us as a man -of great dignity, and rare nobility of character. He spoke to the two -young prisoners about each other, hoping, by bringing them into -communication, to provide them with fresh distractions, more -particularly the lady, whom he loved. The Chevalier de Ménil and Mdlle -de Launay could not see each other; they had never met. They began by -exchanging epistles in verse. Like everything that came from her pen, -the verses of Mdlle de Launay were full of animation and charm. The good -Maisonrouge played post between them, happy to see his little friend's -delight in the diversion she owed to him. It was not long before the -verses carried from one room to the other by Maisonrouge began to speak -of love, and this love--surprising as it may seem, but not difficult to -understand in the sequestered life of the Bastille--ere long became real -in the consciousness of the young people, who saw each other in -imagination under the most charming colours. Maisonrouge was soon -induced to contrive an interview between them. It is a delightful -moment. The two captives had never seen each other, yet loved each -other passionately: what will their mutual impressions be? Mdlle de -Launay's impression, when she saw the gay chevalier, was of unmixed -enthusiasm; the chevalier's, maybe, was more subdued; but if it is true, -as someone has said, that to nuns the gardener represents mankind, to a -prisoner every young woman must be an exquisite creature. The interviews -continued under the benevolent eye of Maisonrouge, who watched the -development of Mdlle de Launay's love for Ménil--the love of the girl -whom he himself loved intensely, but whose happiness he preferred to his -own. There are delightful details which may be found delightfully -described in Mdlle de Launay's _Memoirs_. It is M. Bournon's opinion -that, according to the testimony of Mdlle de Launay herself, this idyll -of the Bastille had "the dénouement that might have been foretold." We -have caught no hint of the sort in the _Memoirs_ of Madame de Staal, but -then, M. Bournon is no doubt the better psychologist. At any rate, the -governor of the Bastille got wind of the diversions of the lovers. He -put his foot down. Ménil was transferred to a distant tower, Mdlle de -Launay shed tears, and, incredible as it seems, Maisonrouge, while -redoubling his efforts to please her, sympathized with her lot to the -point of arranging fresh and more difficult interviews with the sparkish -chevalier. Mdlle de Launay left the prison in the spring of 1720, after -having sent to the Regent a detailed statement of the facts of the -conspiracy, which hitherto she had refused to furnish. Once at liberty, -she vainly implored the Chevalier de Ménil to fulfil his pledges and -make her his wife. Maisonrouge died in the following year, of -disappointment, says the gay coquette, at his failure to get from her, -during her imprisonment, the promise of marriage which now she would -have been glad enough to fulfil. - -It seems as though under the Regency everything at the Bastille turned -on love--a reflection of the epoch itself. The young Duke de Richelieu -was locked up there because he did not love his wife. The brilliant -nobleman was kept under lock and key for several weeks, "in solitude and -gloom," he says, when suddenly the door of his room flew open and Madame -de Richelieu appeared, a wonder of grace, brightness and charm: "The -fair angel," writes the duke, "who flew from heaven to earth to set -Peter free was not so radiant." - -We have seen how the Bastille had been transformed from a military -citadel into a prison of state. We shall now witness, under the -government of the Duke of Orleans, another transformation, betokened by -an event which is of little apparent importance. The Duke de Richelieu -was imprisoned in the Bastille a second time as the result of a duel: a -judge of the Parlement went there to question him and the Parlement -tried his case. The Parlement[27] at the Bastille, in the prison of the -king! From that moment the fortress continued year by year to grow more -like our modern prisons. "Under the Cardinal de Fleury," writes La -Harpe, "this famous château was inhabited by hardly any but Jansenist -writers: it then became the enforced residence of champions of -philosophy and authors of clandestine satires, and acted as a foil to -their obscurity and shame." It became increasingly the practice to -confine there accused persons whose cases were regularly tried at the -Châtelet or even before the Parlement. By the second half of the -eighteenth century accused persons had come to be incarcerated in the -Bastille by direct order of the Châtelet, which would have seemed -incredible to a contemporary of Louis XIV. The summoning officer would -post himself before the towers, and there, while the prisoner pressed -his head close against the bars of the window, the officer would shout -the terms of the writ at him across the moat. The advocates defending -the accused obtained permission to go and consult their clients, and -they were the only persons who were permitted to interview the prisoners -in private. On the appointed day the prisoner was transferred to the law -courts quietly and by night to avoid the curiosity of the crowd. - -Under Louis XVI. the judges of the Parlement visited the Bastille as -they visited the other prisons; at length the minister Breteuil sent -instructions to the officials informing them that no more _lettres de -cachet_ would be issued without stating the duration of the penalty to -which the guilty person was condemned and the grounds for his -punishment. The Bastille was now merely a prison like the others, -except that the prisoners were better treated there. - -In 1713 Voysin, the Secretary of State, wrote to D'Argenson: -"Beaumanielle is not sufficiently deserving of consideration to warrant -his removal from the Châtelet to the Bastille." La Harpe has well -described the transformation which from this time came over the great -state prison by saying that, from the beginning of the century, none of -the prisoners who had been placed there "had merited the honour." His -remark receives corroboration from Linguet: "It is not, in these latter -days especially, for criminals of state that the Bastille is reserved: -it has become in some sort the antichambre of the conciergerie." - -If the glories of the Bastille paled as it grew older, on the other hand -torture, which, it is true, had never been applied except by order of -the courts, had completely disappeared. From the beginning of the -eighteenth century, the cells and chains were merely a temporary -punishment reserved for insubordinate prisoners: from the accession of -Louis XVI. they had fallen into disuse. Breteuil forbade any person -whatever to be placed in the cells, which were the rooms on the lowest -floor of each tower, a sort of damp and gloomy vaults. On September 11, -1775, Malesherbes writes: "No prisoner should be refused material for -reading and writing. The abuse it is pretended that they may make of it -cannot be dangerous, confined so closely as they are. Nor should any -refusal be made to the desire of such as may wish to devote themselves -to other occupations, provided they do not require you to leave in their -hands tools of which they might avail themselves to effect their escape. -If any of them should wish to write to his family and his friends, he -must be permitted to receive replies, and to send replies to their -letters after having read them. In all this you must be guided by your -prudence and your humanity." The reading of the gazettes, formerly -rigidly forbidden, was now authorised. - -It must further be remarked that the number of prisoners confined in the -Bastille was not so large as might be thought. During the whole reign of -Louis XVI. the Bastille received no more than two hundred and forty -prisoners, an average of sixteen a year; while it had room for forty-two -in separate apartments. - -Under Louis XIV., at the period when the government was most liberal in -dispensing its _lettres de cachet_, an average of only thirty prisoners -a year entered the château, and their captivity was for the most part of -short duration. Dumouriez informs us in his _Memoirs_ that during his -detention he had never more than eighteen fellow prisoners, and that -more than once he had only six. M. Alfred Bégis has drawn up a list of -the prisoners detained in the Bastille from 1781 to 1789. In May, 1788, -it contained twenty-seven prisoners, the highest figure reached during -these eight year; in September, 1782, it contained ten; in April, 1783, -seven; in June of the same year, seven; in December, 1788, nine; in -February, 1789, nine; at the time of its capture, July 14, 1789, there -were seven. - -True, not only men were locked up in the Bastille, but also books when -they appeared dangerous. The royal warrant under which they were -incarcerated was even drawn up on the model of the _lettres de cachet_. -M. Bournon has published a specimen of these. The books were shut up in -a closet between the towers of the Treasure and the County, over an old -passage communicating with the bastion. In 1733 the lieutenant of police -instructed the governor of the Bastille to receive at the château "all -the apparatus of a clandestine printing-press which had been seized in a -chamber of the Saint-Victor abbey: the which you will be good enough to -have placed in the store room of the Bastille." When the books ceased to -appear dangerous, they were set at liberty. In this way the -_Encyclopædia_[28] was liberated after a detention of some years. - -We have just seen that during the reign of Louis XVI. the Bastille did -not receive more than sixteen prisoners a year, on an average. Several -of these were only detained for a few days. From 1783 to 1789 the -Bastille remained almost empty, and would have been absolutely empty if -it had not been decided to place there prisoners who should properly -have been elsewhere. As early as February, 1784, the fortress of -Vincennes, which served as a sort of overflow pipe to the Bastille, had -been shut for lack of prisoners. The system of _lettres de cachet_ was -slipping away into the past. On the other hand, the Bastille was a -source of great expense to the King. The governor alone received 60,000 -livres annually. When you add the salaries and board of the officers of -the garrison, the turnkeys, the physicians, the surgeon, the apothecary, -the chaplains; when you add the food--this alone in 1774 came to 67,000 -livres--and the clothing of the prisoners, and the upkeep of the -buildings, the total will appear outrageous, for the figures given above -must be tripled to represent the value of the present day. So Necker, -seeing that the Bastille was of no further utility, thought of -suppressing it "for economy's sake,"[29] and he was not the only one in -high places to speak of this suppression. The Carnavalet[30] museum -possesses a scheme drawn up in 1784 by Corbet, the superintending -architect to the city of Paris, whence the project has an official -character: it is a scheme for a "Place Louis XVI." to be opened up on -the site of the old fortress. We learn from Millin that other artists -"were occupied with a scheme for erecting a monument on the site of the -Bastille." One of these schemes deserves special mention. Seven of the -eight towers were to be destroyed, the eighth to remain standing, but in -a significant state of dilapidation: on the site of the demolished -towers a monument was to be erected to the glory of Louis XVI. This -monument was to consist of a pedestal formed by piling up chains and -bolts taken from the state prison, above which would rise a statue of -the king, one hand extended towards the ruined tower with the gesture of -a deliverer. It is to be regretted, if not for the beauty, at least, for -the picturesqueness of Paris, that this scheme was never put into -execution. Davy de Chavigné, king's counsellor and auditor to the -treasury, was allowed to present to the Royal Academy of Architecture, -at its sitting on June 8, 1789, "a plan for a monument on the site of -the Bastille, to be decreed by the States General to Louis XVI. as the -restorer of the public liberty." On this subject the famous sculptor -Houdon wrote to Chavigné: "I am very anxious for the plan to be adopted. -The idea of erecting a monument to liberty on the very spot where -slavery has reigned up to the present, appears to me particularly well -conceived, and well calculated to inspire genius. I shall think myself -only too fortunate to be among the artists who will celebrate the epoch -of the regeneration of France." - -We have seen prints, long anterior to 1789--one of them the frontispiece -of the edition of Linguet's _Memoirs_ that appeared in 1783--representing -Louis XVI. extending his hand towards the lofty towers, which workmen -are in the act of demolishing. - -Among the archives of the Bastille are preserved two reports drawn up in -1788 by the king's lieutenant, Puget, the most important personage in -the fortress after the governor. He proposes the suppression of the -state prison, the demolition of the old château, and the sale of the -ground for the benefit of the crown. It may be said of these schemes, as -of the plan of the architect Corbet, that they would not have been -propounded if they had not been approved in high places. - -Further, in the year 1784, an ardent supporter of the old state of -things cried: "Oh! if our young monarch ever committed a fault so great, -if he so far belied the most ancient usages of this government, if it -were possible that one day he could be tempted to destroy you" (the -author is apostrophizing the Bastille) "to raise on your ruins a -monument to the liberator-king...." The demolition of the Bastille was -decided on; and it would have been accomplished as a government -undertaking but for the outbreak of the Revolution. - -From January 1 to July 14, 1789, that is to say for more than six -months, only one solitary prisoner entered the Bastille; and what a -prisoner!--Réveillon, the paper manufacturer of the Suburb -Saint-Antoine, who was shut up on May 1 at his own request, in order to -escape the fury of the mob. The same year, the lieutenant of police, de -Crosne, made an inspection of the Bastille, accompanied by a judge of -the Parlement; their object was to arrange officially about the -destruction of the state prison. - -Thus, on the eve of the Revolution, the Bastille no longer existed, -though its towers were still standing. - -The victors of the 14th of July set free seven prisoners: four forgers -whose arrest had been ordered by the Châtelet, whose case had been -regularly tried, and whose proper place was an ordinary prison; two -madmen who ought to have been at Charenton; and the Comte de Solages, a -young nobleman who had been guilty of a monstrous crime over which it -was desired to throw a veil out of regard for his family; he was -maintained on a pension paid by his father. The conquerors of the -Bastille destroyed an old fortified castle: the state prison no longer -existed. They "broke in an open door." That was said of them even in -1789. - - - - -CHAPTER III. - -LIFE IN THE BASTILLE. - - -Having sketched rapidly and with bold strokes the outlines of the -history of the Bastille from its foundation to its fall, we intend to -show how the rule to which prisoners in the fortress of the Suburb -Saint-Antoine were submitted underwent its own process of -transformation, parallel with the transformation of the prison itself. -To understand the facts which follow, and which are of a kind to astound -the mind of everyone in these days, it is necessary to remember what we -have already said as to the character of the Bastille. It was the prison -of luxury, the aristocratic prison of the _ancien régime_, the _prison -de luxe_ at a period when it was no dishonour, as we shall see later, to -be confined there. We must remember the phrase of the minister of Paris -writing to D'Argenson, in regard to a personage of but modest rank, that -this individual did not deserve "consideration" enough to be put in the -Bastille. Let us reflect on this observation of Mercier in his excellent -_Pictures of Paris_: "The people fear the Châtelet more than the -Bastille. Of the latter they have no dread, because it is almost unknown -to them." - -We have shown how the Bastille, originally a military citadel, had -become a prison of state; then, little by little, had approximated to -the ordinary prisons, until the day when it died a natural death ere it -could be assassinated. The same transformation took place in the -treatment of the prisoners. Midway in the seventeenth century, the -Bastille had none of the characteristics of a prison, but was simply a -château in which the king caused certain of his subjects to sojourn, for -one cause or another. They lived there just as they thought proper, -furnishing their rooms according to their fancy with their own -furniture, indulging their tastes in regard to food at their own -expense, and waited on by their own servants. When a prisoner was rich -he could live at the Bastille in princely style; when he was poor, he -lived there very wretchedly. When the prisoner had no property at all, -the king did not for that reason give him furniture or food; but he gave -him money which he might use as seemed good to him in providing himself -with furniture and food: money of which he could retain a part--a number -of prisoners did not fail to do so--these savings becoming his own -property. This system, the character of which it is important to -recognize, underwent gradual modification during the course of the -seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, approximating, without ever -becoming identical with, the system of our modern prisons. Thus the -king, instead of granting pensions individually to the poorest of the -prisoners, came to endow the Bastille with a certain fixed number of -pensions for the less fortunate prisoners. The recipients of these -pensions continued to enjoy them for long years, and if they did not -wish the whole of the money to be expended on their support, the balance -was handed over to them. So we see certain individuals getting little -fortunes together by the mere fact of their having been prisoners in the -Bastille--a circumstance which has so much surprised historians because -they have not sought its cause. It even happened that prisoners, when -their liberation was announced to them, asked to remain a little longer -in order to swell their savings, a favour which was sometimes granted -them. In the course of the eighteenth century the money destined to the -maintenance of the prisoners at the Bastille could not be diverted from -its purpose; the prisoners were no longer able to appropriate a part; -the whole sum had to be expended. - -It was only in the second half of the seventeenth century that the king -had some rooms at the Bastille furnished for such prisoners as were -without means of procuring furniture themselves. And it is very -interesting to note that it was only at the extreme end of the century, -under the administration of Saint-Mars, that certain apartments of the -Bastille were arranged in the prison style with bars and bolts. Until -then they had been simply the rooms of a stronghold.[31] - -Let us follow the prisoner from his entrance to his exit. - -When the _lettre de cachet_ had been signed, it was usually a sort of -sheriff's officer who effected the arrest. He appeared in company with -five or six men-at-arms, and signified the arrest by touching his quarry -with a white staff. A coach was in waiting. The police officer politely -begged the person he was instructed to secure to step into the coach, -and took his place beside him. And, according to the testimony of -various memoirs, while the vehicle was rolling along with lowered -blinds, there was a pleasant conversational exchange of courtesies up to -the moment of the prisoner's finding himself within the walls of the -Bastille. A certain Lafort was living in furnished apartments with a -young and pretty Englishwoman whom he had abducted, when one evening, -about sunset, a police officer arrived. The coach was at the door. -Preliminaries were settled on both sides with as much politeness as if a -visit or an evening party had been the topic of discussion. They all got -into the vehicle, even the young man's lackey who, beguiled by -appearances, mounted behind. Arrived at the Bastille, the lackey lost no -time in descending to open the door: there was general astonishment, -especially on the part of the poor servant, when he learnt that since he -had entered the Bastille along with his master, he must stay with him. - -Most often the officer and his companions surprised their quarry early -in the morning, on rising from bed. Imagine then the coach with the -prisoner and the police officer inside, arriving before the Bastille, in -the first court in front of the castle keep. "Who goes there?" cries the -sentinel. "The king's writ!" replies the officer. At this, the shops we -have seen attached to the flanks of the château are bound at once to be -shut. The soldiers on guard have to turn their faces to the wall, or -perhaps to pull their hats over their eyes. The coach passes the -outpost, a bell sounds. "Advance!" cries the officer on duty. The -drawbridge is lowered and the coach rattles over the stout iron-clamped -boards. For greater secrecy, spies and prisoners of war were taken in by -a private door leading to the gardens of the Arsenal. - -Officers and noblemen presented themselves before the Bastille alone, -unless they were accompanied by relatives or friends. "It is my -intention," the king had written to them, "that you betake yourselves to -my château of the Bastille." And no one dreamt of declining the royal -invitation. Further, when the governor desired to transfer one of them -from one prison to another, he contented himself with telling him so. We -find in the Journal of Du Junca, king's lieutenant[32] at the Bastille, -several notes like the following: "Monday, December 26, 1695, about ten -o'clock in the morning, M. de Villars, lieutenant-colonel of the -regiment of Vosges infantry, came and reported himself a prisoner, as -ordered by M. Barbezieux, though he was a prisoner in the citadel of -Grenoble, whence he came direct without being brought by anyone."[33] On -the arrival of the prisoner, the king's lieutenant, accompanied by the -captain of the gates, came to receive him as he got out of his carriage. -The officers of the château at once led the new-comer into the presence -of the governor, who received him civilly, invited him to sit down, and -after having endorsed the _lettre de cachet_ conversed with him for some -time. Under Louis XIV. the governor in most cases even kept his new -guest, as well as the persons who had accompanied him, to lunch or -dinner. Meanwhile his quarters had been got ready. We read in Du Junca's -Journal that on January 26, 1695, a certain De Courlandon, a colonel of -cavalry, presented himself for incarceration at the Bastille. There -being no room ready to receive him, the governor asked him to go and -pass the night in a neighbouring inn, at the sign of the _Crown_, and -to return next day. "Whereupon M. de Courlandon did not fail to return -about eleven o'clock in the morning, having dined with M. de Besmaus -(the governor), and in the afternoon he entered the château." - -The reader will not be surprised at learning that the prospect of -incarceration at the Bastille did not always strike the future prisoner -with terror. We read in the _Memoirs_ of the Duke de Lauzun:[34] -"Scolded for two hours on end by everybody who fancied himself entitled -to do so, I thought I could not do better than go to Paris and await -developments. A few hours after my arrival, I received a letter from my -father telling me that it had been decided to put us all in the -Bastille, and that I should probably be arrested during the night. I -determined at least to finish gaily, so I invited some pretty girls from -the Opera to supper, so that I might await the officer without -impatience. Seeing that he did not arrive, I determined on the bold move -of going to Fontainebleau and joining the king's hunt. He did not speak -to me once during the chase, which was such a confirmation of our -disgrace that on our return no one gave us the customary salute. But I -did not lose heart; in the evening I was in attendance, and the king -came to me. 'You are all,' he said, 'hotheaded rips, but funny dogs all -the same; come along and have supper, and bring M. de Guéméné and the -Chevalier de Luxembourg.'" - -Before the new arrival was installed in the chamber prepared for him, he -was taken to the great council hall, where he was requested to empty his -pockets. Only notorious rogues were searched. If the prisoner had upon -him money, jewels, or other articles such as knives and scissors, the -use of which was not allowed by the regulations, they were done up in a -parcel which he himself sealed, with his own seal if he had one; if not, -with the seal of the Bastille. Finally, he was conducted to the room -reserved for him. - -Each of the eight towers of the Bastille contained four or five stories -of rooms or cells. The worst of these rooms were on the lowest floor, -and these were what were called the "cells,"--octagonal vaults, cold and -damp, partly under ground; the walls, grey with mould, were bare from -floor to ceiling, the latter a groined arch. A bench and a bed of straw -covered with a paltry coverlet, formed the whole appointments. Daylight -feebly flickered through the vent-hole opening on to the moat. When the -Seine was in flood, the water came through the walls and swamped the -cells; and then any prisoners who might happen to be in them were -removed. During the reign of Louis XIV. the cells were sometimes -occupied by prisoners of the lowest class and criminals condemned to -death. Later, under Louis XV., the cells ceased to be used except as a -place of punishment for insubordinate prisoners who assaulted their -guardians or fellow-prisoners, or for turnkeys and sentinels of the -château who had committed breaches of discipline. They stayed in the -cells for a short time in irons. The cells had fallen into disuse by -the time the Revolution broke out; since the first ministry of Necker, -it had been forbidden to confine in them any one whatever, and none of -the warders questioned on July 18 remembered having seen any one placed -in them. The two prisoners, Tavernier and Béchade, whom the conquerors -of the 14th of July found in one of these dungeons, had been placed -there, at the moment of the attack, by the officers of the château, for -fear lest amid the rain of bullets some harm should befall them. - -The worst rooms after the cells were the _calottes_, the rooms on the -floor above. In summer the heat was extreme in them, and in winter the -cold, in spite of the stoves. They were octagons whose ceilings, as the -name implies, were shaped like a skull-cap. High enough in the centre, -they gradually diminished in height towards the sides. It was impossible -to stand upright except in the middle of the room. - -The prisoners were only placed in the cells and _calottes_ under -exceptional circumstances. Every tower had two or three floors of lofty -and airy chambers, and in these the prisoners lived. They were octagons -from fifteen to sixteen feet in diameter and from fifteen to twenty feet -high. Light entered through large windows approached by three steps. We -have said that it was only towards the end of Louis XIV.'s reign that -these rooms were arranged like prison cells with bars and bolts. They -were warmed with open fireplaces or stoves. The ceiling was whitewashed, -the floor of brick. On the walls the prisoners had chalked verses, -mottoes, and designs. - -One artistic prisoner amused himself by decorating the bare walls with -paintings. The governor, delighted at seeing him thus find relaxation, -moved him from room to room; when he had finished filling one with his -designs and arabesques, he was placed in another. Some of these rooms -were decorated with portraits of Louis XIV. placed above the -chimney-piece, a characteristic detail which helps to show what the -Bastille was at this period: the château of the king, where the king -received a certain number of his subjects as his willing or unwilling -guests. - -The best rooms in the Bastille were those that were fitted up in the -eighteenth century for the accommodation of the staff. These were what -were called the "suites." In these were placed invalids and prisoners of -distinction. - -At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the furniture of these -apartments was still extremely simple: they were absolutely empty. The -reason of this we have indicated above. "I arrived," says Madame de -Staal, "at a room where there was nothing but four walls, very filthy, -and daubed all over by my predecessors for want of something better to -do. It was so destitute of furniture that someone went and got a little -straw chair for me to sit on, and two stones to support a lighted -faggot, and a little candle-end was neatly stuck on the wall to give me -light." - -The prisoners sent to their own homes for a table, bed, and chair, or -they hired these from the upholsterer of the Bastille. When they had -nothing to bless themselves with, the government, as we have already -said, did not provide them with furniture. It gave them money, sometimes -considerable sums, which permitted them to adorn their rooms after their -own fancy. This was the case in regard to all prisoners up to 1684. At -this date the king ordered the administration to supply furniture to -those of the prisoners whose detention was to be kept secret, for, by -getting in bedding from their own houses or the houses of friends, they -made known their arrest. D'Argenson had half a dozen of the rooms -permanently furnished, others were furnished under Louis XV.; under -Louis XVI., almost all were furnished. The appointments were very -modest: a bed of green baize with curtains, one or two tables, several -chairs, fire-dogs, a shovel, and a small pair of tongs. But after having -undergone examination, the prisoner retained the right of getting in -furniture from outside. And in this way the rooms of the prisoners were -sometimes adorned with great elegance. Madame de Staal relates that she -had hers hung with tapestry; the Marquis de Sade covered the bare walls -with long and brilliant hangings: other prisoners ornamented their rooms -with family portraits: they procured chests of drawers, desks, round -tables, dressing-cases, armchairs, cushions in Utrecht velvet; the -inventories of articles belonging to the prisoners show that they -managed to secure everything they thought necessary. The Abbé Brigault, -who was imprisoned at the same time as Madame de Staal and for the same -affair, brought into the Bastille five arm-chairs, two pieces of -tapestry, eleven serge hangings, eight chairs, a bureau, a small table, -three pictures, &c. The list of effects taken out of the Bastille by the -Comte de Belle-Isle when he was set at liberty includes a library -consisting of 333 volumes and ten atlases, a complete service of fine -linen and plate for the table, a bed furnished with gold-bordered red -damask, four pieces of tapestry on antique subjects, two mirrors, a -screen of gold-bordered red damask matching the bed, two folding -screens, two armchairs with cushions, an armchair in leather, three -chairs in tapestry, an overmantel of gilt copper, tables, drawers, -stands, candlestick of plated copper, &c. We might multiply examples, -even from among prisoners of middle station. - -It was the rule that prisoners newly arrived at the Bastille should be -examined within twenty-four hours. It sometimes happened, however, that -one or another remained for two or three weeks before appearing before -the magistrate. The Châtelet commissioner, specially delegated to the -Bastille for these examinations, founded his questions on notes supplied -him by the lieutenant of police, who, indeed, often went in person to -see the prisoners. A special commission was appointed for affairs of -importance. Dumouriez says that he was examined after nine hours of -detention by three commissioners: "The president was an old councillor -of state named Marville, a man of intelligence, but coarse and -sarcastic. The second was M. de Sartine, lieutenant of police and -councillor of state, a man of polish and refinement. The third was a -_maître des requêtes_[35] named Villevaux, a very insincere and -disputatious fellow. The clerk, who had more intelligence than any of -them, was an advocate named Beaumont." - -We have found many instances of prisoners who spoke in high terms of -their judges. And it cannot be said that prisoners at the Bastille -escaped judgment. A Châtelet commissioner examined them and sent the -official report of his examination, with a statement of his opinion, to -the lieutenant of police. He decided whether the arrest should be -sustained. Moreover, it would be a mistake to compare the lieutenant of -police under the _ancien régime_ with the prefect of police of to-day; -the lieutenants of police, selected from former _maîtres des requêtes_, -had a judicial character: the documents of the period call them -"magistrates"; they issued decrees without appeal and pronounced penal -sentences, even condemning to the galleys; they were at the same time -justices of the peace with an extensive jurisdiction. In addition to the -examination held on the entrance of a prisoner, the lieutenants of -police, in the course of their frequent visits, addressed to the -ministers of Paris reports on the prisoners,--reports in which they -discussed the evidence, and which constituted veritable judgments. - -When the prisoner was recognized as innocent, a new _lettre de cachet_ -soon set him at liberty. The verdict of "no true bill" often supervened -with a rapidity which the decisions of our police magistrates would do -well to emulate. A certain Barbier, who entered the Bastille on February -15, 1753, was found not guilty and set at liberty the next day. Of the -279 persons imprisoned in the Bastille during the last fifteen years of -the _ancien régime_, thirty-eight benefited by the dropping of the -indictment. - -Finally--and here is a point on which the new method might well model -itself on that of the Bastille--when a detention was recognized as -unjust, the victim was indemnified. A great number of examples might be -mentioned. An advocate named Subé left the Bastille on June 18, 1767, -after a detention of eighteen days; he had been falsely accused of the -authorship of a book against the king, and received compensation to the -tune of 3000 livres, more than £240 of our money. A certain Pereyra, -imprisoned in the Bastille from November 7, 1771, to April 12, 1772, and -then from July 1 to September 26, 1774, having been found to be -innocent, was reinstated in all his property, and received from the king -a life pension of 1200 livres, more than £100 to-day. A certain number -of those accused in the Canada case, when the charge was withdrawn, -received a life pension on leaving the Bastille. At other times, the -detention of an individual might throw his family into want. He was kept -in the Bastille, if it was thought he deserved it, but his people were -assisted. Under date September 3, 1763, the Duke de Choiseul writes to -the lieutenant of police: "I have received the letter you did me the -honour of writing to me in favour of the children of the Sieur -Joncaire-Chabert. I have the pleasure to inform you that I have got for -them a second subsidy of 300 livres (nearly £30 to-day) in consideration -of the sad condition you informed me they were in." Louis XIV. -guaranteed to Pellisson, at his liberation, a pension of 2000 crowns. -The Regent granted to Voltaire, when he left the Bastille, a pension of -1200 livres. Louis XVI. awarded to Latude an annuity of 400 livres, and -to La Rocheguérault an annuity of 400 crowns. The minister Breteuil -pensioned all the prisoners whom he set at liberty. Brun de Condamine, -confined from 1779 to 1783, received on leaving a sum of 600 livres. -Renneville speaks of a prisoner to whom Seignelay gave an important -situation in compensation for his detention at the Bastille. We hear of -one, Toussaint Socquart, a commissioner of the Châtelet and of police -whose offices were restored to him when he came out of the Bastille. In -fact, contrary to detention in our modern prisons, incarceration in the -Bastille did not cast the slightest slur on the prisoner's character, -even in the eyes of those to whom his arrest was due, and instances have -been known of men who, on their release from the Bastille, not only -were reinstated in public offices, but reached the highest positions. - -Until his examinations were quite completed, the prisoner was kept in -close confinement. None but the officers of the château were allowed to -communicate with him. And during this time he lived in solitude, unless -he had brought a servant with him. The administration readily permitted -the prisoners to avail themselves of the services of their valets, who -were boarded at the king's expense. It even happened that the government -sometimes gave their prisoners valets, paying not only for their board, -but also their wages at the rate of 900 livres a year. One might cite -prisoners of inferior rank who thus had servants to wait on them. Two or -three prisoners were sometimes put together in one room. Prison life has -no greater terror than solitude. In absolute solitude many of the -prisoners became mad. In company, the hours of captivity seemed less -tedious and oppressive. Father and son, mother and daughter, aunt and -niece, lived together. Many might be named. On September 7, 1693, a lady -named De la Fontaine was taken to the Bastille for the second time. The -first time, she had been imprisoned quite alone; but this new detention -evoked the compassion of the lieutenant of police, who, to please the -poor lady, sent her husband to the Bastille, locked him up with her, and -gave them a lackey to wait on them. - -The examinations being ended, the prisoners enjoyed a greater liberty. -They could then enter into communication with the people of the town. -They obtained permission to see their relatives and friends. These -sometimes paid them visits in their rooms; but as a rule the interviews -took place in the council-hall, in presence of one of the officers of -the château. They were usually permitted to discuss only family affairs -and business matters. All conversation on the Bastille and the reasons -for their imprisonment was forbidden. The rules of the prison increased -in severity as time went on. Towards the end of Louis XV.'s reign the -lieutenant of police went so far as to prescribe the subjects of -conversation which would alone be permitted in the course of the visits -the prisoners received. "They may talk to the prisoner about the harvest -his vineyards will yield this year, about cancelling a lease, about a -match for his niece, about the health of his parents." But it is -necessary to read the _Memoirs_ of Gourville, Fontaine, Bussy-Rabutin, -Hennequin, Madame de Staal, the Duke de Richelieu, to form a general -idea of life at the Bastille under Louis XIV. and under the Regent. -Several prisoners were free to move about through the château wherever -it seemed good to them; they entered the rooms of their fellow-prisoners -at all hours of the day. The governor contented himself with locking -them in their own rooms at night. The prisoners who had the "liberty of -the court" organized games of bowls or _tonneau_, and hobnobbed with the -officers of the garrison. Fontaine relates that they might have been -seen from the top of the towers, collected fifty at a time in the inner -court Bussy-Rabutin's room was open to all comers: his wife and friends -visited him; he gave dinners to persons from court, plotted love -intrigues there, and corresponded freely with his friends and relatives. -Several prisoners even had permission to take a walk into the town on -condition of their returning to the château in the evening. Two brothers -were placed in the Bastille together. They went out when they pleased, -taking turns; it was sufficient for one or other to be always at the -château. The officers of the staff gossiped with the prisoners and gave -them advice as to the best means of obtaining their liberty. - -This animated, courtly, and elegant life is described with infinite -charm by Madame de Staal, whom we have already cited. "We all used to -spend a part of the day with the governor. We dined with him, and after -dinner I enjoyed a rubber of ombre with Messieurs de Pompadour and de -Boisdavis, Ménil advising me. When it was over we returned to our own -apartments. The company met again in my rooms before supper, for which -we returned to the governor's, and after that we all went to bed." - -As to the manner in which the prisoners were fed and looked after, that -is surprising indeed, and what we shall say about it, though rigidly -accurate, will perhaps be regarded as an exaggeration. The governor drew -three livres a day for the maintenance of a man of inferior rank; five -livres for the maintenance of a tradesman; ten livres for a banker, a -magistrate, or a man of letters; fifteen livres for a judge of the -Parlement; thirty-six livres for a marshal of France. The Cardinal de -Rohan had 120 francs a day spent on him. The Prince de Courlande, during -a stay of five months at the Bastille, spent 22,000 francs. These -figures must be doubled and trebled to give the value they would -represent to-day. - -We read, too, with the greatest astonishment the description of the -meals the prisoners made. Renneville, whose evidence is the more -important in that his book is a pamphlet against the administration of -the Bastille, speaks in these terms of his first meal: "The turnkey put -one of my serviettes on the table and placed my dinner on it, which -consisted of pea soup garnished with lettuce, well simmered and -appetizing to look at, with a quarter of fowl to follow; in one dish -there was a juicy beef-steak, with plenty of gravy and a sprinkling of -parsley, in another a quarter of forcemeat pie well stuffed with -sweetbreads, cock's combs, asparagus, mushrooms, and truffles; and in a -third a ragoût of sheep's tongue, the whole excellently cooked; for -dessert, a biscuit and two pippins. The turnkey insisted on pouring out -my wine. This was good burgundy, and the bread was excellent. I asked -him to drink, but he declared it was not permitted. I asked if I should -pay for my food, or whether I was indebted to the king for it. He told -me that I had only to ask freely for whatever would give me pleasure, -that they would try to satisfy me, and that His Majesty paid for it -all." The "most Christian" king desired that his guests should fast on -Fridays and in Lent, but he did not treat them any the worse on that -account. "I had," says Renneville, "six dishes, and an admirable prawn -soup. Among the fish there was a very fine weever, a large fried sole, -and a perch, all very well seasoned, with three other dishes." At this -period Renneville's board cost ten francs a day; later he was reduced to -the rate of the prisoners of a lower class. "They much reduced my usual -fare," he says; "I had, however, a good soup with fried bread crumbs, a -passable piece of beef, a ragoût of sheep's tongue, and two custards for -dessert. I was treated in pretty much the same manner the whole time I -was in this gloomy place; sometimes they gave me, after my soup, a wing -or leg of fowl, sometimes they put two little patties on the edge of the -dish." - -Towards the end of Louis XV.'s reign, Dumouriez eulogizes the cookery of -the Bastille in almost the same terms. On the day of his entrance, -noticing that they were serving a fish dinner, he asked for a fowl to be -got from a neighbouring eating-house. "A fowl!" said the major, "don't -you know that to-day is Friday?" "Your business is to look after me and -not my conscience. I am an invalid, for the Bastille itself is a -disease," replied the prisoner. In an hour's time the fowl was on the -table. Subsequently he asked for his dinner and supper to be served at -the same time, between three and four o'clock. His valet, a good cook, -used to make him stews. "You fared very well at the Bastille; there -were always five dishes at dinner and three at supper, without the -dessert, and the whole being put on the table at once, appeared -magnificent." There is a letter from the major of the Bastille addressed -in 1764 to the lieutenant of police, discussing a prisoner named Vieilh, -who never ate butcher's meat; so they had to feed him exclusively on -game and poultry. Things were much the same under Louis XVI., as -Poultier d'Elmotte testifies: "De Launey, the governor, used to come and -have a friendly chat with me; he got them to consult my taste as regards -food, and to supply me with anything I wished for." The bookseller -Hardy, transferred in 1766 to the Bastille with the members of the -Breton deputation, declares frankly that they were all treated in the -best possible way. Finally, Linguet himself, in spite of his desire to -paint the lot of the victims of the Bastille in the most sombre colours, -is obliged to confess that food was supplied in abundance. Every morning -the cook sent up to him a menu on which he marked the dishes he fancied. - -The account books of the Bastille confirm the testimony of former -prisoners. The following, according to these documents, are the meals -that La Bourdonnais enjoyed during July, 1750. Every day the menu -contains soup, beef, veal, beans, French beans, two eggs, bread, -strawberries, cherries, gooseberries, oranges, two bottles of red wine, -and two bottles of beer. In addition to this regular bill of fare we -note on July 2, a fowl and a bottle of Muscat; on the 4th, a bottle of -Muscat; on the 7th, tea; on the 12th, a bottle of brandy; on the 13th, -some flowers; on the 14th, some quails; on the 15th, a turkey; on the -16th, a melon; on the 17th, a fowl; on the 18th, a young rabbit; on the -19th, a bottle of brandy; on the 20th, a chicken and ham sausage and two -melons; and so on. - -Tavernier was a prisoner of mean station, son of a doorkeeper of Paris -de Montmartel. He was implicated in a plot against the King's life, and -was one of the seven prisoners set free on the 14th of July. He was -found out of his mind in his cell. After he had been led in triumph -through the streets of Paris, he was shut up at Charenton. He was a -martyr, people exclaimed. He was certainly not so well off in his new -abode as he had been at the Bastille. We have an account of what was -supplied to him at the Bastille in addition to the ordinary meals, in -November, 1788, in March and May, 1789, three of the last months of his -imprisonment. In November we find: tobacco, four bottles of brandy, -sixty bottles of wine, thirty bottles of beer, two pounds of coffee, -three pounds of sugar, a turkey, oysters, chestnuts, apples, and pears; -in March: tobacco, four bottles of brandy, forty-four bottles of wine, -sixty bottles of beer, coffee, sugar, fowls, cheese; in May: tobacco, -four bottles of brandy, sixty-two bottles of wine, thirty-one bottles of -beer, pigeons, coffee, sugar, cheese, &c. We have the menus of the -Marquis de Sade for January, 1789: chocolate cream, a fat chicken -stuffed with chestnuts, pullets with truffles, potted ham, apricot -marmalade, &c. - -The facts we are describing were the rule. The prisoners who were -treated with the least consideration fed very well. Only those who were -sent down to the cells were sometimes put on bread and water, but that -was only a temporary punishment. - -When a complaint was formulated by any prisoner in regard to his food, a -reprimand to the governor soon followed. Then the lieutenant of police -inquired of the person concerned if he was better treated than formerly. -"His Majesty tells me," writes Pontchartrain to De Launey, "that -complaints have been raised about the bad food of the prisoners; he -instructs me to write to you to give the matter great attention." And -Sartine wrote jokingly to Major de Losmes: "I am quite willing for you -to get the clothes of Sieur Dubois enlarged, and I hope all your -prisoners may enjoy as excellent health." - -Further, the king clothed those of the prisoners who were too poor to -buy their own clothes. He did not give them a prison uniform, but -dressing-gowns padded or lined with rabbit skin, breeches of coloured -stuff, vests lined with silk plush and fancy coats.[36] The commissary -at the Bastille appointed to look after the supplies took the prisoners' -measure, and inquired about their tastes, and the colours and styles -that suited them best. A lady prisoner named Sauvé asked to have made -for her a dress of white silk, dotted with green flowers. The wife of -commissary Rochebrune spent several days in going the round of the Paris -shops, and then wrote in despair that no dressmaker had such a material, -the nearest approach to it being a white silk with green stripes: if -Madame Sauvé would be satisfied with that, they would send to take her -measure. "Monsieur le major," writes a prisoner named Hugonnet, "the -shirts they brought me yesterday are not a bit what I asked for, for I -remember having written 'fine, and with embroidered ruffles'; instead of -which these things are coarse, made of wretched linen, and with ruffles -at best only fit for a turnkey; and so I shall be glad if you will send -them back to the commissary; and let him keep them, for I declare I -won't have them." - -The governor also saw that the prisoners had some means of diversion. -The poorest he provided with pocket-money and tobacco. - -About the beginning of the seventeenth century, a Neapolitan named -Vinache died at the Bastille, after founding a library there for the use -of his fellow-prisoners. This library was gradually augmented by -donations from the governors, by gifts from various prisoners, and even -by the generosity of a citizen of Paris whose compassion had been -excited for the lot of the prisoners. The books consisted of romances, -works of science and philosophy, and religious books, light literature -predominating. The lieutenant of police, Berryer, struck out of the -list of books that were being sent one day to the binder a "poem on the -greatness of God," as being on "too melancholy a subject for prisoners." -The prisoners also procured books from outside. We have mentioned the -Comte de Belle-Isle, who had more than three hundred books and atlases -at the Bastille. La Beaumelle collected a library of more than 600 -volumes. The administration, moreover, never refused to get for the -prisoners, out of the royal funds and sometimes at considerable expense, -such works as they said were necessary to their studies. The works of -Voltaire and Puffendorf were readily placed in their hands. Finally, -under Louis XVI., they were allowed to read the gazettes. - -After the permission to have books and to write, the most coveted favour -was that of walking exercise. Refusal of this was rare. The prisoners -might walk, either on the towers of the Bastille, or in the inner -courts, or lastly along the bastion, which was transformed into a -garden. To fresh invigorating air the platform of the towers added the -attraction of the finest view. Fontaine relates that Sacy went to the -top of the towers every day after dinner. He there walked about in -company with the officers, who gave him news of the town and the -prisoners. - -In their rooms the prisoners amused themselves with feeding cats and -birds and animals of all kinds: they taught dogs tricks. Some were -allowed to have a violin or a clavecin. Pellisson was shut up with a -Basque who used to play to him on the musette. The Duke de Richelieu -boasts of the operatic airs he sang in parts with his neighbours in the -Bastille, Mdlle. de Launay among them, with her head at the bars of her -window; "we got up choruses of a sort, with fine effect." - -Other prisoners killed time with embroidery, weaving or knitting; some -made ornaments for the chapel of the château. Some devoted themselves to -carpentry, turned wood, made small articles of furniture. Artists -painted and sketched. "The occupation of M. de Villeroi was somewhat -singular: he had very fine clothes, which he was for ever unpicking and -sewing together again with much cleverness." The prisoners who lived -several in one room played at cards, chess, and backgammon. In 1788, at -the time of the troubles in Brittany, a dozen noblemen of that country -were shut up in the Bastille. They lived together, and asked for a -billiard table to amuse themselves; the table was set up in the -apartments of the major, and there these gentlemen went for their games. - -The prisoners who died in the Bastille were interred in the graveyard of -St. Paul's; the funeral service was held in the church of St. Paul, and -the burial certificate, bearing the family name of the deceased, was -drawn up in the vestry. It is not true that the names of the deceased -were wrongly stated in the register in order that their identity might -be concealed from the public. The Man in the Iron Mask was inscribed on -the register of St. Paul's under his real name. Jews, Protestants, and -suicides were buried in the garden of the château, the prejudices of the -period not allowing their remains to be laid in consecrated ground. - -Those who were liberated had a happier fate. Their dismissal was ordered -by a _lettre de cachet_, as their incarceration had been. These orders -for their liberation, so anxiously expected, were brought by the court -"distributors of packets" or by the ordinary post; sometimes relatives -and friends themselves brought the sealed envelope, in order to have the -joy of taking away at once those whose deliverance they came to effect. - -The governor, or, in his absence, the king's lieutenant, came into the -prisoner's chamber and announced that he was free. The papers and other -effects which had been taken from him on entrance were restored to him, -the major getting a receipt for them; then he signed a promise to reveal -nothing of what he had seen at the château. Many of the prisoners -refused to submit to this formality, and were liberated notwithstanding; -others, after having signed, retailed everywhere all they knew about the -prison, and were not interfered with. When the prisoner only recovered -his freedom under certain conditions, he was required to give an -undertaking to submit to the king's pleasure. - -All these formalities having been completed, the governor, with that -feeling for good form which characterized the men of the _ancien -régime_, had the man who had been his guest served for the last time -with an excellent dinner. If the prisoner was a man of good society, -the governor would even go so far as to invite him to his own table, and -then, the meal over and the good-byes said, he placed his own carriage -at the prisoner's disposal, and often entered it himself to accompany -him to his destination. - -More than one prisoner thus restored to the world must have felt greatly -embarrassed before a day was past, and have been at a loss what to do or -where to go. The administration of the Bastille sometimes gave money to -one and another to enable them to get along for a time. In December, -1783, a certain Dubu de la Tagnerette, after being set at liberty, was -lodged in the governor's house for a fortnight until he had found -apartments that would suit him. Moreover, many of the prisoners were -actually annoyed at being dismissed: we could cite examples of persons -who sought to get themselves sent to the Bastille; others refused to -accept their liberty, and others did their best to get their detention -prolonged. - -"Many come out," says Renneville, "very sad at having to leave." Le -Maistre de Sacy and Fontaine affirm that the years spent at the Bastille -were the best years in their lives. "The innocent life we lived," says -Renneville again, "Messieurs Hamilton, Schrader, and myself, seemed so -pleasant to M. Hamilton that he begged me to write a description of it -in verse." The _Memoirs_ of Madame de Staal represent her years at the -Bastille as the happiest she ever knew. "In my heart of hearts, I was -very far from desiring my liberty." "I stayed at the Bastille for six -weeks," observes the Abbé Morellet, "which sped away--I chuckle still as -I think of them--very pleasantly for me." And later, Dumouriez declares -that at the Bastille he was happy and never felt dull. - -Such was the rule of the celebrated state prison. In the last century -there was no place of detention in Europe where the prisoners were -surrounded with so many comforts and attentions: there is no such place -in these days. - -But in spite of these very real alleviations, it would be absurd to -pretend that the prisoners were in general reconciled to their -incarceration. Nothing is a consolation for the loss of liberty. How -many poor wretches, in their despair, have dashed their heads against -the thick walls while wife and children and concerns of the utmost -gravity were summoning them from without! The Bastille was the cause of -ruin to many; within its walls were shed tears which were never dried. - -An eighteenth-century writer thus defined the state prison: "A bastille -is any house solidly built, hermetically sealed, and diligently guarded, -where any person, of whatever rank, age, or sex, may enter without -knowing why, remain without knowing how long, hoping to leave it, but -not knowing how." These lines, written by an apologist for the old state -prison, contain its condemnation, without appeal, before the modern -mind. - - - - -CHAPTER IV. - -THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK. - - -For two centuries no question has excited public opinion more than that -of the Man in the Iron Mask. The books written on the subject would fill -a library. People despaired of ever lifting the veil. "The story of the -Iron Mask," says Michelet, "will probably remain for ever obscure," and -Henri Martin adds: "History has no right to pronounce judgment on what -will never leave the domain of conjecture." To-day, the doubt no longer -exists. The problem is solved. Before disclosing the solution which -criticism has unanimously declared correct, we propose to transcribe the -scanty authentic documents that we possess on the masked man, and then -to state the principal solutions which have been proposed, before -arriving at the true solution. - - -1. THE DOCUMENTS. - -_The Register of the Bastille._--To begin with, let us quote the text -which is the origin and foundation of all the works published on the -question of the Iron Mask. - -[Illustration: Note in Du Junca's Journal regarding the entrance to the -Bastille (September 18, 1698) of the Man in the Iron Mask.] - -Etienne du Junca, king's lieutenant at the Bastille, in a journal -which he began to keep on October 2, 1690, when he entered upon his -office--a sort of register in which he recorded day by day the details -concerning the arrival of the prisoners--writes, under date September -18, 1698, these lines,[37] which the popular legend has rendered -memorable:-- - -"Thursday, September 18 (1698), at three o'clock in the afternoon, M. de -Saint-Mars, governor of the château of the Bastille, made his first -appearance, coming from his governorship of the Isles of -Sainte-Marguerite-Honorat, bringing with him, in his conveyance, a -prisoner he had formerly at Pignerol, whom he caused to be always -masked, whose name is not mentioned; directly he got out of the carriage -he put him in the first room of the Bazinière tower, waiting till night -for me to take him, at nine o'clock, and put him with M. de Rosarges, -one of the sergeants brought by the governor, alone in the third room of -the Bertaudière tower, which I had had furnished with all necessaries -some days before his arrival, having received orders to that effect from -M. de Saint-Mars: the which prisoner will be looked after and waited on -by M. de Rosarges, and maintained by the governor." - -In a second register, supplementary to the first, in which du Junca -records details of the liberation or the death of the prisoners, we -read, under date November 19, 1703:-- - -"On the same day, November 19, 1703, the unknown prisoner, always masked -with a mask of black velvet, whom M. de Saint-Mars, the governor, -brought with him on coming from the Isles de Sainte-Marguerite, whom he -had kept for a long time, the which happening to be a little ill -yesterday on coming from mass, he died to-day, about ten o'clock at -night, without having had a serious illness; it could not have been -slighter. M. Giraut, our chaplain, confessed him yesterday, is surprised -at his death. He did not receive the sacrament, and our chaplain -exhorted him a moment before he died. And this unknown prisoner, kept -here for so long, was buried on Tuesday at four o'clock p.m., November -20, in the graveyard of St. Paul, our parish; on the register of burial -he was given a name also unknown. M. de Rosarges, major, and Arreil, -surgeon, signed the register." - -And in the margin:-- - -"I have since learnt that they called him M. de Marchiel on the -register, and that forty livres was the cost of the funeral." - -The registers of du Junca were preserved among the ancient archives of -the Bastille, whence they passed to the Arsenal library, where they are -now kept. They are drawn up in the clumsy handwriting of a soldier, with -little skill in penmanship. The spelling is bad. But the facts are -stated with precision, and have always proved accurate when checked. - -[Illustration: Notice in Du Junca's Journal of the death of the masked -prisoner in the Bastille (November 19, 1703).] - -The extract from the second register shows that the mysterious -prisoner wore, not a mask of iron, but one of black velvet. - -Further, the entry on the register of St. Paul's church has been -discovered. It reads:-- - -"On the 19th, Marchioly, aged 45 years or thereabouts, died in the -Bastille, whose body was buried in the churchyard of St. Paul, his -parish, the 20th of the present month, in the presence of M. Rosage -(_sic_), major of the Bastille, and of M. Reglhe (_sic_), surgeon major -of the Bastille, who signed.--(Signed) ROSARGES, REILHE." - -Such are the fundamental documents for the story of the Iron Mask; we -shall see by and by that they are sufficient to establish the truth. - -_The Letter of the Governor of Sainte-Marguerite._--We have just seen, -from the register of du Junca, that the masked man had been at the Isles -of Sainte-Marguerite under the charge of Saint-Mars, who, on being -appointed governor of the Bastille, had brought the prisoner with him. -In the correspondence exchanged between Saint-Mars and the minister -Barbezieux, occurs the following letter, dated January 6, 1696, in which -Saint-Mars describes his method of dealing with the prisoners, and the -masked man is referred to under the appellation "my ancient prisoner." - - "MY LORD,--You command me to tell you what is the practice, when I - am absent or ill, as to the visits made and precautions taken daily - in regard to the prisoners committed to my charge. My two - lieutenants serve the meals at the regular hours, just as they - have seen me do, and as I still do very often when I am well. The - first of my lieutenants, who takes the keys of the prison of _my - ancient prisoner_, with whom we commence, opens the three doors and - enters the chamber of the prisoner, who politely hands him the - plates and dishes, put one on top of another, to give them into the - hands of the lieutenant, who has only to go through two doors to - hand them to one of my sergeants, who takes them and places them on - a table two steps away, where is the second lieutenant, who - examines everything that enters and leaves the prison, and sees - that there is nothing written on the plate; and after they have - given him the utensil, they examine his bed inside and out, and - then the gratings and windows of his room, and very often the man - himself: after having asked him very politely if he wants anything - else, they lock the doors and proceed to similar business with the - other prisoners." - -_The Letter of M. de Palteau._--On June 19, 1768, M. de Formanoir de -Palteau addressed from the château of Palteau, near Villeneuve-le-Roi, -to the celebrated Fréron, editor of the _Année Littéraire_, a letter -which was inserted in the number for June 30, 1768. The author of this -letter was the grand-nephew of Saint-Mars. At the time when the latter -was appointed governor of the Bastille, the château of Palteau belonged -to him, and he halted there with his prisoner on the way from the Isles -of Sainte-Marguerite to Paris. - -"In 1698," writes M. de Palteau, "M. de Saint-Mars passed from the -governorship of the Isles of Sainte-Marguerite to that of the Bastille. -On his way to take up his duties, he stayed with his prisoner on his -estate at Palteau. The masked man arrived in a conveyance which preceded -that of M. de Saint-Mars; they were accompanied by several horsemen. The -peasants went to meet their lord: M. de Saint-Mars ate with his -prisoner, who had his back turned to the windows of the dining-hall -looking on the courtyard. The peasants whom I have questioned could not -see whether he ate with his mask on; but they observed very well that M. -de Saint-Mars, who was opposite him at table, had two pistols beside his -plate. They had only one footman to wait on them, and he fetched the -dishes from an ante-room where they were brought him, carefully shutting -the door of the dining-hall behind him. When the prisoner crossed the -courtyard, he always had his black mask over his face; the peasants -noticed that his lips and teeth were not covered, that he was tall and -had white hair. M. de Saint-Mars slept in a bed that was put up for him -near that of the masked man." - -This account is marked throughout with the stamp of truth. M. de -Palteau, the writer, makes no attempt to draw inferences from it. He -declares for none of the hypotheses then under discussion in regard to -the identity of the mysterious unknown. He is content to report the -testimony of those of his peasants who saw the masked man when he passed -through their lord's estates. The only detail in the story which we are -able to check--a characteristic detail, it is true--is that of the black -mask of which M. de Palteau speaks: it corresponds exactly to the mask -of black velvet mentioned in du Junca's register. - -The château of Palteau is still in existence. In his work on -Superintendent Fouquet, M. Jules Lair gives a description of it. "The -château of Palteau, situated on an eminence among woods and vines, -presented at that time, as it does to-day, the aspect of a great lordly -mansion in the style of the time of Henri IV. and Louis XIII. First -there is a wide courtyard, then two wings; within, the principal -building and the chapel. The lower story is supported on arches, and its -lofty windows go right up into the roof, and light the place from floor -to attic." Since the eighteenth century, however, the château has -undergone some modifications. The room in which Saint-Mars dined with -his prisoner is now used as a kitchen. - -_The Notes of Major Chevalier._--In addition to the entries in du -Junca's Journal which we have transcribed, scholars are accustomed to -invoke, as equally worthy of credence though later in date, the -testimony of Father Griffet, chaplain of the Bastille, and that of Major -Chevalier. - -The extracts from du Junca quoted above were published for the first -time in 1769 by Father Griffet, who added the following comments: "The -memory of the masked prisoner was still preserved among the officers, -soldiers, and servants of the Bastille, when M. de Launey, who has long -been the governor, came to occupy a place on the staff of the garrison. -Those who had seen him with his mask, when he crossed the courtyard on -his way to attend mass, said that after his death the order was given to -burn everything he had used, such as linen, clothes, cushions, -counterpanes, &c.: that the very walls of the room he had occupied had -to be scraped and whitewashed again, and that all the tiles of the -flooring were taken up and replaced by others, because they were so -afraid that he had found the means to conceal some notes or some mark, -the discovery of which would have revealed his name." - -The testimony of Father Griffet happens to be confirmed by some notes -from the pen of a major of the Bastille named Chevalier. The major was -not a personage of the highest rank in the administration of the -Bastille, since above him were the governor and the king's lieutenant: -but he was the most important personage. The whole internal -administration, so far as the prisoners were concerned, was entrusted to -him. Chevalier fulfilled these duties for nearly thirty-eight years, -from 1749 to 1787. M. Fernand Bournon's estimate of him is as follows: -"Chevalier is a type of the devoted hard-working official who has no -ambition to rise above a rather subordinate rank. It would be impossible -to say how much the administration of the Bastille owed to his zeal and -to his perfect familiarity with a service of extraordinary difficulty." - -Among notes put together with a view to a history of the Bastille, -Chevalier gives in condensed form the information furnished by du -Junca's register, and adds: "This is the famous masked man whom no one -has ever known. He was treated with great distinction by the governor, -and was seen only by M. de Rosarges, major of the said château, who had -sole charge of him; he was not ill except for a few hours, and died -rather suddenly: interred at St. Paul's, on Tuesday, November 20, 1703, -at 4 o'clock p.m., under the name of Marchiergues. He was buried in a -new white shroud, given by the governor, and practically everything in -his room was burnt, such as his bed, chairs, tables, and other bits of -furniture, or else melted down, and the whole was thrown into the -privies." - -These notes of Father Griffet and Major Chevalier have derived great -force, in the eyes of historians, from their exact agreement; but a -close examination shows that the testimony of Chevalier was the source -of Father Griffet's information; in fact, Chevalier was major of the -Bastille when the Jesuit compiled his work, and it is doubtless upon his -authority that the latter depended. - -Documents recently published in the _Revue Bleue_ upset these -assertions, which appeared to be based on the firmest foundations. - -In the Journal of du Junca, which we have already mentioned, we read -under date April 30, 1701: "Sunday, April 30, about 9 o'clock in the -evening, M. Aumont the younger came, bringing and handing over to us a -prisoner named M. Maranville, alias Ricarville, who was an officer in -the army, a malcontent, too free with his tongue, a worthless fellow: -whom I received in obedience to the king's orders sent through the Count -of Pontchartrain: whom I have had put along with the man Tirmon, in the -second room of the Bertaudière tower, with the _ancient prisoner_, both -being well locked in." - -The "ancient prisoner" here referred to is no other than the masked man. -When he entered the Bastille, as we have seen, on September 18, 1698, he -was placed in the third room of the Bertaudière tower. In 1701, the -Bastille happened to be crowded with prisoners, and they had to put -several together in one and the same room; so the man in the mask was -placed with two companions. One of them, Jean-Alexandre de Ricarville, -also called Maranville, had been denounced as a "retailer of ill speech -against the State, finding fault with the policy of France and lauding -that of foreigners, especially that of the Dutch." The police reports -depict him as a beggarly fellow, poorly dressed, and about sixty years -old. He had formerly been, as du Junca says, an officer in the royal -troops. Maranville left the Bastille on October 19, 1708. He was -transferred to Charenton, where he died in February, 1709. It must be -pointed out that Charenton was then an "open" prison, where the -prisoners associated with one another and had numerous relations with -the outside world. - -The second of the fellow-prisoners of the man in the mask, -Dominique-François Tirmont, was a servant. When he was placed in the -Bastille, on July 30, 1700, he was nineteen years old. He was accused of -sorcery and of debauching young girls. He was put in the second room of -the Bertaudière tower, where he was joined by Maranville and the man in -the mask. On December 14, 1701, he was transferred to Bicêtre. He lost -his reason in 1703 and died in 1708. - -The man in the mask was taken out of the third room of the Bertaudière -tower, in which he had been placed on his entrance to the Bastille, on -March 6, 1701, in order to make room for a woman named Anne Randon, a -"witch and fortune-teller," who was shut up alone in it. The masked -prisoner was then placed in the "second Bertaudière" with Tirmont, who -had been there, as we have just seen, since July 30, 1700. Maranville -joined them on April 30, 1701. Not long after, the masked man was -transferred to another room, with or without Maranville. Tirmont had -been taken to Bicêtre in 1701. We find that on February 26, 1703, the -Abbé Gonzel, a priest of Franche-Comté, accused of being a spy, was shut -up alone in the "second Bertaudière." - -These facts are of undeniable authenticity, and one sees at a glance the -consequences springing from them. At the time when the masked prisoner -shared the same room with fellow-captives, other prisoners at the -Bastille were kept rigorously isolated, in spite of the crowded state of -the prison, so much more important did the reasons for their -incarceration seem! The man in the mask was associated with persons of -the lowest class, who were soon afterwards to leave and take their -places with the ruck of prisoners at Charenton and Bicêtre. We read in a -report of D'Argenson that there was even some talk of enlisting one of -them, Tirmont, in the army. Such, then, was this strange personage, the -repository of a terrible secret of which Madame Palatine[38] was already -speaking in mysterious terms, the man who puzzled kings, Louis XV., -Louis XVI., who puzzled the very officers of the Bastille, and caused -them to write stories as remote as possible from the reality! - - -2. THE LEGEND. - -If the very officers of the Bastille indulged such wild freaks of -imagination, what flights into dreamland might not the thoughts of the -public be expected to take? The movement is a very curious one to -follow. To begin with, we have the light Venetian mask transforming -itself into an iron mask with steel articulations which the prisoner -was never without. The consideration--imaginary, as we have seen--with -which the prisoner is supposed to have been treated, and which is -referred to in the notes of Major Chevalier, becomes transformed into -marks of a boundless deference shown by the jailers towards their -captive. The story was that Saint-Mars, the governor, a knight of St. -Louis, never spoke to the prisoner except standing, with bared head, -that he served him at table with his own hands and on silver plate, and -that he supplied him with the most luxurious raiment his fancy could -devise. Chevalier says that after his death his room at the Bastille was -done up like new, to prevent his successor from discovering any -tell-tale evidence in some corner. Speaking of the time when the masked -man was at the Isles of Sainte-Marguerite, Voltaire relates: "One day -the prisoner wrote with a knife on a silver dish, and threw the dish out -of the window towards a boat moored on the shore, almost at the foot of -the tower. A fisherman, to whom the boat belonged, picked up the dish -and carried it to the governor. Astonished, he asked the fisherman, -'Have you read what is written on this dish, and has anyone seen it in -your hands?' 'I cannot read,' replied the fisher, 'I have only just -found it, and no one has seen it.' The poor man was detained until the -governor was assured he could not read and that no one had seen the -dish. 'Go,' he said, 'it is lucky for you that you can't read!'" - -In Father Papon's _History of Provence_, linen takes the place of the -dish. The upshot is more tragic: "I found in the citadel an officer of -the Free Company, aged 79 years. He told me several times that a barber -of that company saw one day, under the prisoner's window, something -white floating on the water; he went and picked it up and carried it to -M. de Saint-Mars. It was a shirt of fine linen, folded with no apparent -care, and covered with the prisoner's writing. M. de Saint-Mars, after -unfolding it and reading a few lines, asked the barber, with an air of -great embarrassment, if he had not had the curiosity to read what was on -it. The barber protested over and over again that he had read nothing; -but, two days after, he was found dead in his bed." - -And the fact that Saint-Mars had had the body of the prisoner buried in -a white cloth struck the imagination, and was developed in its turn into -an extraordinary taste on the part of the prisoner for linen of the -finest quality and for costly lace--all which was taken to prove that -the masked man was a son of Anne of Austria, who had a very special -love, it was declared, for valuable lace and fine linen. - -_A Brother of Louis XIV._--We are able to fix with precision, we -believe, the origin of the legend which made the Iron Mask a brother of -Louis XIV. Moreover, it was due to this suggestion, which was hinted at -from the first, that the story of the prisoner made so great a noise. -The glory of it belongs to the most famous writer of the eighteenth -century. With a boldness of imagination for which to-day he would be -envied by the cleverest journalistic inventor of sensational paragraphs, -Voltaire started this monstrous hoax on its vigorous flight. - -In 1745 there had just appeared a sort of romance entitled _Notes -towards the History of Persia_, which was attributed, not without some -reason, to Madame de Vieux-Maisons. The book contained a story within a -story, in which the mysterious prisoner, who was beginning to be talked -about everywhere, was identified with the Duke de Vermandois, and to -this fact was due the sensation which the book caused. Voltaire -immediately saw how he could turn the circumstance to account. He had -himself at one time been confined in the Bastille, which was one reason -for speaking of it; but he did not dare put in circulation suddenly, -without some preparation, the terrible story he had just conceived, and, -with a very delicate sensitiveness to public opinion, he contented -himself with printing the following paragraph in the first edition of -his _Age of Louis XIV._: "A few months after the death of Mazarin there -occurred an event which is unexampled in history, and, what is not less -strange, has been passed over in silence by all the historians. There -was sent with the utmost secrecy to the château of the Isle of -Sainte-Marguerite, in the Sea of Provence, an unknown prisoner, of more -than ordinary height, young, and with features of rare nobility and -beauty. On the way, this prisoner wore a mask the chinpiece of which was -fitted with springs of steel, which allowed him to eat freely with the -mask covering his face. The order had been given to kill him if he -uncovered. He remained in the island until an officer in whom great -confidence was placed, named Saint-Mars, governor of Pignerol, having -been made governor of the Bastille, came to the Isle of -Sainte-Marguerite to fetch him, and conducted him to the Bastille, -always masked. The Marquis de Louvois saw him in the island before his -removal, and remained standing while he spoke to him, with a -consideration savouring of respect." Voltaire, however, does not say who -this extraordinary prisoner was. He observed the impression produced on -the public by his story. Then he ventured more boldly, and in the first -edition of his _Questions on the Encyclopædia_ insinuated that the -motive for covering the prisoner's face with a mask was fear lest some -too striking likeness should be recognized. He still refrained from -giving his name, but already everyone was on tip-toe with the -expectation of startling news. At last, in the second edition of -_Questions on the Encyclopædia_, Voltaire intrepidly added that the man -in the mask was a uterine brother of Louis XIV., a son of Mazarin and -Anne of Austria, and older than the king. We know what incomparable -agitators of public opinion the Encyclopædists were. - -Once hatched, the story was not long in producing a numerous progeny, -which grew in their turn and became a monstrous brood. - -We read in the _Memoirs_ of the Duke de Richelieu, compiled by his -secretary the Abbé Soulavie, that Mdlle. de Valois, the Regent's -daughter and at this date the mistress of Richelieu, consented, at the -instigation of the latter, to prostitute herself to her -father--tradition has it that the Regent was enamoured of his -daughter--in order to get sight of an account of the Iron Mask drawn up -by Saint-Mars. According to this story, which the author of the -_Memoirs_ prints in its entirety, Louis XIV. was born at noon, and at -half-past eight in the evening, while the king was at supper, the queen -was brought to bed of a second son, who was put out of sight so as to -avoid subsequent dissensions in the state. - -The Baron de Gleichen goes still farther. He is at the pains to prove -that it was the true heir to the throne who was put out of sight, to the -profit of a child of the queen and the cardinal. Having became masters -of the situation at the death of the king, they substituted their son -for the Dauphin, the substitution being facilitated by a strong likeness -between the children. One sees at a glance the consequences of this -theory, which nullifies the legitimacy of the last Bourbons. - -But the career of imagination was not yet to be checked. The legend came -into full bloom under the first empire. Pamphlets then appeared in which -the version of Baron de Gleichen was revived. Louis XIV. had been only a -bastard, the son of foreigners; the lawful heir had been imprisoned at -the Isles of Sainte-Marguerite, where he had married the daughter of one -of his keepers. Of this marriage was born a child who, as soon as he was -weaned, was sent to Corsica, and entrusted to a reliable person, as a -child coming of "good stock," in Italian, _Buona-parte_. Of that child -the Emperor was the direct descendant. The right of Napoleon I. to the -throne of France established by the Iron Mask!--there is a discovery -which the great Dumas missed. But, incredible as it seems, there were -men who actually took these fables seriously. In a Vendéan manifesto -circulated among the Chouans,[39] in Nivose of the year IX,[40] we read: -"It is not wise for the Royalist party to rely on the assurances given -by some emissaries of Napoleon, that he seized the throne only to -restore the Bourbons; everything proves that he only awaits the general -pacification to declare himself, and that he means to base his right on -the birth of the children of the Iron Mask!" - -We shall not stay to refute the hypothesis which makes the Iron Mask a -brother of Louis XIV. Marius Topin has already done so in the clearest -possible manner. The notion, moreover, has long been abandoned. The last -writers who adhered to it date from the revolutionary period. - -_The Successive Incarnations of the Iron Mask._--"Never has an Indian -deity," says Paul de Saint-Victor, speaking of the Iron Mask, "undergone -so many metempsychoses and so many avatars." It would take too long -merely to enumerate all the individuals with whom it has been attempted -to identify the Iron Mask: even women have not escaped. We shall cite -rapidly the theories which have found most credence amongst the public, -or those which have been defended in the most serious works, in order to -arrive finally at the identification--as will be seen, it is one of -those proposed long ago--which is beyond doubt the true one. - -The hypothesis which, after that of a brother of Louis XIV., has most -powerfully excited public opinion, is that which made the mysterious -unknown Louis, Comte de Vermandois, admiral of France, and son of the -charming Louise de la Vallière. This was indeed the belief of Father -Griffet, chaplain of the Bastille, and even of the officers of the -staff. But the conjecture is disproved in a single line: "The Comte de -Vermandois died at Courtrai, on November 18, 1683." A precisely similar -fact refutes the theory identifying the Iron Mask with the Duke of -Monmouth, the natural son of Charles II. and Lucy Walters. Monmouth -perished on the scaffold in 1683. Lagrange-Chancel throws much ardour -and talent into a defence of the theory which made the Iron Mask Francis -of Vendôme, Duke de Beaufort, who, under the Fronde, was called "King of -the Markets." The Duke de Beaufort died at the siege of Candia, June 25, -1669. - -To Lagrange-Chancel succeeds the Chevalier de Taulès. "I have discovered -the Man in the Mask," he cries, "and it is my duty to impart my -discovery to Europe and posterity!" This discovery brings forward one -Avedick, an Armenian patriarch of Constantinople and Jerusalem, -kidnapped in the East at the instigation of the Jesuits, and transported -to France. Vergennes, on entering the ministry for foreign affairs, set -investigations on foot. They confirmed the statement that Avedick had -actually been arrested in the circumstances indicated, but after 1706; -and so he could not be identified with the Iron Mask. - -Such were the theories of the eighteenth century. We come now to those -of our own time. Since mystery and sinister machinations were involved, -the Jesuits could not be long left out of the business. We have just -seen them at their tricks with the Armenian patriarch. People dreamt of -an innocent youth thrown into a dungeon at their instigation for having -written a couple of verses against them. But even this fancy was -completely cast into the shade in a work published in 1885 under the -pseudonym of "Ubalde," the author of which was unquestionably M. Anatole -Loquin. This is his conclusion: "The more I reflect, the more I believe -I recognize in the Man in the Iron Mask, without any elaborate theory, -without prejudice on my part, no other than J. B. Poquelin de Molière." -The Jesuits have got their revenge for _Tartufe_! - -Let us come now to the conjectures which have almost hit the truth and -have been defended by genuine scholars. - -Superintendent Fouquet is the solution of the bibliophile Jacob (Paul -Lacroix). M. Lair has shown that Fouquet died at Pignerol, of a sort of -apoplexy, on March 23, 1680, at the very moment when there was an idea -at court of sending him to the waters at Bourbon, as a first step -towards his final liberation. - -François Ravaisson, the learned and charming keeper of the Arsenal -library, whose work in classifying the archives of the Bastille we have -had the honour to continue, believed for a moment that the celebrated -prisoner might have been the young Count de Kéroualze who had fought at -Candia under the orders of Admiral de Beaufort. Ravaisson put forth his -theory with much hesitation, and as, in the sequel, he was himself led -to abandon it, we need not dwell any longer upon it. - -M. Loiseleur, in the course of his brilliant controversy with Marius -Topin, suggested "an obscure spy arrested by Catinat in 1681," and his -opponent refuted him in the most piquant manner by discovering Catinat -in the very prisoner he was said to have arrested! - -General Jung published a large volume in support of the claims of a -certain Oldendorf, a native of Lorraine, a spy and poisoner, arrested on -March 29, 1673, in a trap laid for him at one of the passages of the -Somme. The theory was refuted by M. Loiseleur. As M. Lair pointed out, -General Jung did not even succeed in proving that his nominee entered -Pignerol, an essential condition to his being the Man in the Mask. - -Baron Carutti urged the claims of a mad Jacobin, a prisoner at Pignerol -whose name remains unknown; but this Jacobin died at Pignerol towards -the close of 1693.' - -The recent work of M. Emile Burgaud, written in collaboration with -Commandant Bazeries, made a great sensation. He fixes on General Vivien -Labbé de Bulonde, whom Louvois arrested for having shown dereliction of -a general's duty before Coni. M. Geoffroy de Grandmaison published in -the _Univers_ of January 9, 1895, two receipts signed by General de -Bulonde, one in 1699, when the masked man was in rigorous isolation at -the Bastille, the other in 1705, when he had been dead for two years. - -We come at last to the hypothesis which is the most probable of -all--after the true hypothesis, of course. Eustache Dauger, whom M. Lair -identifies with the masked prisoner, was a valet, who had been put into -jail at Pignerol on July 28, 1669. But it must be noted that the masked -prisoner was kept guarded in rigorous secrecy in the early days of his -detention, as long as he was at Pignerol and the Isles of -Sainte-Marguerite. Now, when Dauger went to Pignerol, his case seemed of -such slight importance that Saint-Mars thought of making him into a -servant for the other prisoners, and in fact, in 1675, Louvois gave him -as a valet to Fouquet, who for some time past had seen the rigour of his -confinement sensibly mitigated, receiving visits, walking freely in the -courts and purlieus of the fortress, Dauger accompanying him. Further, -we know that the masked man was transferred direct from Pignerol to the -Isles of Sainte-Marguerite, whilst Dauger was transferred in 1681 to -Exiles, whence he only went to the Isles in 1687. - -We now come to the correct solution. - - -3. MATTIOLI. - -To Baron Heiss, once captain in the Alsace regiment, and one of the most -distinguished bibliophiles of his time, belongs the honour of being the -first, in a letter dated from Phalsbourg, June 28, 1770, and published -by the _Journal encyclopédique_, to identify the masked prisoner with -Count Mattioli, secretary of state to the Duke of Mantua. After him, -Dutens, in 1783, in his _Intercepted Correspondence_; Baron de -Chambrier, in 1795, in a Memoir presented to the Academy of Berlin; -Roux-Fazillac, member of the Legislative Assembly and the Convention, in -a remarkable work printed in 1801; then successively, Reth, Delort, -Ellis, Carlo Botta, Armand Baschet, Marius Topin, Paul de Saint-Victor, -and M. Gallien, in a series of publications more or less important, -endeavoured to prove that the Man in the Mask was the Duke of Mantua's -secretary of state. The scholars most intimate with the history of Louis -XIV.'s government, Depping, Chéruel, Camille Rousset, have not hesitated -to pronounce in favour of the same view; while against them, -singlehanded like his D'Artagnan, Alexandre Dumas resisted the efforts -of twenty scholars, and the _Vicomte de Bragelonne_--giving a new lease -of life to the legend about the brother of Louis XIV., put in -circulation by Voltaire, and reinforced by the Revolution--drove back -into their dust among the archives the documents which students had -exhumed. - -We have no longer to deal with so formidable an adversary, and we hope -that the following pages will not leave the shadow of a doubt. - -We know how, under the influence of Louvois, the able and insinuating -policy directed first by Mazarin, then by Lionne, gave way to a military -diplomacy, blunt and aggressive. Louis XIV. was master of Pignerol, -acquired in 1632. He was induced by Louvois to cast covetous glances at -Casal. In possession of these two places, the French armies could not -but dominate Upper Italy, and hold the court of Turin directly at their -mercy. The throne of Mantua was then occupied by a young duke, Charles -IV. of Gonzago, frivolous, happy-go-lucky, dissipating his wealth at -Venice in fêtes and pleasures. In 1677 he had pledged to the Jews the -crown revenues for several years. Charles IV. was also Marquis of -Montferrat, of which Casal was the capital. Noting with watchful eye the -frivolity and financial straits of the young prince, the court of -Versailles conceived the bold scheme of buying Casal for hard cash. - -At this date, one of the principal personages in Mantua was Count -Hercules Antony Mattioli. He was born at Bologna on December 1, 1640, of -a distinguished family. A brilliant student, he had barely passed his -twentieth year when he was elected a professor at the University of -Bologna. Afterwards he established himself at Mantua, where Charles -III., whose confidence he had won, made him his secretary of state. -Charles IV., continuing the favour of his father, not only maintained -Mattioli in his office as minister of state, but appointed him an -honorary senator, a dignity which was enhanced by the title of Count. - -Louis XIV. was employing at the capital of the Venetian republic a -keen-witted and enterprising ambassador, the Abbé d'Estrades. He saw -through the ambitious and intriguing nature of Mattioli, and, towards -the end of 1677, succeeded in winning over his support for the designs -of the French court on Casal. - -On January 12, 1678, Louis XIV. with his own hand wrote expressing his -thanks to Mattioli, who by-and-by came to Paris. On December 8, the -contract was signed, the Duke of Mantua receiving in exchange for Casal -100,000 crowns. In a private audience, Louis XIV. presented Mattioli -with a costly diamond and paid him the sum of a hundred double louis. - -Scarcely two months after Mattioli's journey to France, the courts of -Vienna, Madrid, Turin, and the Venetian Republic were simultaneously -informed of all that had taken place. In order to reap a double harvest -of gold, Mattioli had cynically betrayed both his master Charles IV. and -the King of France. Like a thunderbolt there came to Versailles the news -of the arrest of Baron d'Asfeld, the envoy appointed by Louis XIV. to -exchange ratifications with Mattioli. The governor of Milan had caused -him to be seized and handed over to the Spaniards. The rage of Louis -XIV. and of Louvois, who had urged the opening of negotiations, taken -an active part in them, and begun preparations for the occupation of -Casal, may well be imagined. The Abbé d'Estrades, not less irritated, -conceived a scheme of the most daring kind, proposing to Versailles -nothing less than the abduction of the Mantuan minister. But Louis XIV. -was determined to have no scandal. Catinat was charged with carrying out -the scheme in person. The Abbé d'Estrades, in his dealings with -Mattioli, feigned ignorance of the double game the Count was playing. He -led him to believe, on the contrary, that the balance of the sums -promised at Versailles was about to be paid. A meeting was fixed for May -2, 1679. On that day d'Estrades and Mattioli got into a carriage, the -passing of which was awaited by Catinat accompanied by some dozen men. -At two o'clock in the afternoon, Mattioli was in the fortress of -Pignerol, in the hands of jailer Saint-Mars. When we remember the rank -held by the Italian minister, we are confronted with one of the most -audacious violations of international law of which history has preserved -a record. - -Early in the year 1694, Mattioli was transferred to the Isles of -Sainte-Marguerite; we have seen that he entered the Bastille on -September 18, 1698, and died there on November 19, 1703. - -The details that we possess of the imprisonment of Mattioli at Pignerol -and afterwards at the Isles of Sainte-Marguerite show that he was at the -outset treated with the consideration due to his rank and to the -position he occupied at the time of his arrest. Eventually the respect -which the prisoner had at first inspired gradually diminished: as years -went on the attentions shown him grew less and less until the day when, -at the Bastille, he was given a room in common with persons of the -basest class. On the other hand, the rigour of his confinement, so far -as the secrecy in which he was kept was concerned, was more and more -relaxed; what it was material to conceal was the circumstances under -which Mattioli had been arrested, and with the lapse of time this secret -continually diminished in importance. As to the mask of black velvet -which Mattioli had among his possessions when he was arrested, and which -he put on, without a doubt, only for the occasion, this in reality -constituted a relief to his captivity, for it permitted the prisoner to -leave his room, while the other state prisoners were rigorously mewed up -in theirs. - - * * * * * - -It remains to prove that the masked prisoner was really Mattioli. - -1. In the despatch sent by Louis XIV. to the Abbé d'Estrades five days -before the arrest, the king approves the scheme of his ambassador and -authorizes him to secure Mattioli, "since you believe you can get him -carried off without the affair giving rise to any scandal." The prisoner -is to be conducted to Pignerol, where "instructions are being sent to -receive him and keep him there without anybody having knowledge of it." -The king's orders close with these words: "You must see to it that no -one knows what becomes of this man." The capture effected, Catinat wrote -on his part to Louvois: "It came off without any violence, and no one -knows the name of the knave, not even the officers who helped to arrest -him." Finally, we have a very curious pamphlet entitled _La Prudenza -triomfante di Casale_, written in 1682, that is, little more than two -years after the event, and--this slight detail is of capital -importance--thirty years before there was any talk of the Man in the -Mask. In this we read: "The secretary (Mattioli) was surrounded by ten -or twelve horsemen, who seized him, disguised him, _masked_ him, and -conducted him to Pignerol"--a fact, moreover, confirmed by a tradition -which in the eighteenth century was still rife in the district, where -scholars succeeded in culling it. - -Is there any need to insist on the strength of the proofs afforded by -these three documents, taken in connection one with another? - -2. We know, from du Junca's register, that the masked man was shut up at -Pignerol under the charge of Saint-Mars. In 1681, Saint-Mars gave up the -governorship of Pignerol for that of Exiles. We can determine with -absolute precision the number of prisoners Saint-Mars had then in his -keeping. It was exactly five. A dispatch from Louvois, dated June 9, is -very clear. In the first paragraph, he orders "the two prisoners in the -lower tower" to be removed; in the second, he adds: "The rest of the -prisoners in your charge." Here there is a clear indication of the -"rest": what follows settles the number: "The Sieur du Chamoy has orders -to pay two crowns a day for the board of these _three_ prisoners." This -account, as clear as arithmetic can make it, is further confirmed by the -letter addressed by Saint-Mars to the Abbé d'Estrades on June 25, 1681, -when he was setting out for Exiles: "I received yesterday the warrant -appointing me governor of Exiles: I am to keep charge of two jailbirds I -have here, who have no other name than 'the gentlemen of the lower -tower'; Mattioli will remain here with two other prisoners." - -The prisoners, then, were five in number, and the masked man is to be -found, of necessity, among them. Now we know who these five were: (1) a -certain La Rivière, who died at the end of December, 1686; (2) a -Jacobin, out of his mind, who died at the end of 1693; (3) a certain -Dubreuil, who died at the Isles of Sainte-Marguerite about 1697. There -remain Dauger and Mattioli. The Man in the Mask is, without possible -dispute, the one or the other. We have explained above the reasons which -lead us to discard Dauger. The mysterious prisoner, then, was Mattioli. -The proof is mathematically exact. - -[Illustration: - - Burial certificate of the masked prisoner (November 20, 1703), - reproduced from the facsimile in the sixth edition of _The Man in - the Iron Mask_, by Marius Topin, 1883. The original, in the city - archives of Paris, was destroyed in the conflagration of 1871. -] - -3. Opposite this page will be found a facsimile reproduction of the -death certificate of the masked prisoner as inscribed on the registers -of the church of St. Paul. It is the very name of the Duke of Mantua's -former secretary that is traced there: "Marchioly." It must be -remembered that "Marchioly" would be pronounced in Italian "Markioly," -and that Saint-Mars, governor of the Bastille, who furnished the -information on which the certificate was drawn up, almost always wrote -in his correspondence--a characteristic detail--not "Mattioli," but -"Martioly": that is the very name on the register, less distorted than -the name of the major of the Bastille, who was called "Rosarges," and -not "Rosage," as given on the register; and the name of the surgeon, who -was called "Reilhe," and not "Reglhe." - -It has been shown above how, as time went on, the rigorous seclusion to -which the masked prisoner had been condemned was relaxed. What it had -been thought necessary to conceal was the manner in which Mattioli had -been captured, and with time that secret itself had lost its importance. -As the Duke of Mantua had declared himself very well pleased with the -arrest of the minister by whom he, no less than Louis XIV., had been -deceived, there was nothing to prevent the name from being inscribed on -a register of death, where, moreover, no one would ever have thought of -looking for it. - -Let us add that, in consequence of error or carelessness on the part of -the officer who supplied the information for the register, or perhaps on -the part of the parson or beadle who wrote it, the age is stated -incorrectly, "forty-five years or thereabouts," while Mattioli was -sixty-three when he died. However, the register was filled up without -the least care, as a formality of no importance. - -4. The Duke de Choiseul pressed Louis XV. to reveal to him the clue to -the enigma. The king escaped with an evasion. One day, however, he said -to him: "If you knew all about it, you would see that it has very little -interest;" and some time after, when Madame de Pompadour, at de -Choiseul's instigation, pressed the king on the subject, he told her -that the prisoner was "the minister of an Italian prince." - -In the _Memoirs of the Private Life of Marie Antoinette_ by her -principal lady in waiting, Madame de Campan, we read that the queen -tormented Louis XVI., who did not know the secret, to have a search made -among the papers of the various ministries. "I was with the queen," says -Madame de Campan, "when the king, having finished his researches, told -her that he had found nothing in the secret papers which had any bearing -on the existence of this prisoner; that he had spoken on the subject to -M. de Maurepas, whose age brought him nearer the time when the whole -story must have been known to the ministers (Maurepas had been minister -of the king's household as a very young man, in the early years of the -eighteenth century, having the department of the _lettres de cachet_), -and that M. de Maurepas had assured him that the prisoner was simply a -man of a very dangerous character through his intriguing spirit, and a -subject of the Duke of Mantua. He was lured to the frontier, arrested, -and kept a prisoner, at first at Pignerol, then at the Bastille." - -These two pieces of evidence are of such weight that they alone would -be sufficient to fix the truth. When they were written, there was no -talk of Mattioli, of whose very name Madame de Campan was ignorant. -Supposing that Madame de Campan had amused herself by inventing a -fable--an absurd and improbable supposition, for what reason could she -have had for so doing?--it is impossible to admit that her imagination -could have hit upon fancies so absolutely in accord with facts.[41] - -And so the problem is solved. The legend, which had reared itself even -as high as the throne of France, topples down. The satisfaction of the -historian springs from his reflection that all serious historical works -for more than a century, resting on far-reaching researches and -eschewing all preoccupations foreign to science--such, for example, as -the desire of attaining a result different from the solutions proposed -by one's predecessors--have arrived at the same conclusion, which proves -to be the correct solution. Heiss, Baron de Chambrier, Reth, -Roux-Fazillac, Delort, Carlo Botta, Armand Baschet, Marius Topin, Paul -de Saint-Victor, Camille Rousset, Chéruel, Depping, have not hesitated -to place under the famous mask of black velvet the features of -Mattioli. But at each new effort made by science, legend throws itself -once more into the fray, gaining new activity from the passions produced -by the Revolution. - -The truth, in history, sometimes suggests to our mind's eye those white -or yellow flowers which float on the water among broad flat leaves; a -breeze springs up, a wave rises and submerges them, they disappear; but -only for a moment: then they come to the surface again. - - - - -CHAPTER V. - -MEN OF LETTERS IN THE BASTILLE. - - -Speaking of men of letters in France under the _ancien régime_, Michelet -calls them "the martyrs of thought"; he adds: "The world thinks, France -speaks. And that is precisely why the Bastille of France, the Bastille -of Paris--I would rather say, the prison-house of thought--was, among -all bastilles, execrable, infamous, and accursed." In the course of the -article devoted to the Bastille in the _Grande Encyclopédie_, M. Fernand -Bournon writes: "After Louis XIV. and throughout the eighteenth century, -the Bastille was especially employed to repress, though it could not -stifle, that generous and majestic movement (the glory of the human -spirit) towards ideas of emancipation and enfranchisement; it was the -epoch when philosophers, publicists, pamphleteers, the very booksellers, -were imprisoned there in large numbers." And to substantiate this -eloquent apostrophe, M. Bournon cites the names of Voltaire, La -Beaumelle, the Abbé Morellet, Marmontel, and Linguet, imprisoned in the -Bastille; and of Diderot and the Marquis de Mirabeau placed in the -château of Vincennes. - -Let us recall the story of these poor victims in turn, and trace the -history of their martyrdom. - - -VOLTAIRE. - -The most illustrious and the earliest in date of the writers mentioned -by M. Bournon is Voltaire. He was sent to the Bastille on two different -occasions. His first imprisonment began on May 17, 1717. At that date -the poet was only twenty-two years of age and of no reputation; he did -not even bear the name of Voltaire, which he only took after his -discharge from the Bastille on April 14, 1718. The cause of his -detention was not "the generous and majestic movement towards ideas of -enfranchisement which is the glory of the human spirit," but some -scurrilities which, to speak plainly, brought him what he deserved: -coarse verses against the Regent and his daughter, and public utterances -coarser still. Many authors state that Voltaire was imprisoned for -writing the _J'ai vu_, a satire against the government of Louis XIV., -each stanza of which ended with the line:-- - - J'ai vu ces maux, et je n'ai pas vingt ans.[42] - -This is a mistake. Voltaire was imprisoned for having written the _Puero -regnante_, some verses on the Regent and his daughter, the Duchess of -Berry, which it would be impossible to translate. To these he added -observations whose reproduction would be equally impossible. At the -Bastille Voltaire underwent examinations in the usual way, in the course -of which he lied with impudence; after that he was allowed considerable -liberty. "It was at the Bastille," wrote Condorcet, "that the young poet -made the first draft of his poem _La Ligue_, corrected his tragedy of -_OEdipe_, and composed some very lively lines on the ill-luck of being -there." - -The following are the most respectable lines of this production:-- - - So one fine faultless morning in the spring, - When Whitsun splendour brighten'd everything, - A strange commotion startled me from sleep. - - * * * * * - - At last I reach'd my chamber in the keep. - A clownish turnkey, with an unctuous smile, - Of my new lodging 'gan to praise the style: - "What ease, what charms, what comforts here are yours! - For never Phoebus in his daily course - Will blind you here with his too brilliant rays; - Within these ten-foot walls you'll spend your days - In cool sequester'd blithefulness always." - Then bidding me admire my cloistral cell-- - The triple doors, the triple locks as well, - The bolts, the bars, the gratings all around-- - "'Tis but," says he, "to keep you safe and sound!" - - * * * * * - - Behold me, then, lodged in this woful place, - Cribb'd, cabin'd, and confined in narrow space; - Sleepless by night, and starving half the day; - No joys, no friend, no mistress--wellaway![43] - -When Voltaire was set at liberty, the Regent, whom, as we have just -said, he had reviled, made him a very handsome offer of his protection. -The poet's reply is well known: "My lord, I thank your royal highness -for being so good as to continue to charge yourself with my board, but -I beseech you no longer to charge yourself with my lodging." The young -writer thus obtained from the Regent a pension of 400 crowns, which -later on the latter augmented to 2000 livres. - -Voltaire was sent to the Bastille a second time in April, 1726. For this -new detention there was no justification whatever. He had had a violent -quarrel, one evening at the Opera, with the Chevalier de Rohan-Chabot. -On another occasion, at the Comédie Française, the poet and the nobleman -had a warm altercation in the box of Mdlle. Lecouvreur. Rohan raised his -stick, Voltaire put his hand on his sword, and the actress fainted. Some -days later "the gallant chevalier, assisted by half a dozen ruffians, -behind whom he courageously posted himself," gave our poet a thrashing -in broad daylight. When relating the adventure later, the Chevalier said -pleasantly: "I commanded the squad." From that moment Voltaire sought -his revenge. "The police reports reveal curious details of the loose, -erratic, and feverish life he lived between the insult and his arrest," -writes the careful biographer of Voltaire, Desnoiresterres. From one of -these police reports we see that the young writer established relations -with soldiers of the guard: several notorious bullies were constantly -about him. A relative who attempted to calm him found him more irritated -and violent in his language than ever. It appears certain that he was -meditating some act of violence, which indeed would not have been -without justification. But the Cardinal de Rohan contrived that he -should be arrested on the night of April 17, 1726, and placed in the -Bastille. - -Speaking of this new imprisonment Marshal de Villars writes: "The -public, disposed to find fault all round, came to the conclusion on this -occasion that everybody was in the wrong: Voltaire for having offended -the Chevalier de Rohan, the latter for having dared to commit a capital -offence in causing a citizen to be beaten, the government for not having -punished a notorious crime, and for having sent the injured party to the -Bastille to pacify the injurer." Nevertheless, we read in the report of -Hérault, the lieutenant of police: "The Sieur de Voltaire was found -armed with pocket pistols, and his family, when informed of the matter, -unanimously and universally applauded the wisdom of an order which saves -this young man the ill effects of some new piece of folly and the worthy -people who compose his family the vexation of sharing his shame." - -Voltaire remained at the Bastille for _twelve days_: he was permitted to -have a servant of his own choice to wait on him, who was boarded at the -king's expense; as for himself, he took his meals whenever he pleased at -the governor's table, going out of the Bastille, as the governor's -residence stood outside the prison. Relatives and friends came to see -him; his friend Thiériot dined with him; he was given pens, paper, -books, whatever he desired in order to divert himself. "Using and -abusing these opportunities," writes Desnoiresterres, "Voltaire believed -that he could give audience to all Paris. He wrote to those of his -friends who had not yet shown a sense of their duty, exhorting them to -give him proof they were alive." "I have been accustomed to all -misfortunes," he wrote to Thiériot, "but not yet to that of being -utterly abandoned by you. Madame de Bernières, Madame du Deffand, the -Chevalier des Alleurs really ought to come and see me. They only have to -ask permission of M. Hérault or M. de Maurepas." At the time of the -poet's entrance to the Bastille, the lieutenant of police had written to -the governor: "The Sieur de Voltaire is of a _genius_ that requires -humouring. His Serene Highness has approved of my writing to tell you -that the king's intention is that you should secure for him mild -treatment and the internal liberty of the Bastille, so far as these do -not jeopardize the security of his detention." The warrant setting him -at liberty was signed on April 26. - - -LA BEAUMELLE. - -In M. Bournon's list La Beaumelle comes second. The circumstances under -which he was put into the Bastille were as follows. After having fallen -out at Berlin with Voltaire, whom he had compared to a monkey, La -Beaumelle returned to Paris, whence he had been exiled. There he got -printed a new edition of Voltaire's _Age of Louis XIV._, unknown to the -author, and interpolated therein odes insulting to the house of Orleans. -"La Beaumelle," exclaimed Voltaire, "is the first who dared to print -another man's work in his lifetime. This miserable Erostrates of the -_Age of Louis XIV._ has discovered the secret of changing into an -infamous libel, for fifteen ducats, a work undertaken for the glory of -the nation." - -La Beaumelle became an inmate of the Bastille in April, 1753, and -remained there for six months. Writing on May 18, 1753, to M. Roques, -Voltaire said that "there was scarcely any country where he would not -inevitably have been punished sooner or later, and I know from a certain -source that there are two courts where they would have inflicted a -chastisement more signal than that which he is undergoing here." - -It was not long before La Beaumelle issued his edition of _Notes towards -the History of Madame de Maintenon and that of the past century_, with -nine volumes of correspondence. He had fabricated letters which he -attributed to Madame de Saint-Géran and Madame de Frontenac, and -published a correspondence of Madame de Maintenon which M. Geffroy, in a -work recognized as authoritative, regards as full of barefaced -falsehoods and foul and scurrilous inventions. He had inserted in his -work the following phrase: "The court of Vienna has been long accused of -having poisoners always in its pay." - -It must be observed that La Beaumelle's publication owed its great vogue -to special circumstances. The author's reputation abroad, the very title -of the book, lent it great importance; and France, then engaged in the -Seven Years' War, found it necessary to keep in Austria's good graces. -La Beaumelle was conveyed to the Bastille a second time. The lieutenant -of police, Berryer, put him through the usual examination. La Beaumelle -was a man of the world, so witty that in the course of their quarrels he -drove Voltaire himself to despair. He showed himself such in his -examination. "La Beaumelle," said Berryer to him, "this is wit you are -giving me when what I ask of you is plain sense." On his expressing a -wish for a companion, he was placed with the Abbé d'Estrades. The -officers of the château had all his manuscripts brought from his house, -so that he might continue his literary work. He had at the Bastille a -library of 600 volumes, ranged on shelves which the governor ordered to -be made for him. He there finished a translation of the _Annals_ of -Tacitus and the _Odes_ of Horace. He had permission to write to his -relatives and friends, and to receive visits from them; he had the -liberty of walking in the castle garden, of breeding birds in his room, -and of having brought from outside all the luxuries to which he was -partial. The principal secretary of the lieutenant of police, Duval, -reports the following incident: "Danry (the famous Latude) and Allègre -(his companion in confinement and ere long in escape) found means to -open a correspondence with all the prisoners in the Bastille. They -lifted a stone in a closet of the chapel, and put their letters -underneath it. La Beaumelle pretended to be a woman in his letters to -Allègre, and as he was a man of parts and Allègre was of keen -sensibility and an excellent writer, the latter fell madly in love with -La Beaumelle, to such a degree that, though they mutually agreed to -burn their letters, Allègre preserved those of his fancied mistress, -which he had not the heart to give to the flames; with the result that, -the letters being discovered at an inspection of his room, he was put in -the cells for some time. The prisoner amused himself also by composing -verses which he recited at the top of his voice. This gave much concern -to the officers of the garrison, and Chevalier, the major, wrote to the -lieutenant of police on the matter: "The Sieur de la Beaumelle seems to -have gone clean out of his mind; he seems to be a maniac; he amuses -himself by declaiming verses in his room for a part of the day: for the -rest of the time he is quiet." - -This second detention lasted from August, 1756, till August, 1757. - - -THE ABBÉ MORELLET. - -We come to the Abbé Morellet, a man of fine and fascinating mind, one of -the best of the Encyclopædists, who died in 1819 a member of the -Institute and the object of general esteem. He was arrested on June 11, -1760, for having had printed and distributed, without privilege or -permission, a pamphlet entitled: _Preface to the Philosophers' Comedy; -or, the Vision of Charles Palissot_.[44] These are the terms in which, -later on, Morellet himself judged his pamphlet: "I must here make my -confession. In this work, I went far beyond the limits of a literary -pleasantry regarding the Sieur Palissot, and to-day I am not without -remorse for my fault." And further, as J. J. Rousseau, in whose favour -the pamphlet had been in part composed, had to acknowledge, the Abbé -"very impudently" insulted a young and pretty woman, Madame de Robecq, -who was dying of decline, spitting blood, and did actually die a few -days later. - -The arrest of Morellet was demanded by Malesherbes, then censor of the -press, one of the most generous and liberal spirits of the time, the -inspirer of the famous remonstrances of the Court of Taxation against -_lettres de cachet_--the man who, as M. H. Monin testifies, "being -elected censor of the press, protected philosophers and men of letters, -and by his personal efforts facilitated the publication of the -_Encyclopædia_." Speaking of the _Preface to the Comedy_, Malesherbes -writes to Gabriel de Sartine, lieutenant-general of police: "It is an -outrageous pamphlet, not only against Palissot, but against respectable -persons whose very condition should shelter them against such insults. I -beg you, sir, to be good enough to put a stop to this scandal. I believe -it to be a matter of public importance that the punishment should be -very severe, and that this punishment should not stop at the Bastille or -the For-l'Evêque,[45] because a very wide distinction must be drawn -between the delinquencies of men of letters tearing each other to -pieces and the insolence of those who attack persons of the highest -consideration in the State. I do not think that Bicêtre would be too -severe for these last. If you have to ask M. de Saint-Florentin for the -royal authority for your proceedings, I hope you will be good enough to -inform him of the request I am making." - -It will be observed that, on Malesherbes' showing, the Bastille would -not suffice to punish the _Preface to the Comedy_, nor even the -For-l'Evêque; he asks for the most stringent of the prisons, Bicêtre. -Before long, it is true, this excellent man returned to milder -sentiments. An imprisonment at Bicêtre, he wrote, would be infamous. -Saint-Florentin and Sartine were not hard to convince. Morellet was -taken to the Bastille. "The warrant for his arrest," wrote one of his -agents to Malesherbes, "was executed this morning by Inspector D'Hémery -with all the amenities possible in so unpleasant a business. D'Hémery -knows the Abbé Morellet, and has spoken of him to M. de Sartine in the -most favourable terms." - -When he entered the Bastille the Abbé calculated that his imprisonment -would last six months, and after acknowledging that he at that time -viewed his detention without great distress, he adds: "I am bound to -say, to lower the too high opinion that may be formed of me and my -courage, that I was marvellously sustained by a thought which rendered -my little virtue more easy. I saw some literary glory illumining the -walls of my prison; persecuted, I must be better known. The men of -letters whom I had avenged, and the philosophy for which I was a -martyr, would lay the foundation of my reputation. The men of the world, -who love satire, would receive me better than ever. A career was opening -before me, and I should be able to pursue it at greater advantage. These -six months at the Bastille would be an excellent recommendation, and -would infallibly make my fortune." - -The Abbé remained at the Bastille, not six months, but six weeks, "which -slipped away," he observes "--I chuckle still as I think of them--very -pleasantly for me." He spent his time in reading romances, and, with -admirable humour, in writing a _Treatise on the Liberty of the Press_. -Afterwards the good Abbé informs us that the hopes which he had indulged -were not deceived. On issuing from the Bastille he was a made man. -Little known two months before, he now met everywhere with the reception -he desired. The doors of the salons of Madame de Boufflers, Madame -Necker, the Baron d'Holbach, flew open before him; women pitied him and -admired him, and men followed their example. Why have we not to-day a -Bastille to facilitate the career of writers of talent! - - -MARMONTEL. - -To Marmontel his stay at the royal prison appeared as pleasant as the -Abbé Morellet had found his. He had amused himself by reciting at Madame -Geoffrin's a mordant satire in which the Duke d'Aumont, first groom of -the stole to the king, was cruelly hit. The duke expostulated; -Marmontel wrote to him declaring that he was not the author of the -satire; but the nobleman stood his ground. - -"I am helpless," said the Count de Saint-Florentin, who countersigned -the _lettre de cachet_, to Marmontel; "the Duke d'Aumont accuses you, -and is determined to have you punished. It is a satisfaction he demands -in recompense for his services and the services of his ancestors. The -king has been pleased to grant him his wish. So you will go and find M. -de Sartine; I am addressing to him the king's order; you will tell him -that it was from my hand you received it." - -"I went to find M. de Sartine," writes Marmontel, "and I found with him -the police officer who was to accompany me. M. de Sartine was intending -that he should go to the Bastille in a separate carriage; but I myself -declined this obliging offer, and we arrived at the Bastille, my -introducer and myself, in the same hack.... The governor, M. d'Abadie, -asked me if I wished my servant to be left with me.... They made a -cursory inspection of my packets and books, and then sent me up to a -large room furnished with two beds, two tables, a low cupboard, and -three cane chairs. It was cold, but a jailer made us a good fire and -brought me wood in abundance. At the same time they gave me pens, ink, -and paper, on condition of my accounting for the use I made of them and -the number of sheets they allowed me. - -"The jailer came back to ask if I was satisfied with my bed. After -examining it I replied that the mattresses were bad and the coverlets -dirty. In a minute all was changed. They sent to ask me what was my -dinner hour. I replied, 'The same as everybody's.' The Bastille had a -library: the governor sent me the catalogue, giving me free choice among -the books. I merely thanked him for myself, but my servant asked for the -romances of Prévost, and they were brought to him." - -Let us go on with Marmontel's story. "For my part," he says, "I had the -means of escape from ennui. Having been for a long time impatient of the -contempt shown by men of letters for Lucan's poem, which they had not -read, and only knew in the barbarous fustian of Brébeuf's version, I had -resolved to translate it more becomingly and faithfully into prose; and -this work, which would occupy me without fatiguing my brain, was the -best possible employment for the solitary leisure of my prison. So I had -brought the _Pharsalia_ with me, and, to understand it the better, I had -been careful to bring with it the _Commentaries_ of Cæsar. Behold me -then at the corner of a good fire, pondering the quarrel of Cæsar and -Pompey, and forgetting my own with the Duke d'Aumont. And there was Bury -too (Marmontel's servant) as philosophical as myself, amusing himself by -making our beds placed at two opposite corners of my room, which was at -this moment lit up by the beams of a fine winter sun, in spite of the -bars of two strong iron gratings which permitted me a view of the Suburb -Saint-Antoine. - -"Two hours later, the noise of the bolts of the two doors which shut me -in startled me from my profound musings, and the two jailers, loaded -with a dinner I believed to be mine, came in and served it in silence. -One put down in front of the fire three little dishes covered with -plates of common earthenware; the other laid on that one of the two -tables which was clear a tablecloth rather coarse, indeed, but white. I -saw him place on the table a very fair set of things, a pewter spoon and -fork, good household bread, and a bottle of wine. Their duty done, the -jailers retired, and the two doors were shut again with the same noise -of locks and bolts. - -"Then Bury invited me to take my place, and served my soup. It was a -Friday. The soup, made without meat, was a _purée_ of white beans, with -the freshest butter, and a dish of the same beans was the first that -Bury served me with. I found all this excellent. The dish of cod he gave -me for second course was better still. It was served with a dash of -garlic, which gave it a delicacy of taste and odour which would have -flattered the taste of the daintiest Gascon. The wine was not -first-rate, but passable; no sweets: of course one must expect to be -deprived of something. On the whole, I thought that dinner in prison was -not half bad. - -"As I was rising from table, and Bury was about to sit down--for there -was enough for his dinner in what was left--lo and behold! in came my -two jailers again, with pyramids of dishes in their hands. At this -display of fine linen, fine china-ware, spoon and fork of silver, we -recognized our mistake; but we made not the ghost of a sign, and when -our jailers, having laid down their burden, had retired, 'Sir,' said -Bury, 'you have just eaten my dinner, you will quite agree to my having -my turn and eating yours.' 'That's fair,' I replied, and the walls of my -room were astonished, I fancy, at the sound of laughter. - -"This dinner was not vegetarian; here are the details: an excellent -soup, a juicy beef-steak, a boiled capon's leg streaming with gravy and -melting in one's mouth, a little dish of artichokes fried in pickle, a -dish of spinach, a very fine William pear, fresh-cut grapes, a bottle of -old burgundy, and best Mocha coffee; this was Bury's dinner, with the -exception of the coffee and the fruit, which he insisted on reserving -for me. - -"After dinner the governor came to see me, and asked me if I found the -fare sufficient, assuring me that I should be served from his table, -that he would take care to cut my portions himself, and that no one -should touch my food but himself. He suggested a fowl for my supper; I -thanked him and told him that what was left of the fruit from my dinner -would suffice. The reader has just seen what my ordinary fare was at the -Bastille, and from this he may infer with what mildness, or rather -reluctance, they brought themselves to visit on me the wrath of the Duke -d'Aumont. - -"Every day I had a visit from the governor. As he had some smack of -literature and even of Latin, he took some interest in following my -work, in fact, enjoyed it; but soon, tearing himself away from these -little dissipations, he said, 'Adieu, I am going to console men who are -more unfortunate than you.'" - -Such was the imprisonment of Marmontel. It lasted for eleven days. - - -LINGUET. - -Linguet, advocate and journalist, was arrested for a breach of the press -laws and for slander. He was a man of considerable ability, but little -character. Attorney-general Cruppi has devoted to the story of Linguet a -work as extensive as it is eloquent. He has a wealth of indulgence for -his hero; yet, despite the goodwill he shows for him and endeavours to -impart to the reader, his book reveals between the lines that Linguet -was worthy of little esteem, and that his professional brethren were -justified in removing his name from the roll of the advocates of Paris. - -Linguet's captivity lasted for two years. He has left a description of -it in his _Memoirs on the Bastille_, which made a great noise, and of -which the success has endured down to our own day. His book, like -everything which came from his pen, is written in a fluent style, with -spirit and brilliance; the facts cited are for the most part correct, -but the author, aiming at making a sensation, has cleverly presented -them in a light which distorts their real character. "There are means," -says Madame de Staal, "of so distributing light and shade on the facts -one is exhibiting, as to alter their appearance without altering the -groundwork." Take, for instance, the description that Linguet gives of -his belongings while in the Bastille: "Two worm-eaten mattresses, a cane -chair the seat of which was only held to it by strings, a folding table, -a jug for water, two earthenware pots, one of them for drinking, and two -stone slabs to make a fire on." A contemporary could say of Linguet's -_Memoirs_, "It is the longest lie that ever was printed." And yet, if we -take the facts themselves which are related by the clever journalist, -and disengage them from the deceitful mirage in which he has enwrapped -them, we do not see that his life in the Bastille was so wretched as he -endeavours to make us believe. He is forced to acknowledge that his food -was always most abundant, adding, it is true, that that was because they -wished to poison him! He owed his life, he is convinced, "only to the -obstinate tenacity of his constitution." He marked, nevertheless, on the -menu for the day, which was sent up every morning by the Bastille cook, -the dishes he fancied; and later on he had his room furnished after his -own heart. He still enjoyed, moreover, enough liberty to write during -his imprisonment a work entitled, _The Trials of Three Kings, Louis -XVI., Charles III., and George III._, which appeared in London in 1781. -Let us recall once more the famous saying of Linguet to the wig-maker of -the Bastille on the first day that he presented himself to trim the -prisoner's beard: "To whom have I the honour of speaking?" "I am, sir, -the barber to the Bastille." "Gad, then, why don't you raze it?" - -In June, 1792, some years after his liberation, Linguet was prosecuted a -second time for breach of the press laws. The revolutionary tribunal -condemned him to death. As he mounted the steps of the scaffold, the -ardent pamphleteer thought, mayhap, with bitterly ironical regret, of -that Bastille whose destruction he had so clamorously demanded. - - -DIDEROT. - -We have still to speak of Diderot and the Marquis de Mirabeau, who were -not incarcerated at the Bastille, but at Vincennes, not in the castle -keep, but in the château itself, which constituted a separate place of -imprisonment. They placed in the château only prisoners guilty of minor -offences, who were sentenced to a temporary detention, and to whom they -wished to show some consideration. This was, as we have just said, the -abode of Diderot and the Marquis de Mirabeau. Diderot was arrested on -July 24, 1749. His last book, _Letters on the Blind for the Use of those -Who Can See_, contained theories which appeared to have but little title -to the description of "moral." But in the course of his examination he -stoutly denied that he was its author, as also he denied the authorship -of the _Thoughts of a Philosopher_ he had published some years before. -The lieutenant of police gave instructions to the governor of Vincennes -that, short of being set at liberty, Diderot was to be granted all -possible comforts--allowed to walk in the garden and park; "that the -king's desire was, in consideration of the literary work on which he was -engaged (the _Encyclopædia_), to permit him to communicate freely with -persons from without who might come for that purpose or on family -business." And so Diderot received a visit from his wife and walked with -her in the wood; Rousseau and D'Alembert spent their afternoons with -him, and, as in the "good old days" of Plato and Socrates, our -philosophers chatted of metaphysics and love, seated on the green grass -under the shade of mighty oaks. The booksellers and printers who had -undertaken the publication of the _Encyclopædia_ were, as we have seen, -in constant communication with Diderot at Vincennes; he corrected in -prison the proofs of the publication, which the court looked on with no -favourable eye. And we know, too, that at night, with the secret -complicity of the governor, our philosopher cleared the park walls to -hurry to a fair lady at Paris, one Madame de Puysieux, whom he loved -with a passion by no means platonic; ere the sun was up, the jailers -found him safely back under lock and key. This irksome captivity lasted -little more than three months. - - -THE MARQUIS DE MIRABEAU. - -The imprisonment of Mirabeau lasted only ten days. The _lettre de -cachet_ had been obtained by the clique of financiers, who took fright -at the audacious conceptions of the _Theory of Taxation_. "I fancy I -deserved my punishment," wrote the Marquis, "like the ass in the fable, -for a clumsy and misplaced zeal." In regard to the arrest, Madame -d'Epinay sent word to Voltaire: "Never before was a man arrested as this -one was. The officer said to him, 'Sir, my orders do not state I am to -hurry you: to-morrow will do, if you haven't time to-day.' 'No, sir, one -cannot be too prompt in obeying the king's orders, I am quite ready.' -And off he went with a bag crammed with books and papers." At Vincennes -the Marquis had a servant with him. His wife came to see him. The king -spent for his support fifteen livres a day, more than twenty-five -shillings of our money. He was liberated on December 24, 1760. His -brother, Bailie Mirabeau, speaking of this detention, wrote to him of "a -week's imprisonment in which you were shown every possible -consideration." - - * * * * * - -We have exhausted M. Bournon's list of the writers who were victims of -arbitrary authority. Such are the "martyrs" for whom that excellent -historian, and Michelet and others, have shown the most affecting -compassion. The foregoing facts do not call for comment. Men of letters -were the spoilt children of the eighteenth century much more than of our -own, and never has an absolute government shown a toleration equal to -that of the monarchy under the _ancien régime_ towards writers whose -doctrines, as events have proved, tended directly to its destruction. - - - - -CHAPTER VI. - -LATUDE. - - -Few historical figures have taken a higher place in the popular -imagination than Masers de Latude. That celebrated prisoner seems to -have accumulated in his life of suffering all the wrongs that spring -from an arbitrary government. The novelists and playwrights of the -nineteenth century have made him a hero; the poets have draped his woes -in fine mourning robes, our greatest historians have burnt for him the -midnight oil; numerous editions of his _Memoirs_ have appeared in quick -succession down to our own days. Even by his contemporaries he was -regarded as a martyr, and posterity has not plucked the shining crown of -martyrdom from his head, hoary with the snows of long captivity. His -legend is the creature of his own unaided brain. When in 1790 he -dictated the story of his life, he made greater calls on his glowing -southern imagination than on his memory; but the documents relating to -his case in the archives of the Bastille have been preserved. At the -present time they are to be found dispersed among various libraries, at -the Arsenal, at Carnavalet, at St. Petersburg. Thanks to them it is -easy to establish the truth. - -On March 23, 1725, at Montagnac in Languedoc, a poor girl named -Jeanneton Aubrespy gave birth to a male child who was baptized three -days later under the name of Jean Henri, given him by his god-parents, -Jean Bouhour and Jeanne Boudet. Surname the poor little creature had -none, for he was the illegitimate child of a father unknown. Jeanneton, -who had just passed her thirtieth year, was of respectable middle-class -family, and lived near the Lom gate in a little house which seems to -have been her own. Several cousins of hers held commissions in the army. -But from the day when she became a mother, her family had no more to do -with her, and she fell into want. Happily she was a woman of stout -heart, and by her spinning and sewing she supported her boy, who shot up -into a lad of keen intelligence and considerable ambition. She succeeded -in getting him some sort of education, and we find Jean Henri at the age -of seventeen acting as assistant surgeon in the army of Languedoc. -Surgeons, it is true, made no great figure in the eighteenth century; -they combined the duties of barber and dentist as well as leech. But the -situation was good enough. "Assistant surgeons in the army," wrote -Saint-Marc the detective, "who really worked at their trade, made a good -deal of money." At this time, being reluctant to bear his mother's name, -the young man ingeniously transformed his double forename into Jean -Danry, under which he is designated in a passport for Alsace, given him -on March 25, 1743, by the general commanding the royal forces in -Languedoc. In the same year 1743, Danry accompanied the army of Marshal -de Noailles in its operations on the Maine and the Rhine, receiving from -the Marshal, towards the end of the season, a certificate testifying to -his good and faithful service throughout the campaign. - -Four years later we find Danry at Brussels, employed in the -field-hospital of the army in Flanders, at a salary of 500 livres a -month. He was present at the famous siege of Bergen-op-Zoom, the -impregnable fortress which the French so valiantly stormed under the -command of the Comte de Lowendal. But peace being concluded at -Aix-la-Chapelle, the armies were disbanded, and Danry went to Paris. He -had in his pocket a letter of recommendation to Descluzeaux, the surgeon -of Marshal de Noailles, and a certificate signed by Guignard de La -Garde, chief of the commissariat, testifying to the ability and good -conduct of "the aforesaid Jean Danry, assistant surgeon." These two -certificates formed the most substantial part of his fortune. - -Danry arrived in Paris about the end of the year 1748. On any afternoon -he might have been seen strolling about the Tuileries in a grey frock -and red waistcoat, carrying his twenty-three years with a good grace. Of -middle height and somewhat spare figure, wearing his brown hair in a -silk net, having keen eyes and an expression of much intelligence, he -would probably have been thought a handsome fellow but for the marks -which smallpox had indelibly stamped on his face. His accent had a -decided Gascon tang, and it is obvious, from the spelling of his -letters, not only that he could not boast of a literary education, but -that his speech was that of a man of the people. Yet, what with his -brisk temperament, his professional skill, and his favour with his -superiors, he was in a fair way to attain an honourable position, which -would have enabled him at length to support his mother, then living in -solitary friendlessness at Montagnac, centring on him, in her forlorn -condition, all her affection and her dearest hopes. - -Paris, with its gaiety and stir, dazzled the young man. Its brilliant -and luxurious life, its rustling silks and laces, set him dreaming. He -found the girls of Paris charming creatures, and opened his heart to -them without stint, and his purse too; and his heart was more opulent -than his purse. Ere long he had spent his modest savings and sunk into -want. He fell into bad company. His best friend, an apothecary's -assistant named Binguet, shared with him a mean garret in the Cul-de-sac -du Coq, in the house of one Charmeleux, who let furnished lodgings. Than -these two no greater rakes, wastrels, or thorough-paced rascals could -have been found in all Paris. Danry in particular very soon got a name -all over his neighbourhood for his riotous, threatening, and choleric -temper. Dying of hunger, threatened with being ejected neck-and-crop -from his lodging for nonpayment of rent, he was reduced at last to write -for money to his mother, who, poor thing, had barely enough for her own -modest wants. - -As yet we are a long way from the "handsome officer of engineers" who -lives in our remembrance: we see little likeness to the brilliant -picture which Danry drew later of those youthful years during which he -received, "by the care of his father the Marquis de La Tude, the -education of a gentleman destined to serve his country and his king." - -Having come now absolutely to the end of his resources, Danry took it -into his head that, at the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom, he had been stripped -by some soldiers of all his clothes but his shirt, and robbed of 678 -livres into the bargain. This story he worked up in a letter addressed -to Moreau de Séchelles, commissary of the army in Flanders, hoping to -get it corroborated by Guignard de La Garde, the commissary under whom -he had himself served. In this letter he demanded compensation for the -losses he had suffered while devoting himself under fire to the care of -the wounded. But we read, in the _Memoirs_ he wrote later, that so far -from having been stripped and robbed, he had actually purchased at -Bergen-op-Zoom a considerable quantity of goods of all kinds when they -were sold off cheap after the sack of the town. However that may be, his -experiment was a failure. But Danry was a man of resource, and not many -days had passed before he had hit on another means of raising the wind. - -[Illustration: - - Cover of the explosive box sent by Danry to the Marquise de - Pompadour. The words almost obliterated are: "Je vous prie, Madame, - d'ouvrir le paquet en particulié." Below is the record and the date - of Danry's examination, with his signature, and that of Berryer, - the lieutenant of police. -] - -At this time everybody was talking about the struggle between the -king's ministers and the Marquise de Pompadour, which had just ended in -a triumph for the lady. Maurepas was going into exile, but it was -generally believed that he was a man who would wreak vengeance on his -enemy, and the favourite herself openly declared that she went in fear -of poison. A light dawned on the young surgeon's mind as he heard such -gossip as this; he caught a sudden glimpse of himself--even he, the -ragged outcast--arrayed in cloth of gold and rolling in his carriage -along the Versailles road. - -This was his plan. On April 27, 1749, in a shop under the arcade of the -Palais-Royal, hard by the grand staircase, he bought of a small -tradesman six of those little bottle-shaped toys, once called Prince -Rupert's Drops, out of which children used to get so much harmless -amusement. They were globules of molten glass, which, on being thrown -into cold water, had taken the shape of pears, and which, if the -tapering end was suddenly snapped, crumbled with a loud report into -dust. Four of these crackers Danry placed in a cardboard box, binding -the thin ends together with a thread which he fixed in the lid. Over -these he sprinkled some toilet powder, and this he covered with a layer -of powdered vitriol and alum. The whole packet he then enclosed in a -double wrapper, writing on the inner one, "I beg you, madam, to open the -packet in private," and on the outer one, "To Madame the Marquise de -Pompadour, at court." - -At eight o'clock in the evening of the next day, Danry, having seen his -packet safely in the post, hurried off himself to Versailles. He had -hoped to gain admittance to the favourite herself, but being stopped by -Gourbillon, her principal valet, in a voice trembling with emotion he -related to him a frightful story. Happening to be at the Tuileries, he -said, he had observed two men seated in animated conversation, and on -going close to them heard them mouthing the most horrible threats -against Madame de Pompadour. When they rose he dogged their footsteps, -which led direct to the post office, where they consigned a packet to -the box. Who the men were, and what was the nature of the packet, were -natural questions to which Danry had no answer; all he could say was -that, devoted to the interests of the Marquise, he had instantly sped -off to reveal to her what he had seen. - -To understand the impression produced by the young man's information, it -is necessary to bear in mind the feverish excitement then prevailing at -court. Maurepas, the witty and sprightly minister who had won Louis -XV.'s special affection because of the charm with which he endowed mere -business for "the man who was always bored"--Maurepas had just been -exiled to Bourges. "Pontchartrain," the king sent word to him, "is too -near." The struggle between the minister and the favourite had been one -of extraordinary violence. Maurepas was for ever dashing off satirical -verses on the girl who had reached the steps of the throne, and -incessantly pursuing her with the cruel and insolent shafts of his wit; -his muse indeed did not shrink from the most brutal insults. Nor was the -Marquise a whit more tender towards her foe: she openly dubbed him liar -and knave, and assured everybody that he was trying to get her poisoned. -A surgeon was actually required to be in constant attendance upon her, -and she always had an antidote within reach. At table she was careful -never to be the first to partake of any dish, and in her box at the -theatre she would drink no lemonade but what had been prepared by her -surgeon. - -The packet which Danry had posted arrived at Versailles on April 29, and -Quesnay, the physician to the king and the Marquise, was requested to -open it. Having done so with infinite precaution, he recognized the -vitriol and alum and toilet powder, and declared at once that there was -not a pennyworth of danger in the whole contrivance. But since alum and -vitriol were substances capable of being turned to baneful uses, he -thought that possibly it was a case of a criminal design clumsily -executed. - -There is not a shadow of doubt that Louis XV. and his mistress were -seriously alarmed. D'Argenson himself, who had upheld Maurepas against -the favourite, had the greatest possible interest in seeing the affair -cleared up as soon as possible. The first move was altogether in favour -of the informer. D'Argenson wrote to Berryer that Danry was deserving of -a reward. - -No time was lost in instituting a search for the authors of the plot. -The lieutenant of police selected the most skilful and intelligent of -his officers, the detective Saint-Marc, who put himself in communication -with Danry. But he had not spent two days with the assistant surgeon -before he drew up a report demanding his arrest. "It is not unimportant -to note that Danry is a surgeon, and his best friend an apothecary. In -my opinion it is essential to apprehend both Danry and Binguet without -further delay, and without letting either know of the other's arrest, -and at the same time to search their rooms." - -Accordingly Danry was conveyed to the Bastille on May 1, 1749, and -Binguet was secured the same day. Saint-Marc had taken the precaution to -ask the assistant surgeon for a written account of his adventure. This -document he put into the hands of an expert, who compared the -handwriting with the address on the packet sent to Versailles. Danry was -lost. Suspicion was but too well confirmed by the results of a search in -his room. Being shut up in the Bastille, Danry knew nothing of all these -proceedings, and when, on May 2, the lieutenant-general of police came -to question him, he replied only with lies. - -Berryer, the lieutenant of police, was a man of much firmness, but -honourable and kindly disposed. "He inspired one's confidence," wrote -Danry himself, "by his urbanity and kindness." This excellent man was -vexed at the attitude taken up by the prisoner, and pointing out the -danger he was incurring, he besought him to tell the truth. But at a -second examination Danry only persisted in his lies. Then all at once he -changed his tactics and refused to answer the questions put to him. -"Danry, here we do justice to every one," said Berryer to him, to give -him courage. But entreaties had no better success than threats. Danry -maintained his obstinate silence; and D'Argenson wrote to Berryer: "The -thorough elucidation of this affair is too important for you not to -follow up any clue which may point towards a solution." - -By his falsehoods, and then by his silence, Danry had succeeded in -giving the appearance of a mysterious plot to what was really an -insignificant piece of knavery. - -Not till June 15 did he make up his mind to offer a statement very near -the truth, which was written down and sent at once to the king, who read -it over several times and kept it in his pocket the whole day--a -circumstance which indicates to what importance the affair had now -swelled. Suspicions were not dispelled by the declaration of June 15. -Danry had misrepresented the truth in his former examinations, and there -was reason to believe that he was equally misrepresenting it in the -third. Thus he owed his ruin to his silence and his self-contradictory -depositions. Six months later, on October 7, 1749, when he was at -Vincennes, Dr. Quesnay, who had shown much interest in the young -surgeon, was sent to find out from him the name of the individual who -had instigated the crime. On his return the doctor wrote to Berryer, -"My journey has been utterly useless. I only saw a blockhead, who -persisted nevertheless in adhering to his former declarations." Two -years more had passed away when the lieutenant of police wrote to -Quesnay:--"February 25, 1751. Danry would be very glad if you would pay -him a visit, and your compliance might perhaps induce him to lay bare -his secret soul, and make a frank confession to you of what up to the -present he has obstinately concealed from me." - -Quesnay at once repaired to the Bastille, bearing with him a conditional -promise of liberty. Working himself up into a frenzy, Danry swore that -"all his answers to the lieutenant of police had been strictly true." -When the doctor had taken his leave, Danry wrote to the minister: "M. -Quesnay, who has been several times to see me in my wretchedness, tells -me that your lordship is inclined to believe I had some accomplice in my -fault whom I will not reveal, and that it is for this reason your -lordship will not give me my liberty. I could wish, my lord, from the -bottom of my heart, that your belief were true, for it would be much to -my profit to put my guilt upon another, whether for having induced me to -commit my sin or for not having prevented me from committing it." - -It was the opinion of the ministers that Danry had been the instrument -of a plot against the life of the Marquise de Pompadour directed by some -person of high rank, and that at the critical moment he had either -taken fright, or else had made a clean breast of the matter at -Versailles in the hope of reaping some advantage from both sides. These -facts must be kept in mind if we are to understand the real cause of his -confinement. Kept, then, in the Bastille, he was subjected to several -examinations, the reports of which were regularly drawn up and signed by -the lieutenant of police. Under the _ancien régime_, this officer was, -as we have seen, a regular magistrate, indeed he has no other -designation in the documents of the period; he pronounced sentence and -awarded punishments in accordance with that body of customs which then, -as to-day in England, constituted the law. - -Binguet, the apothecary, had been set at liberty immediately after -Danry's declaration of June 15. In the Bastille, Danry was treated with -the utmost consideration, in accordance with the formal instructions of -Berryer. He was provided with books, tobacco, and a pipe; he was -permitted to play on the flute; and having declared that a solitary life -bored him, he was given two room mates. Every day he was visited by the -officers of the fortress, and on May 25 the governor came to tell him of -the magistrate's order: "That the utmost attention was to be shown him; -if he needed anything he was to be requested to say so, and was to be -allowed to want for nothing." No doubt the lieutenant of police hoped, -by dint of kindness, to persuade him to disclose the authors of the -unfortunate plot which was the figment of his imagination. - -Danry did not remain long in the prison of the Suburb Saint-Antoine; on -July 28 Saint-Marc transferred him to Vincennes, and we see from the -report drawn up by the detective with what astonishment the Marquis du -Châtelet, governor of the fortress, heard "that the court had resolved -to send him such a fellow." Vincennes, like the Bastille, was reserved -for prisoners of good position; our hero was sent there by special -favour, as he was told for his consolation by the surgeon who attended -him: "Only persons of noble birth or the highest distinction are sent to -Vincennes." Danry was indeed treated like a lord. The best apartment was -reserved for him, and he was able to enjoy the park, where he walked for -two hours every day. At the time of his admission to the Bastille, he -was suffering from some sort of indisposition which later on he ascribed -to his long confinement. At Vincennes he complained of the same illness, -with the same plea that his troubles had made him ill. He was attended -by a specialist as well as by the surgeon of the prison. - -Meantime the lieutenant came again to see him, reiterating assurances of -his protection, and advising him to write direct to Madame de Pompadour. -Here is what Danry wrote:-- - -"VINCENNES, _November 4, 1749_. - - "MADAM,--If wretchedness, goaded by famine, has driven me to commit - a fault against your dear person, it was with no design of doing - you any mischief. God is my witness. If the divine mercy would - assure you to-day, on my behalf, how my soul repents of its heinous - fault, and how for 188 days I have done nothing but weep at the - sight of my iron bars, you would have pity on me. Madam, for the - sake of God who is enlightening you, let your just wrath soften at - the spectacle of my repentance, my wretchedness, my tears. One day - God will recompense you for your humanity. You are all-powerful, - Madam; God has given you power with the greatest king on all the - earth, His well-beloved; he is merciful, he is not cruel, he is a - Christian. If the divine power moves your magnanimity to grant me - my freedom, I would rather die, or sustain my life on nothing but - roots, than jeopardize it a second time. I have staked all my hopes - on your Christian charity. Lend a sympathetic ear to my prayer, do - not abandon me to my unhappy fate. I hope in you, Madam, and God - will vouchsafe an abundant answer to my prayers that your dear - person may obtain your heart's desires. - - "I have the honour to be, with a repentance worthy of pardon, - Madam, your very humble and very obedient servant, - -"DANRY." - - - -A letter which it is a pleasure to quote, for it shows to great -advantage beside the letters written later by the prisoner. It was only -the truth that he had no evil design on the favourite's life; but soon -becoming more audacious, he wrote to Madame de Pompadour saying that if -he had addressed the box to her at Versailles, it was out of pure -devotion to her, to put her on her guard against the machinations of her -enemies, in short, to save her life. - -Danry's letter was duly forwarded to the Marquise, but remained without -effect. Losing patience, he resolved to win for himself the freedom -denied him: on June 15, 1750, he escaped. - - * * * * * - -In his _Memoirs_ Danry has related the story of this first escape in a -manner as lively as imaginative. He really eluded his jailers in the -simplest way in the world. Having descended to the garden at the usual -hour for his walk, he found there a black spaniel frisking about. The -dog happened to rear itself against the gate, and to push it with its -paws. The gate fell open. Danry passed out and ran straight ahead, -"till, towards four o'clock in the afternoon, he fell to the ground with -fatigue, in the neighbourhood of Saint-Denis." - -There he remained until nine o'clock in the evening. Then he struck into -the road to Paris, passing the night beside the aqueduct near the -Saint-Denis gate. At daybreak he entered the city. - -We know what importance was attached at court to the safe custody of the -prisoner: there was still hope that he would make up his mind to speak -of the grave conspiracy of which he held the secret. D'Argenson wrote at -once to Berryer: "Nothing is more important or more urgent than to set -on foot at once all conceivable means of recapturing the prisoner." -Accordingly all the police were engaged in the search; the description -of the prisoner was printed, a large number of copies being distributed -by Inspector Rulhière among the mounted police. - -Danry took up his lodging with one Cocardon, at the sign of the Golden -Sun; but he did not venture to remain for more than two days in the same -inn. He expected his old chum Binguet to come to his assistance, but -Binguet was not going to have anything more to do with the Bastille. It -was a pretty girl, Annette Benoist, whom Danry had known when he was -lodging with Charmeleux, that devoted herself heart and soul to him. She -knew she herself was running the risk of imprisonment, and already -strangers of forbidding appearance had come asking at the Golden Sun who -she was. Little she cared; she found assistance among her companions: -the girls carried Danry's letters and undertook the search for a safe -lodging. Meanwhile, Danry went to pass the night under the aqueducts; in -the morning he shut himself in the lodging the girls had chosen for him, -and there he remained for two days without leaving the house, Annette -coming there to keep him company. Unluckily the young man had no money: -how was he to pay his score? "What was to be done, what was to become of -me?" he said later. "I was sure to be discovered if I showed myself; if -I fled I ran no less risk." He wrote to Dr. Quesnay, who had shown him -so much kindness at Vincennes; but the police got wind of the letter, -and Saint-Marc arrived and seized the fugitive in the inn where he lay -concealed. The unlucky wretch was haled back to the Bastille. Annette -was arrested at the Golden Sun at the moment when she was asking for -Danry's letters; she too was shut up in the Bastille. The warders and -sentinels who were on duty at Vincennes on the day of the escape had -been thrown into the cells. - -By his escape from Vincennes, Danry had doubled the gravity of his -offence. The regulations demanded that he should be sent down into the -cells reserved for insubordinate prisoners. "M. Berryer came again to -lighten my woes; outside the prison he demanded justice and mercy for -me, inside he sought to calm my grief, which seemed less poignant when -he assured me that he shared it." The lieutenant of police ordered the -prisoner to be fed as well as formerly, and to be allowed his books, -papers, knick-knacks, and the privilege of the two hours' walk he had -enjoyed at Vincennes. In return for these kindnesses, the assistant -surgeon sent to the magistrate "a remedy for the gout." He asked at the -same time to be allowed to breed little birds, whose chirping and lively -movements would divert him. The request was granted. But instead of -bearing his lot with patience, Danry grew more and more irritable every -day. He gave free rein to his violent temper, raised a hubbub, shrieked, -tore up and down his room, so that they came perforce to believe that he -was going mad. On the books of the Bastille library, which circulated -from room to room, he wrote ribald verses against the Marquise de -Pompadour. In this way he prolonged his sojourn in the cells. Gradually -his letters changed their tone. "It is a little hard to be left for -fourteen months in prison, a whole year of the time, ending to-day, in -one cell where I still am." - -Then Berryer put him back into a good room, about the end of the year -1751. At the same time he gave him, at the king's expense, a servant to -wait on him. - -As to Annette Benoist, she had been set at liberty after a fortnight's -detention. Danry's servant fell sick; as there was no desire to deprive -the prisoner of society, he was given a companion. This was a certain -Antoine Allègre, who had been there since May 29, 1750. The -circumstances which had led to his imprisonment were almost identical -with those to which Danry owed his confinement. Allègre was keeping a -school at Marseilles when he learnt that the enemies of the Marquise de -Pompadour were seeking to destroy her. He fabricated a story of a -conspiracy in which he involved Maurepas, the Archbishop of Albi, and -the Bishop of Lodève; he sent a denunciation of this plot to Versailles, -and, to give it some semblance of truth, addressed to the favourite's -valet a letter in disguised handwriting, beginning with these words: "On -the word of a gentleman, there are 100,000 crowns for you if you poison -your mistress." He hoped by this means to obtain a good situation, or -the success of a business project he had in hand. - -Intelligent, with some education, and venturesome, Danry and Allègre -were just the men to get on well together, so much the better that the -schoolmaster dominated the comrade to whom he was so much superior. The -years that Danry spent in company with Allègre exercised so great an -influence on his whole life that the lieutenant of police, Lenoir, could -say one day: "Danry is the second volume of Allègre." The letters of the -latter, a large number of which have been preserved, bear witness to the -originality and energy of his mind: their style is fine and fluent, of -the purest French; the ideas expressed have distinction and are -sometimes remarkable without eccentricity. He worked untiringly, and was -at first annoyed at the presence of a companion: "Give me, I beg you, a -room to myself," he wrote to Berryer, "even without a fire: I like being -alone, I am sufficient for myself, because I can find things to do, and -seed to sow for the future." His temperament was naturally mystical, but -of that cold and acrid mysticism which we sometimes find in men of -science, and mathematicians in particular. For Allègre's principal -studies were mathematics, mechanics, and engineering. The lieutenant of -police procured for him works on fortification, architecture, mechanics, -hydraulics. The prisoner used them to compile essays on the most diverse -questions, which he sent to the lieutenant of police in the hope of -their procuring his liberation. Those essays which we possess show the -extent of his intelligence and his education. Danry followed his example -by-and-by, in this as in everything else, but clumsily. Allègre was -also very clever with his fingers, and could make, so the officials of -the château declared, whatever he pleased. - -Allègre was a dangerous man: the warders were afraid of him. Some time -after his entrance into the Bastille he fell ill, and a man was set to -look after him; the two men did not agree at all. Allègre sent complaint -after complaint to the lieutenant of police. An inquiry was made which -turned out not unfavourable to the keeper, and he was left with the -prisoner. One morning--September 8, 1751--the officers of the Bastille -heard cries and clamour in the "Well" tower. Hastily ascending, they -found Allègre in the act of stabbing his companion, who lay on the floor -held down by the throat, wallowing in the blood that streamed from a -gash in the stomach. If Allègre had not been in the Bastille, the -Parlement would have had him broken on the wheel in the Place de Grève: -the Bastille was his safety, though he could no longer hope for a speedy -liberation. - -Danry, in his turn, wore out the patience of his guardians. Major -Chevalier, who was kindness itself, wrote to the lieutenant of police: -"He is no better than Allègre, but though more turbulent and choleric, -he is much less to be feared in every respect." The physician of the -Bastille, Dr. Boyer, a member of the Academy, wrote likewise: "I have -good reason to distrust the man." The temper of Danry became embittered. -He began to revile the warders. One morning they were obliged to take -from him a knife and other sharp instruments he had concealed. He used -the paper they gave him to open communications with other prisoners and -with people outside. Paper was withheld: he then wrote with his blood on -a handkerchief; he was forbidden by the lieutenant of police to write to -him with his blood, so he wrote on tablets made of bread crumbs, which -he passed out secretly between two plates. - -The use of paper was then restored to him, which did not prevent him -from writing to Berryer: "My lord, I am writing to you with my blood on -linen, because the officers refuse me ink and paper; it is now more than -six times that I have asked in vain to speak to them. What are you -about, my lord? Do not drive me to extremities. At least, do not force -me to be my own executioner. Send a sentry to break my head for me; that -is the very least favour you can do me." Berryer, astonished at this -missive, remarked on it to the major, who replied: "I have not refused -paper to Danry." - -[Illustration: - - Beginning of a letter written with blood on linen by Danry (Latude) - while a prisoner at Vincennes, to Rougemont, the king's lieutenant. -] - -So the prisoner forced them more and more to the conclusion that he was -a madman. On October 13, 1753, he wrote to Dr. Quesnay to tell him that -he wished him well, but that being too poor to give him anything else, -he was making him a present of his body, which was on the point of -perishing, for him to make a skeleton of. To the paper on which he -wrote, Danry had sewn a little square of cloth, adding: "God has given -the garments of martyrs the virtue of healing all manner of diseases. It -is now fifty-seven months since I have been suffering an enforced -martyrdom. So there is no doubt that to-day the cloth of my coat will -work miracles; here is a bit for you." This letter was returned to the -lieutenant of police in December, and on it we find a marginal note in -Berryer's hand: "A letter worth keeping, as it reveals the prisoner's -mind." We know in what fashion madmen were wont to be treated in the -eighteenth century. - -But suddenly, to the great astonishment of the officers of the château, -our two friends amended their character and their conduct. No more -noises were heard in their room, and they answered politely anyone who -came to speak to them. But their behaviour was even more odd than ever. -Allègre used to walk up and down the room half naked, "to save his -toggery," he said, and he sent letter after letter to his brother and -the lieutenant of police, asking them to send him things, particularly -shirts and handkerchiefs. Danry followed suit. "This prisoner," wrote -Chevalier to the lieutenant of police, "is asking for linen. I shall not -make a requisition, because he has seven very good shirts, four of them -new; he has shirts on the brain." But why decline to humour a prisoner's -whim? So the commissary of the Bastille had two dozen expensive shirts -made--every one cost twenty livres, more than thirty-three shillings of -our money--and some handkerchiefs of the finest cambric. - -If the wardrobe-keeper of the Bastille had kept her eyes open, she would -have noticed that the serviettes and cloths which went into the room of -the two companions were of much smaller dimensions when they came out. -Our friends had established communication with their neighbours above -and below, begging twine and thread from them and giving tobacco in -exchange. They had succeeded in loosening the iron bars which prevented -climbing up the chimney; at night they used to mount to the platforms, -whence they conversed down the chimneys with prisoners in the other -towers. One of these hapless creatures believed himself to be a prophet -of God; he heard at night the sound of a voice descending upon his cold -hearth: he revealed the miracle to the officers, who only considered him -still more insane than before. On the terrace Allègre and Danry found -the tools left there in the evening by the masons and gardeners employed -at the Bastille. Thus they got possession of a mallet, an auger, two -sorts of pulleys, and some bits of iron taken from the gun-carriages. -All these they concealed in the hollow between the floor of their room -and the ceiling of the room below. - -Allègre and Danry escaped from the Bastille on the night of February 25, -1756. They climbed up the chimney till they reached the platform, and -descended by means of their famous rope ladder, fastened to a -gun-carriage. A wall separated the Bastille moat from that of the -Arsenal. By the aid of an iron bar they succeeded in working out a large -stone, and they escaped through the hole thus made. Their rope ladder -was a work of long patience and amazing skill. When in after days -Allègre went mad, Danry appropriated the whole credit of this -enterprise which his friend had conceived and directed. - -At the moment of leaving, Allègre had written on a scrap of paper, for -the officers of the Bastille, the following note, which is an excellent -indication of his character:-- - -"We have done no damage to the furniture of the governor, we have only -made use of a few rags of coverlets of no possible use; the others are -left just as they were. If some serviettes are missing, they will be -found at the bottom of the water in the great moat, whither we are -taking them to wipe our feet. - -"_Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam!_ - -"_Scito cor nostrum et cognosce semitas nostras._"[46] - -Our two companions had provided themselves with a portmanteau, and they -made haste to change their clothes as soon as they had cleared the -precincts of the fortress. A foreman of works whom Danry knew interested -himself in them, and conducted them to one Rouit, a tailor, who lodged -them for some little time. Rouit even lent Danry forty-eight livres, -which he promised to return as soon as he reached Brussels. At the end -of a month our two friends were across the frontier. - -It is very difficult to follow Danry's proceedings from the time when he -left Rouit to the moment of his reincarceration in the Bastille. He has -left, it is true, two accounts of his sojourn in Flanders and Holland; -but these accounts are themselves inconsistent, and both differ from -some original documents which remain to us. - -The two fugitives had considered it advisable not to set out together. -Allègre was the first to arrive at Brussels, whence he wrote an insolent -letter to Madame de Pompadour. This letter led to his discovery. On -reaching Brussels, Danry learnt that his friend had been arrested. He -lost no time in making for Holland, and at Amsterdam he took service -with one Paul Melenteau. From Rotterdam he had written to his mother, -and the poor creature, collecting her little savings, sent him 200 -livres by post. But Saint-Marc had already struck on the track of the -fugitive. "The burgomaster of Amsterdam readily and gladly granted the -request made by Saint-Marc on behalf of the king, through the -ambassador, for the arrest and extradition of Danry." Louis XV. confined -himself to claiming him as one of his subjects. Saint-Marc, disguised as -an Armenian merchant, discovered him in his retreat. Danry was arrested -in Amsterdam on June 1, 1756, conducted to a cell belonging to the town -hall, and thence brought back to France and consigned to the Bastille on -June 9. Word came from Holland that Saint-Marc was there regarded as a -sorcerer. - -By his second escape the unhappy man had succeeded in making his case -very serious. In the eighteenth century, escape from a state prison was -punishable with death. The English, great apostles of humanity as they -were, were no more lenient than the French; and everyone knows what -treatment was meted out by Frederick II. to Baron de Trenck. He was to -have remained in prison only one year; but after his second escape he -was chained up in a gloomy dungeon; at his feet was the grave in which -he was to be buried, and on it his name and a death's-head had been cut. - -The government of Louis XV. did not punish with such rigour as this. The -fugitive was simply put in the cells for a time. At the Bastille the -cells were damp and chilly dungeons. Danry has left in his _Memoirs_ an -account of the forty months spent in this dismal place,--an account -which makes one's hair stand on end; but it is packed full of -exaggeration. He says that he spent three years with irons on his hands -and feet: in November, 1756, Berryer offered to remove the irons from -either hands or feet at his choice, and we see from a marginal note by -Major Chevalier that he chose the feet. Danry adds that he lay all -through the winter on straw without any coverlet: he was actually so -well supplied with coverlets that he applied to Berryer for some others. -To believe him you would think that when the Seine was in flood the -water rose as high as his waist: as a fact, when the water threatened to -invade the cell, the prisoner was removed. Again, he says that he passed -there forty months in absolute darkness: the light of his prison was -certainly not very brilliant, but it was sufficient to enable him to -read and write, and we learn from letters he sent to the lieutenant of -police that he saw from his cell all that went on in the courtyard of -the Bastille. Finally, he tells us of a variety of diseases he -contracted at the time, and cites in this connection the opinion of an -oculist who came to attend him. But this very report was forged by Danry -himself, and the rest he invented to match. - -In this cell, where he professes to have been treated in so barbarous a -manner, Danry, however, proved difficult enough to deal with, as we -judge from the reports of Chevalier. "Danry has a thoroughly nasty -temper; he sends for us at eight o'clock in the morning, and asks us to -send warders to the market to buy him fish, saying that he never eats -eggs, artichokes, or spinach, and that he insists on eating fish; and -when we refuse, he flies into a furious passion." That was on fast days; -on ordinary days it was the same. "Danry swore like a trooper, that is, -in his usual way, and after the performance said to me: 'Major, when you -give me a fowl, at least let it be stuffed!'" He was not one of the -vulgar herd, he said, "one of those fellows you send to Bicêtre." And he -demanded to be treated in a manner befitting his condition. - -It was just the same with regard to clothes. One is amazed at the sight -of the lists of things the lieutenant of police got made for him. To -give him satisfaction, the administration did not stick at the most -unreasonable expense, and it was by selling these clothes that Danry, at -his various escapes, procured a part of the money he was so much in -need of. He suffered from rheumatism, so they provided him with -dressing-gowns lined with rabbit-skin, vests lined with silk plush, -gloves and fur hats, and first-rate leather breeches. In his _Memoirs_ -Danry lumps all these as "half-rotten rags." Rochebrune, the commissary -charged with the prisoners' supplies, was quite unable to satisfy him. -"You instructed me," he wrote to the major, "to get a dressing-gown made -for the Sieur Danry, who asks for a calamanco with red stripes on a blue -ground. I have made inquiries for such stuff of a dozen tradesmen, who -have no such thing, and indeed would be precious careful not to have it, -for there is no sale for that kind of calamanco. I don't see why I -should satisfy the fantastic tastes of a prisoner who ought to be very -well pleased at having a dressing-gown that is warm and well-fitting." -On another occasion, the major writes: "This man Danry has never up to -the present consented to accept the breeches that M. de Rochebrune got -made for him, though they are excellent, lined with good leather, with -silk garters, and in the best style." And Danry had his own pretty way -of complaining. "I beg you," he wrote to the governor, "to have the -goodness to tell M. de Sartine in plain terms that the four -handkerchiefs he sent me are not fit to give to a galley-slave, and I -will not have them on any account; but that I request him kindly to give -me six print handkerchiefs, blue, and large, and two muslin cravats." He -adds, "If there is no money in the treasury, go and ask Madame de -Pompadour for some." - -One day Danry declared that something was wrong with his eyes. -Grandjean, the king's oculist, came more than once to see him, ordered -aromatic fumigations for him, gave him ointments and eye-salve; but it -was soon seen that all that was wrong was that Danry desired to get a -spy-glass, and to smuggle out, with the doctor's assistance, memoirs and -letters. - -On September 1, 1759, Danry was removed from the cells and placed in a -more airy chamber. He wrote at once to Bertin to thank him, and to tell -him that he was sending him two doves. "You delight in doing good, and I -shall have no less delight, my lord, if you favour me by accepting this -slight mark of my great gratitude. - -"Tamerlaine allowed himself to be disarmed by a basket of figs presented -to him by the inhabitants of a town he was proceeding to besiege. The -Marquise de Pompadour is a Christian lady; I beg you to allow me to send -her also a pair: perhaps she will allow her heart to be touched by these -two innocent pigeons. I append a copy of the letter which will accompany -them:-- - - "'MADAM,--Two pigeons used to come every day to pick grains out of - my straw; I kept them, and they gave me young ones. I venture to - take the liberty of presenting you with this pair as a mark of my - respect and affection. I beseech you in mercy to be good enough to - accept them, with as much pleasure as I have in offering them to - you. I have the honour to be, with the profoundest respect, Madam, - your very humble and obedient servant, - -"'DANRY, for eleven years at the Bastille.'" - -Why did not Danry always make so charming a use of the permission -accorded him to write to the minister, the lieutenant of police, Madame -de Pompadour, Dr. Quesnay, and his mother? He wrote incessantly, and we -have letters of his in hundreds, widely differing one from another. Some -are suppliant and pathetic: "My body is wasting away every day in tears -and blood, I am worn out." He writes to Madame de Pompadour:--"Madam,--I -have never wished you anything but well; be then sensible to the voice -of tears, of my innocence, and of a poor despairing mother of sixty-six -years. Madam, you are well aware of my martyrdom. I beg you in God's -name to grant me my precious liberty; I am spent, I am dying, my blood -is all on fire by reason of my groaning; twenty times in the night I am -obliged to moisten my mouth and nostrils to get my breath." Everyone -knows the famous letter beginning with the words, "I have been suffering -now for 100,000 hours." He writes to Quesnay: "I present myself to you -with a live coal upon my head, indicating my pressing necessity." The -images he uses are not always so happy: "Listen," he says to Berryer, -"to the voice of the just bowels with which you are arrayed"! - -In other letters the prisoner alters his tone; to plaints succeed cries -of rage and fury, "he steeps his pen in the gall with which his soul is -saturated." He no longer supplicates, he threatens. There is nothing to -praise in the style of these epistles: it is incorrect and vulgar, -though at times vigorous and coloured with vivid imagery. To the -lieutenant of police he writes: "When a man is to be punished in this -accursed prison, the air is full of it, the punishments fall quicker -than the thunderbolt; but when it is a case of succouring a man who is -unfortunate, I see nothing but crabs;" and he addresses to him these -lines of Voltaire:-- - - "Perish those villains born, whose hearts of steel - No touch of ruth for others' woes can feel." - -He predicts terrible retribution for the ministers, the magistrates, and -Madame de Pompadour. To her he writes: "You will see yourself one day -like that owl in the park of Versailles; all the birds cast water upon -him to choke him, to drown him; if the king chanced to die, before two -hours were past someone would set five or six persons at your heels, and -you would yourself pack to the Bastille." The accused by degrees becomes -transformed into the accuser; he writes to Sartine: "I am neither a dog -nor a criminal, but a man like yourself." And the lieutenant of police, -taking pity on him, writes on one of these letters sent to the minister -of Paris: "When Danry writes thus, it is not that he is mad, but frantic -from long imprisonment." The magistrate counsels the prisoner "to keep -out of his letters all bitterness, which can only do him harm." Bertin -corrected with his own hand the petitions Danry sent to the Marquise de -Pompadour; in the margin of one of them we read, "I should think I was -prejudicing him and his interests if I sent on to Madame de Pompadour a -letter in which he ventures to reproach her with having _abused his good -faith and confidence_." Having amended the letter, the lieutenant of -police himself carried it to Versailles. - -The years of captivity, far from humbling the prisoner and abasing his -pride, only made him the more arrogant; his audacity grew from day to -day, and he was not afraid of speaking to the lieutenants of police -themselves, who knew his history, about his fortune which had been -ruined, his brilliant career which had been cut short, his whole family -plunged into despair. At first the magistrate would shrug his shoulders; -insensibly he would be won over by these unwavering assertions, by this -accent of conviction; and he ends actually by believing in this high -birth, this fortune, this genius, in all which Danry had perhaps come to -believe himself. Then Danry takes a still higher tone: he claims not -only his freedom, but compensation, large sums of money, honours. But -one must not think that this sprang from a sordid sentiment unworthy of -him: "If I propose compensation, my lord, it is not for the sake of -getting money, it is only so that I may smooth away all the obstacles -which may delay the end of my long suffering." - -In return, he is very ready to give the lieutenant of police some good -advice--to indicate the means of advancement in his career, to show him -how to set about getting appointed secretary of state, to compose for -him the speech he is to make to the king at his first audience. He adds: -"This very time is extremely favourable to you; it is the auspicious -hour: profit by it. Before they take horse on the day of rejoicing for -the conclusion of peace, you ought to be a counsellor of state." - -He is very ready also to send to the king schemes conceived in his -prison for the welfare of the realm. Now it is a suggestion to give -sergeants and officers on the battlefield muskets instead of spontoons -and pikes, by which the French arms would be strengthened by 25,000 good -fusiliers. Now it is a suggestion for increasing postal facilities, -which would augment the resources of the Treasury by several millions -every year. He recommends the erection of public granaries in the -principal towns, and draws up plans of battle for giving unheard-of -strength to a column of men three deep. We might mention other and -better suggestions. These notions were drowned in a flood of words, an -unimaginable wealth of verbiage, with parallels drawn from the history -of all periods and every country. His manuscripts were illustrated with -pen and ink sketches. Danry copied and recopied them incessantly, sent -them to all and sundry in all sorts of forms, persuaded the sentinels -that these lofty conceptions intimately concerned the safety of the -state and would win him an immense fortune. Thus he induced these good -fellows to compromise their situation by carrying the papers secretly to -ministers, members of the Parlement, marshals of France; he threw them -from the windows of his room, and, wrapped in snowballs, from the top of -the towers. These memoirs are the work of a man whose open and active -mind, of incredible activity indeed, plans, constructs, invents without -cessation or repose. - -Among these bundles of papers we have discovered a very touching letter -from the prisoner's mother, Jeanneton Aubrespy, who wrote to her son -from Montagnac on June 14, 1759:-- - - "Do not do me the injustice of thinking that I have forgotten you, - my dear son, my loving son. Could I shut you out of my thoughts, - you whom I bear always in my heart? I have always had a great - longing to see you again, but to-day I long more than ever, I am - constantly concerned for you, I think of nothing but you, I am - wholly filled with you. Do not worry, my dear son; that is the only - favour I ask of you. Your misfortunes will come to an end, and - perhaps it is not far off. I hope that Madame de Pompadour will - pardon you; for that I am trying to win heaven and earth over to - your cause. The Lord is putting my submission and yours to a long - test, so as to make us better realize the worth of His favour. Do - not distress yourself, my son. I hope to have the happiness of - receiving you again, and of embracing you more tenderly than ever. - Adieu, my son, my dear son, my loving son, I love you, and I shall - love you dearly to the grave. I beg you to give me news of your - health. I am, and always shall be, your good mother, - -DAUBRESPI, _widow_." - - - -Is not this letter charming in its artless pathos? The son's reply is -equally touching; but on reading it again one feels that it was to pass -under the eyes of the lieutenant of police; on examining it closely, one -sees the sentiments grimacing between the lines. - -No one knew better than Danry how to play on the souls of others, to -awake in them, at his will, pity or tenderness, astonishment or -admiration. No one has surpassed him in the art, difficult in very -truth, of posing as a hero, a genius, and a martyr, a part that we shall -see him sustain for twenty years without faltering. - -In 1759 there entered upon the office of lieutenant of police a man who -was henceforth to occupy Danry's mind almost exclusively--Gabriel de -Sartine. He was a fine sceptic, of amiable character and pleasing -manners. He was loved by the people of Paris, who boasted of his -administrative abilities and his spirit of justice. He exerted himself -in his turn to render the years of captivity less cruel to Danry. "He -allowed me," writes the latter, "what no other State prisoner has ever -obtained, the privilege of walking along the top of the towers, in the -open air, to preserve my health." He cheered the prisoner with genial -words, and urged him to behave well and no longer to fill his letters -with insults. "Your fate," he told him, "is in your own hands." He -looked into Danry's scheme for the construction of public granaries, and -when he had read it said, "Really, there are excellent things, most -excellent things in it." He visited Danry in prison and promised to do -his utmost to obtain his liberation. He himself put into the hands of -Madame de Pompadour the _Grand Mémoire_ which Danry had drawn up for -her. In this memorial the prisoner told the favourite that in return for -a service he had rendered her in sending her a "hieroglyphic symbol" to -put her on her guard against the machinations of her enemies, she had -caused him to suffer unjustly for twelve years. Moreover, he would now -only accept his freedom along with an indemnity of 60,000 livres. He -added: "Be on your guard! When your prisoners get out and publish your -cruelties abroad, they will make you hateful to heaven and the whole -earth!" It is not surprising that this _Grand Mémoire_ had practically -no result. Sartine promised that he would renew his efforts on his -behalf. "If, unhappily, you should meet with some resistance to the -entreaties you are about to make for me," wrote Danry, "I take the -precaution of sending you a copy of the scheme I sent to the king." -(This was the memorial suggesting that muskets should be given to the -officers and sergeants.) "Now the king has been putting my scheme in -operation for five years or more, and he will continue to avail himself -of it every time we are at war." Sartine proceeded to Versailles, this -marvellous scheme in his pocket. He showed it to the ministers and -pleaded on behalf of this protégé of his who, from the depths of his -dungeon, was doing his country service. But on his return he wrote to -the major of the Bastille a note in regard to Danry, in which we read: -"They have not made use, as he believes, of his military scheme." - -Danry had asked several times to be sent to the colonies. In 1763 the -government was largely occupied with the colonization of La Désirade. We -find a letter of June 23, 1763, in which Sartine proposes to send Danry -to La Désirade "with an introduction to the commanding officer." But -nothing came of these proposals. - - * * * * * - -All his life, Danry sought to compass his ends by the aid of women. He -was well aware of all the tenderness and devotion there is in these -light heads; he knew that sentiment is always stronger in them than -reason: "I was always looking out for women, and wished to find young -women, for their gentle and loving soul is more susceptible of pity; -misfortune moves them, stirs in them a more lively interest; their -impressionability is less quickly dulled, and so they are capable of -greater efforts." - -While taking his walk on the towers of the Bastille in the fresh morning -air, he tried by means of gestures and signals to open relations with -the people of the neighbourhood. "One day I noticed two young persons -working alone in a room, whose countenances struck me as pretty and -gentle. I was not deceived. One of them having glanced in my direction, -I wafted her with my hand a salutation which I endeavoured to make -respectful and becoming, whereupon she told her sister, who instantly -looked at me too. I then saluted them both in the same manner, and they -replied to me with an appearance of interest and kindliness. From that -moment we set up a sort of correspondence between us." The girls were -two good-looking laundresses named Lebrun, the daughters of a wigmaker. -And our rogue, the better to stimulate the little fools to enthusiastic -service in his behalf, knocked at the door of their young hearts, -willing enough to fly open. He spoke to them of youth, misfortune, -love--and also of his fortune, prodigious, he said, the half of which he -offered them. Glowing with ardour, the girls spared for him neither -time, nor trouble, nor what little money they had. - -The prisoner had put them in possession of several of his schemes, among -others the military one, with letters for certain writers and persons of -importance, and in addition a "terrible" indictment of Madame de -Pompadour for the king, in which "her birth and her shame, all her -thefts and cruelties were laid bare." He begged the girls to have -several copies made, which they were then to send to the addresses -indicated. Soon large black crosses daubed on a neighbouring wall -informed the prisoner that his instructions had been carried out. Danry -seems no longer to have doubted that his woes were coming to an end, -that the gates of the Bastille were about to fly open before him, and -that he would triumphantly leave the prison only to enter a palace of -fortune: _Parta victoria!_[47] he exclaims in a burst of happiness. - -And so we come to one of the most extraordinary episodes in this strange -life. - -In December, 1763, the Marquise of Pompadour was taken seriously ill. -"An officer of the Bastille came up to my room and said to me: 'Sir, -write four words to the Marquise de Pompadour, and you may be sure that -in less than a week you will have recovered your freedom.' I replied to -the major that prayers and tears only hardened the heart of that cruel -woman, and that I would not write to her. However, he came back next day -with the same story, and I replied in the same terms as on the previous -day. Scarcely had he gone than Daragon, my warder, came into my room and -said: 'Believe the major when he tells you that within a week you will -be free: if he tells you so, depend upon it he is sure of it.' Next day -but one the officer came to me for the third time: 'Why are you so -obstinate?' I thanked him--it was Chevalier, major of the Bastille--for -the third time, telling him that I would sooner die than write again to -that implacable shrew. - -"Six or eight days after, my two young ladies came and kissed their -hands to me, at the same time displaying a roll of paper on which were -written in large characters the words: 'Madame de Pompadour is dead!' -The Marquise de Pompadour died on April 19, 1764, and two months -afterwards, on June 19, M. de Sartine came to the Bastille and gave me -an audience; the first thing he said was that we would say no more about -the past, but that at the earliest moment he would go to Versailles and -demand of the minister the justice which was my due." And we find, in -truth, among the papers of the lieutenant of police, the following note, -dated June 18, 1764: "M. Duval (one of the lieutenant's secretaries)--to -propose at the first inspection that Danry be liberated and exiled to -his own part of the country." - -Returning to his room, Danry reflected on these developments; for the -lieutenant of police to show so much anxiety for his liberation was -evidently a sign that he was afraid of him, and that his memorials had -reached their destination and achieved their end. But he would be a -great ass to be satisfied with a mere liberation: "100,000 livres" would -scarcely suffice to throw oblivion over the injustices with which he had -been overwhelmed. - -He revolved these thoughts in his head for several days. To accept -freedom at the hands of his persecutors would be to pardon the past, a -mistake he would never fall into. The door opened, the major entered, -bearing in his hand a note written by de Sartine: "You will tell County -Number 4 that I am working for his effectual liberation." The officer -went out; Danry immediately sat down at his table and wrote to the -lieutenant of police a letter replete with threats, insults, and -obscenity. The original is lost, but we have an abstract made by Danry -himself. He concluded with leaving to Sartine a choice: "he was either a -mere lunatic, or else had allowed himself to be corrupted like a villain -by the gold of the Marquis de Marigny, the Marquise de Pompadour's -brother." - -"When Sartine received my letter, he wrote an answer which the major -brought and read to me, in which these were his very words: that I was -wrong to impute to him the length of my imprisonment, that if he had had -his way I should long ago have been set free; and he ended by telling me -that there was Bedlam for the mad. On which I said to the major: 'We -shall see in a few days whether he will have the power to put me in -Bedlam.' He did not deprive me of my walk on the towers; nine days -after, he put me in the cells on bread and water." But Danry was not -easily put out. No doubt they were only meaning to put his assurance to -the test. He went down to his cell singing, and for several days -continued to manifest the most confident gaiety. - -From that moment the prisoner made himself insufferable to his -guardians. It was yells and violence from morning to night. He filled -the whole Bastille with bursts of his "voice of thunder." Major -Chevalier wrote to Sartine: "This prisoner would wear out the patience -of the saintliest monk"; again: "He is full of gall and bitterness, he -is poison pure and simple"; once more: "This prisoner is raving mad." - -The lieutenant of police suggested to Saint-Florentin, the minister, to -transfer Danry to the keep of Vincennes. He was conducted there on the -night of September 15, 1764. We are now entering on a new phase of his -life. We shall find him still more wretched than in the past, but -constantly swelling his demands and pretensions, and with reason, for he -is now, mark you, a nobleman! He had learnt from a sentinel of the -Bastille of the death of Henri Vissec de la Tude, lieutenant-colonel of -a dragoon regiment, who had died at Sedan on January 31, 1761. From that -day he determined that he was the son of that officer. And what were his -reasons? Vissec de la Tude was from his own part of the country, he was -a nobleman and rich, and he was dead. These arguments Danry considered -excellent. He was, however, in complete ignorance of all that concerned -his father and his new family; he did not know even the name "Vissec de -la Tude," of which he made "Masers de la Tude"; Masers was the name of -an estate belonging to Baron de Fontès, a relation of Henri de Vissec. -The latter was not a marquis, as Danry believed, but simply a chevalier; -he died leaving six sons, whilst Danry represents him as dying without -issue. It goes without saying that all that our hero relates about his -father in his _Memoirs_ is pure invention. The Chevalier de la Tude -never knew of the existence of the son of Jeanneton Aubrespy, and when -in later years Danry asked the children to recognize him as their -natural brother, his pretensions were rejected. Nevertheless our -gentleman will henceforth sign his letters and memoirs "Danry, or rather -Henri Masers d'Aubrespy," then "de Masers d'Aubrespy," then "de Masers -de la Tude." When Danry had once got an idea in his head, he never let -it go. He repeated it unceasingly until he had forced it upon the -conviction of all about him--pertinacity which cannot fail to excite our -admiration. In the patent of Danry's pension of 400 livres granted by -Louis XVI. in 1784, the king calls the son of poor Jeanneton "Vicomte -Masers de la Tude." - -As may well be imagined, the Vicomte de la Tude could not accept his -liberty on the same terms as Danry. The latter would have been satisfied -with 60,000 livres: the viscount demands 150,000 and the cross of St. -Louis to boot. So he writes to the lieutenant of police. Sartine was too -sensible a man to be long obdurate to the prisoner on account of these -extravagances. "I was transferred to the keep of Vincennes on the night -of September 15, 1764. About nine hours after, the late M. de Guyonnet, -king's lieutenant, came and saw me in the presence of the major and the -three warders, and said: 'M. de Sartine has instructed me to inform you, -on his behalf, that provided you behave yourself quietly for a short -time, he will set you free. You have written him a very violent letter, -and you must apologize for it.'" Danry adds: "When all is said and done, -M. de Sartine did treat me well." He granted him for two hours every day -"the extraordinary promenade of the moats." "When a lieutenant of -police," says Danry, "granted this privilege to a prisoner, it was with -the object of promptly setting him free." On November 23, 1765, Danry -was walking thus, in company with a sentinel, outside the keep. The fog -was dense. Turning suddenly towards his keeper, Danry said, "What do you -think of this weather?" "It's very bad." "Well, it's just the weather to -escape in." He took five paces and was out of sight. "I escaped from -Vincennes," writes Danry, "without trickery; an ox would have managed it -as well." But in the speech he delivered later in the National Assembly, -the matter took a new complexion. "Think," he cried, "of the unfortunate -Latude, in his third escape, pursued by twenty soldiers, and yet -stopping and disarming under their very eyes the sentinel who had taken -aim at him!" - - * * * * * - -When Latude was at large, he found himself without resources, as at his -first escape. "I escaped with my feet in slippers and not a sou in my -pocket; I hadn't a thing to bless myself with." He took refuge with his -young friends, the Misses Lebrun. - -In their keeping he found a part of his papers, plans and projects, -memorials and dissertations. He sent "a basketful" of these to Marshal -de Noailles, begging him to continue to honour him with his protection, -and imparting to him "four great discoveries he had just made; first, -the true cause of the tides; secondly, the true cause of mountains, but -for which the globe would be brought to a standstill and become -speedily vitrified; thirdly, the cause of the ceaseless turning of the -globe; fourthly, the cause of the saltness of sea-water." He wrote also -to the Duke de Choiseul, minister of war, in order to obtain a reward -for his military scheme; he wrote making overtures of peace to Sartine: -in return for an advance of 10,000 crowns of the 150,000 livres due to -him, he would overlook the past: "I was resolved," he says, "to stake -all on one cast." In reply, he received a letter naming a house where he -would find 1200 livres obtained for him by Dr. Quesnay. He proceeded to -the address indicated--and was there captured. - -He was at once taken back to Vincennes. He declares that he was about to -be set at liberty at the moment of his escape: and now a new detention -was commencing. We shall not relate in detail the life he was now to -lead. Materially he continued to be well treated, but his mind became -affected, his rages became more and more violent, reaching at last -paroxysms of fury. Here are some extracts from letters and memorials -sent to Sartine: "By all the devils, this is coming it too strong. It is -true, sir, that I'd defy the blackest devils in all hell to teach you -anything in the way of cruelty; and that's but poor praise for you." He -writes on another occasion: "The crime of every one of us is to have -seen through your villainies: we are to perish, are we? how delighted -you would be if some one told you that we had all strangled ourselves in -our cells!" Danry reminds the lieutenant of police of the tortures of -Enguerrand de Marigni, adding: "Remember that more than a thousand -wretches have been broken in the Place de Grève who had not committed -the hundredth part of your crimes."... "Not a single person would be -astonished to see you flayed alive, your skin tanned, and your carcase -thrown into the gutters for the dogs to eat."... "But Monsieur laughs -at everything, Monsieur fears neither God, nor king, nor devil, Monsieur -swills down his crimes like buttermilk!" - -In prison Latude wrote memoirs which he filled with calumnies on the -ministers and the court. These memoirs are composed in the most dramatic -style, with an inimitable accent of sincerity. It was known that the -prisoner found a thousand means of sending them outside the walls, and -it was feared that they might be circulated among the populace, whose -minds--the year is 1775--were beginning to ferment. Latude had just been -flung into a cell in consequence of a fresh outbreak against his -jailers. "On March 19, 1775, the king's lieutenant entered, accompanied -by the major and three warders, and said to me: 'I have obtained leave -to let you out of the cell, but on one condition: that you hand over -your papers.' - -"'Hand over my papers! I tell you, sir, I'd rather be done to death in -this cell than show the white feather so!' - -"'Your trunk is upstairs in your room: I've only to say the word and the -seals would be broken and your papers taken out.' - -"I replied: 'Sir, justice has formalities to which you are bound to -conform, and you are not allowed to commit such outrages.' - -"He took five or six steps out of the cell, and as I did not call him -back, he came back himself and said: 'Just hand them to me for ten days -to examine them, and I give you my word of honour that at the end of -that time I will have them returned to your room.' - -"I replied: 'I will not let you have them for two hours even.' - -"'All right,' he said; 'as you won't entrust them to me, you have only -to stay where you are.'" - -Latude relates in his _Memoirs_ with great indignation the story of a -flute he had made, on which he used to play, his sole diversion during -the long hours of solitude; his jailers had the barbarity to take it -from him. The governor of the fortress, out of compassion, offered to -restore it. "But it will only be on condition that you play by day only, -and not at night." At this stipulation, writes Latude in his _Rêveries_, -"I could not refrain from bantering him, saying, 'Why, don't you know, -sir, that forbidding a thing is just the way to make me eager for it?'" - -And so at Vincennes as at Paris they came to consider Danry as a madman. -Among the books given him for his amusement there were some dealing with -sorcery. These he read and re-read, and from that time onward he saw in -all the incidents of his life nothing but the perpetual intervention of -devils evoked by the witch Madame de Pompadour and her brother the -magician, the Marquis de Marigny. - -Sartine came again to see the prisoner on November 8, 1772. Danry begged -him to send a police officer to make a copy of a memorial he had drawn -up for his own justification; to send also an advocate to assist him -with his advice, and a doctor, to examine the state of his health. The -police officer arrived on the 24th. On the 29th, he wrote to the -lieutenant of police: "I have the honour to report that in pursuance of -your orders I proceeded to the château of Vincennes on the 24th curt., -to hear from Danry something which, he asserts, concerns the minister: -it is impossible to hear anything which concerns him less. He began by -saying that to write all he had to tell me I should have to remain for -three weeks with him. He was bound to tell me the story of 180 -sorceries, and I was to copy the story, according to him, from a heap of -papers he drew from a bag, the writing of which is undecipherable." - -We know from Danry himself what passed at the visit of the advocate. He -entered the prisoner's room about noon. Danry handed him two memorials -he had drawn up and explained their purport. "Instantly he cut me short, -saying, 'Sir, I have no belief whatever in witchcraft.' I did not give -in, but said, 'Sir, I cannot show you the devil in bodily shape, but I -am very certain I can convince you, by the contents of this memorial, -that the late Marquise de Pompadour was a witch, and that the Marquis de -Marigny, her brother, is at this very time still having dealings with -the devil.' - -"The advocate had read but a few pages when he stopped dead, put the -manuscript on the table, and said, as though he had been wakened out of -a deep sleep, 'Would you not like to get out of prison?' I replied: -'There's no doubt of that.' 'And do you intend to remain in Paris, or to -go to your home?' 'When I am free, I shall go home.' 'But have you any -means?' Upon this I took his hand and said: 'My dear sir, I beg you not -to take offence at what I am going to say.' 'Speak on,' he said, 'say -whatever you like, I shall not be offended.' 'Well then, I see very -clearly that the devil has already got hold of you.'" - -In the same year, Malesherbes made his celebrated inspection of the -prisons. "This virtuous minister came to see me at the beginning of -August, 1775, and listened to me with the most lively interest." The -historian who has the completest knowledge of everything relating to the -Bastille, François Ravaisson, believed that Malesherbes left the -wretched man in prison out of regard for his colleague Maurepas. "One -would have thought that Maurepas' first act on resuming office would -have been to release his old accomplice." This conjecture is destroyed -by a letter from Malesherbes to the governor of Vincennes: "I am busy, -sir, with the examination of the papers relating to your various -prisoners. Danry, Thorin, and Maréchal are quite mad, according to the -particulars furnished to me, and the two first gave indubitable marks -of madness in my presence." - -In consequence, Danry was transferred to Charenton on September 27, -1775, "on account of mental derangement, in virtue of a royal order of -the 23rd of the said month, countersigned by Lamoignon. The king will -pay for his keep." On entering his new abode, Latude took the precaution -to change his name a third time, and signed the register "Danger." - -In passing from the fortress of Vincennes to the hospital of Charenton, -Danry thought it was as well to rise still higher in dignity. So we see -him henceforth styling himself "engineer, geographer, and royal -pensioner at Charenton." - -His situation was sensibly changed for the better. He speaks of the -kindnesses shown him by the Fathers of La Charité.[48] He had companions -whose society pleased him. Halls were set apart for billiards, -backgammon, and cards. He had company at his meals and in his walks. He -met Allègre, his old fellow-prisoner, whom he came upon among the -dangerous lunatics in the dungeons; Allègre had been removed in 1763 -from the Bastille, where he was shattering and destroying everything. -His latest fancy was that he was God. As to Danry, he had taken so -kindly to his rôle as nobleman that to see his aristocratic and -well-to-do air, to hear his conversation, full of reminiscences of his -family and his early life, no one could have doubted that he actually -was the brilliant engineer officer he set up for, who had fallen in the -prime of life a victim to the intrigues of the favourite. He hobnobbed -with the aristocratic section of society at Charenton and struck up an -intimacy with one of his associates, the Chevalier de Moyria, son of a -lieutenant-colonel, and a knight of Saint-Louis. - -Meanwhile the Parlement, which sent a commission every year to inspect -the Charenton asylum--a commission before which Danry appeared on two -separate occasions--did not decide that he ought to be set at liberty. -But one fine day in September, 1776, the prior of the Fathers, who took -a quite exceptional interest in the lot of his pensioner, meeting him in -the garden, said to him abruptly: "We are expecting a visit from the -lieutenant of police; get ready a short and taking address to say to -him." The lieutenant of police, Lenoir, saw Danry, and listened to him -attentively, and as the prior's account of him was entirely favourable, -the magistrate promised him his liberty. "Then Father Prudentius, my -confessor, who was behind me, drew me by the arm to get me away, fearing -lest, by some imprudent word, I might undo the good that had been -decided on"--a charming incident, much to the honour of Father -Prudentius. - -But on consideration it appeared dangerous to fling so suddenly upon -society a man who would be at a loss how to live, having neither -relatives nor fortune, having no longer the means of gaining a -livelihood, and a man, moreover, whom there was only too much reason to -mistrust. Lenoir asked the prisoner if, once set at liberty, he would -find the wherewithal to assure his existence; if he had any property; if -he could give the names of any persons willing to go bail for him. - -What did this mean--_if_ he had any property, _if_ he could find -sureties? He, Masers de Latude! Why, his whole family, when the Marquise -de Pompadour had him put in the Bastille, was occupying a brilliant -position! Why, his mother, of whose death he had had the agony to hear, -had left a house and considerable estates! Latude took his pen, and -without hesitation wrote to M. Caillet, royal notary at Montagnac: "My -dear friend, I would bet ten to one you believe me dead; see how -mistaken you are!... You have but to say the word and before the -carnival is over we shall eat a capital leveret together." And he speaks -to his friend the notary of the fortune left by his mother, and of his -family, who all of them cannot fail to be interested in him. Latude -himself was not greatly astonished at receiving no reply to this -epistle: but it must have passed under the eyes of the lieutenant of -police, and what more did he want? - -Latude's new friend, the Chevalier de Moyria, had already been for some -time at liberty. The prisoner hastened to send him a copy of his letter -to the notary. "The reply is a long time coming, M. Caillet is dead, -doubtless." What is to become of him? These twenty-eight years of -captivity have endangered his fortune, have made him lose his friends; -how is he to find the remnant of his scattered family? Happily there -remains to him a friendship, a friendship still recent, but already -strong, in which he places his whole confidence. "Chevalier, it would -only need your intervention to deliver me, by inducing your good mother -to write to M. Lenoir." The Chevalier de Moyria sent an amiable reply. -Danry wrote another and more urgent letter, with such success that not -only the Chevalier's mother, but also an old friend of the Moyria -family, Mercier de Saint-Vigor, a colonel, and controller-general of the -queen's household, intervened, and made applications at Versailles. "On -June 5, 1777, King Louis XVI. restored to me my freedom; I have in my -pocket the warrant under his own hand!" - - * * * * * - -On leaving Charenton, Danry signed an undertaking to depart immediately -for Languedoc, an undertaking which he did not trouble to fulfil. Paris -was the only city in France where a man of his stamp could thrive. He -was now fifty-two years old, but was still youthful in appearance, full -of go and vigour; his hair, as abundant as it had been in youth, had not -become white. He soon found means of borrowing some money, and then we -see him opening a campaign, exerting himself to get in touch with the -ministers, gaining the protection of the Prince de Beauvau, distributing -memorials in which he claimed a reward for great services rendered, and -launched out into invectives against his oppressors, Sartine in -particular. Minister Amelot sent for him, and in tones of severity -notified him that he was to leave the city at once. Latude did not wait -for the command to be repeated. He had reached Saint-Bris, about a -hundred miles from the capital, when he was suddenly arrested by the -police officer Marais. Brought back to Paris, he was locked up in the -Châtelet on July 16, 1777, and on August 1 conducted to Bicêtre. The -first use he had made of his liberty was to introduce himself to a lady -of quality and extort money from her by menaces. The officer found a -considerable sum in his possession. - -Bicêtre was not a state prison like the Bastille and Vincennes, or an -asylum like Charenton; it was the thieves' prison. On entering, Danry -took the precaution of changing his name a fourth time, calling himself -Jedor. He is, moreover, careful in his _Memoirs_ to give us the reason -of this fresh metamorphosis: "I would not sully my father's name by -inscribing it on the register of this infamous place." From this day -there begins for him a truly wretched existence; huddled with criminals, -put on bread and water, his lodging is a cell. But his long martyrdom is -nearing its end: the hour of his apotheosis is at hand! - -Louis XVI. had now been on the throne for several years, and France had -become the most impressionable country in the world. Tears flowed at the -slightest provocation. Was it the sentimental literature, which Rousseau -made fashionable, that produced this moving result, or contrariwise, was -the literature successful because it hit the taste of the day? At all -events, the time was ripe for Latude. His recent unlucky experience was -not to dishearten him. On the contrary, it is with a greater energy, a -more poignant emotion, and cries still more heartrending, that he -resumes the story of his interminable sufferings. The victim of cruel -oppressors, of cowardly foes who have their own reasons for smothering -his voice, he will not bend his head under his abominable treatment; he -will remain proud, self-assured, erect before those who load him with -irons! - -On the birth of the Dauphin, Louis XVI. resolved to admit his wretched -prisoners to a share of his joy and to pronounce a great number of -pardons. A special commission, composed of eight counsellors of the -Châtelet and presided over by Cardinal de Rohan, sat at Bicêtre. Danry -appeared before it on May 17, 1782. His new judges, as he testifies, -heard his story with interest. But the decision of the commission was -not favourable to him. He was not so much surprised at this as might be -supposed: "The impure breath of vice," he wrote to the Marquis de -Conflans, "has never tainted my heart, but there are magistrates who -would let off guilty men with free pardons rather than expose themselves -to the merited reproach of having committed injustice of the most -revolting kind in keeping innocence for thirty-three years in irons." - -Giving rein to the marvellous activity of his brain, he composed at -Bicêtre new schemes, memorials, and accounts of his misfortunes. To the -Marquis de Conflans he sends a scheme for a hydraulic press, "the -homage of an unfortunate nobleman who has grown old in irons"; he -induces the turnkeys to carry memorials to all who may possibly interest -themselves in him. The first to take compassion on him was a priest, the -Abbé Legal, of the parish of St. Roch, and curate of Bicêtre. He visited -him, consoled him, gave him money, showed him attentions. Cardinal de -Rohan also took much interest in him, and sent him some assistance -through his secretary. We are coming at last to Madame Legros. This -wonderful story is so well known that we shall tell it briefly. A -drunken turnkey chanced to lose one of Latude's memorials at a corner of -the Rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois: it was picked up and -opened by a woman, a haberdasher in a small way. Her heart burned within -her as she read of these horrible sufferings, depicted in strokes of -fire. She inspired her husband with her own emotion; henceforth it was -to be the aim in life of these worthy people to effect the unhappy man's -deliverance, and Madame Legros devoted herself to the self-imposed task -with indefatigable ardour, courage, and devotion. "A grand sight," cries -Michelet, "to see this poor, ill-clad woman going from door to door, -paying court to footmen to win entrance into mansions, to plead her -cause before the great, to implore their support!" In many houses she -was well received. President de Gourgues, President de Lamoignon, -Cardinal de Rohan, aided her with their influence. Sartine himself took -steps on behalf of the unhappy man. Two advocates of the Parlement of -Paris, Lacroix and Comeyras, devoted themselves to his cause. Copies -were made of the prisoner's memorials and distributed in every -drawing-room; they penetrated even into the boudoir of the queen. All -hearts were stirred by the accents of this harrowing voice. - -The Marquis de Villette, who had become celebrated through the -hospitality he showed to Voltaire when dying, conceived a passionate -enthusiasm for Danry. He sent his steward to Bicêtre to offer him a -pension of 600 livres on the sole condition of the prisoner's leaving -his case entirely in the Marquis's hands. Latude received this singular -proposal with becoming dignity. "For two years a poor woman has been -devoting herself to my cause. I should be an ungrateful wretch if I did -not leave my fate in her hands." He knew that this pension would not -escape him, and it was not for 600 livres that he would have consented -to rob his story of the touching and romantic features it was -increasingly assuming. - -Further, the French Academy actually intervenes! D'Alembert is all fire -and flame. From this time a stream of visitors of the highest -distinction flows through the squalid prison. At length the king himself -is led to look into the affair. He has the documentary evidence brought -to him and examines it carefully. With what anxiety everyone awaits his -decision! But Louis XVI., now acquainted with the case, replies that -Latude will be released--_never_! At this decree, to all appearance -irrevocable, all the prisoner's friends lose heart, except Madame -Legros. The queen and Madame Necker are on her side. In 1783, Breteuil, -the queen's man, comes into power; on March 24, 1784, the release is -signed! The Vicomte de Latude receives a pension of 400 livres, but is -exiled to his own part of the country. New importunities, new -applications; at last they succeed: Latude is free to live in Paris! - -This is the grandest period in the life of a great man! Latude is soon -in occupation of a modest but decent and well-ordered suite of rooms on -the fourth floor. He lives with his two benefactors, M. and Madame -Legros, petted, spoilt in a thousand ways. The Duchess of Beauvau has -obtained for Madame Legros from Calonne, out of funds intended for the -support of distressed gentlefolk, a pension of 600 livres: the Duchess -of Kingston[49] grants a pension of the same amount. In addition to the -royal pension, Latude receives 500 livres a year from President Dupaty -and 300 from the Duke d'Ayen. Moreover, a public subscription is opened, -and the list is filled with the greatest names in France. An agreeable -competency is assured to the Legros couple and their adopted son. At its -sitting on March 24, the French Academy solemnly awarded the Montyon -prize to the valiant little haberdasher. "The Dame Legros came to -receive the medal amid the acclamations of the whole assembly." - -The name of Latude is on everyone's lips; he wins admiration and pity on -all sides. Ladies of the highest society are not above mounting to the -fourth story, accompanied by their daughters, to bring the poor man "aid -in money, with their tears." The hero has left a complacent description -of the throng: duchesses, marchionesses, grandees of Spain, wearers of -the cross of St. Louis, presidents of the Parlement, all these met at -his house. Sometimes there were six or eight persons in his room. -Everyone listened to his story and lavished on him marks of the most -affectionate compassion, and no one failed before going away "to leave a -mark of his sensibility." The wives of Marshals de Luxembourg and de -Beauvau, the Duchess de la Rochefoucauld, the Countess de Guimont, were -among the most zealous. "Indeed," says our hero, "it would be extremely -difficult for me to tell which of these countesses, marchionesses, -duchesses, and princesses had the most humane, the most compassionate -heart." - -Thus Latude became one of the lions of Paris: strangers flocked to his -lodging, hostesses ran off with him. At table, when he spoke, all voices -were hushed with an air of deference and respect; in the drawing-room -you would find him seated in a gilt chair near the fireplace where great -logs were blazing, and surrounded by a thick cluster of bright, silky, -rustling robes. The Chevalier de Pougens, son of the Prince de Conti, -pressed him to come and stay at his house; Latude graciously consented. -The American ambassador, the illustrious Jefferson, invited him to -dinner. - -Latude has himself described this enchanted life: "Since I left prison, -the greatest lords of France have done me the honour of inviting me to -eat with them, but I have not found a single house--except that of the -Comte d'Angevillier, where you could meet men of wit and learning in -scores, and receive all sorts of civilities on the part of the countess; -and that of M. Guillemot, keeper of the royal palaces, one of the most -charming families to be found in Paris--where you are more at your ease -than with the Marquis de Villette. - -"When a man has felt, as I have felt, the rage of hunger, he always -begins by speaking of his food. The Marquis de Villette possesses a cook -who is a match for the most skilful in his art: in a word, his table is -first-rate. At the tables of the dukes and peers and marshals of France -there is eternal ceremony, and everyone speaks like a book, whereas at -that of the Marquis de Villette, men of wit and learning always form the -majority of the company. All the first-class musicians have a cover set -at his table, and on at least three days of the week he gives a little -concert." - -On August 26, 1788, died one of the benefactresses of Latude, the -Duchess of Kingston, who did not fail to mention her protégé in her -will. We see him dutifully assisting at the sale of the lady's furniture -and effects. He even bought a few things, giving a _louis d' or_ in -payment. Next day, the sale being continued, the auctioneer handed the -coin back to Latude: it was bad. Bad! What! did they take the Vicomte de -Latude for a sharper? The coin bad! Who, he would like to know, had the -insolence to make "an accusation so derogatory to his honour and his -reputation?" Latude raised his voice, and the auctioneer threatened to -bundle him out of the room. The insolent dog! "Bundle out rogues, not -gentlemen!" But the auctioneer sent for the police, who put "the Sieur -de Latude ignominiously outside." He went off calmly, and the same day -summoned the auctioneer before the Châtelet tribunal, "in order to get a -reparation as authoritative as the defamation had been public." - -In the following year (1789) Latude made a journey into England. He had -taken steps to sue Sartine, Lenoir, and the heirs of Madame de Pompadour -in the courts in order to obtain the damages due to him. In England, he -drew up a memorandum for Sartine, in which he informed the late -lieutenant of police of the conditions on which he would withdraw his -actions. "M. de Sartine, you will give me, as compensation for all the -harm and damage you have made me suffer unjustly, the sum of 900,000 -livres; M. Lenoir, 600,000 livres; the heirs of the late Marquise de -Pompadour and Marquis de Menars, 100,000 crowns; in all, 1,800,000 -livres;" that is to say, about £160,000 in English money of to-day. - -[Illustration: LATUDE. - -_From the Painting by Vestier (Hôtel Carnavalet)._] - -The Revolution broke out. If the epoch of Louis XVI., with its mildness -and fellow-feeling, had been favourable to our hero, the Revolution -seems to have been ordained on purpose for him. The people rose against -the tyranny of kings: the towers of the Bastille were overthrown. -Latude, the victim of kings, the victim of the Bastille and arbitrary -warrants, was about to appear in all his glory. - -He hastened to throw into the gutter his powdered peruque and viscount's -frock; listen to the revolutionist, fierce, inflexible, indomitable, -_uncompromising_: "Frenchmen, I have won the right to tell you the -truth, and if you are free, you cannot but love to hear it. - -"For thirty-five years I meditated in dungeons on the audacity and -insolence of despots; with loud cries I was calling down vengeance, when -France in indignation rose up as one man in one sublime movement and -levelled despotism with the dust. The will to be free is what makes a -nation free; and you have proved it. But to preserve freedom a nation -must make itself worthy of it, and that is what remains for you to do!" - -In the Salon of 1789 there were two portraits of Latude with the famous -ropeladder. Below one of these portraits, by Vestier, a member of the -Royal Academy, these lines were engraved:-- - - Instruit par ses malheurs et sa captivité - A vaincre des tyrans les efforts et la rage, - Il apprit aux Français comment le vrai courage - Peut conquérir la liberté.[50] - -In 1787 the Marquis de Beaupoil-Saint-Aulaire had written, inspired by -Latude himself, the story of the martyr's captivity. Of this book two -editions appeared in the same year. In 1789 Latude published the -narrative of his escape from the Bastille, as well as his _Grand -Mémoire_ to the Marquise de Pompadour; finally, in 1790 appeared -_Despotism Unmasked, or the Memoirs of Henri Masers de Latude_, edited -by the advocate Thiéry. The book was dedicated to La Fayette. On the -first page we see a portrait of the hero, his face proud and energetic, -one hand on the ropeladder, the other extended towards the Bastille -which workmen are in the act of demolishing. "I swear," says the author -at the commencement, "that I will not relate one fact which is not -true." The work is a tissue of calumnies and lies; and what makes a most -painful impression on the reader is to see this man disowning his -mother, forgetting the privations she endured out of love for her son, -and ascribing the credit of what little the poor thing could do for her -child to a Marquis de la Tude, knight of St. Louis, and -lieutenant-colonel of the Orleans Dragoons! - -But the book vibrates with an incomparable accent of sincerity and of -that profound emotion which Latude knew so well how to infuse into all -those with whom he had to do. In 1793, twenty editions had been -exhausted, the work had been translated into several languages; the -journals had no praise strong enough for the boldness and genius of the -author; the _Mercure de France_ proclaimed that henceforth it was a -parent's duty to teach his children to read in this sublime work; a copy -was sent to all the departments, accompanied by a model of the Bastille -by the architect Palloy. With good reason could Latude exclaim in the -National Assembly: "I have not a little contributed to the Revolution -and to its consolidation." - -Latude was not the man to neglect opportunities so favourable. To begin -with, he sought to get his pension augmented, and presented to the -Constituent Assembly a petition backed by representative Bouche. But -Camus, "rugged Camus," president of the committee appointed to -investigate the matter, decided on rejection; and at the sitting of -March 13, 1791, deputy Voidel delivered a very spirited speech; his view -was that the nation had unhappy folk to succour more worthy of their -concern than a man whose life had begun with roguery and villainy. The -Assembly sided with him; not only was Latude's pension not increased, -but on consideration, the pension granted by Louis XVI. was altogether -withdrawn. - -Horror and infamy! "What madness has seized on the minds of the -representatives of the most generous nation in the world!... To slay a -hapless wretch the mere sight of whom awakens pity and warms into life -the most sluggish sensibility ... for death is not so terrible as the -loss of honour!" The valiant Latude will not abide the stroke of such an -insult. Ere long he has brought Voidel to retract; in the heart of the -Assembly he gains an influential supporter in the Marshal de Broglie. -The Constituent Assembly is replaced by the Legislative, and Latude -returns to the charge. He is admitted to the bar of the House on January -26, 1792; the matter is re-committed and gone into a second time on -February 25. We should like to be able to quote at length the speech -which Latude himself composed for his advocate; here is a portion of the -peroration:-- - -"That a man, without any outside assistance, should have been able to -escape three times, once from the Bastille and twice from Vincennes, -yes, gentlemen, I venture to say he could not have succeeded except by a -miracle, or else that Latude has more than extraordinary genius. Cast -your eyes on this ladder of rope and wood, and on all the other -instruments which Latude constructed with a mere knife, which you see -here in the centre of this chamber. I resolved to bring before your own -eyes this interesting object, which will for ever win admiration from -men of intelligence. Not a single stranger comes to Paris without going -to see this masterpiece of intelligence and genius, as well as his -generous deliverer, Madame Legros. We have resolved to give you, -gentlemen, the pleasure of seeing this celebrated woman, who -unremittingly for forty months set despotism at defiance, and vanquished -it by dint of virtue. Behold her there at the bar with M. de Latude, -behold that incomparable woman, for ever to be the glory and the -ornament of her sex!" - -It is not surprising that the Legislative Assembly was deeply moved by -this eloquent harangue and this exhibition of the lady, as touching as -unexpected. It unanimously voted Latude a pension of 2000 livres, -without prejudice to the pension of 400 livres previously awarded. -Henceforth Latude will be able to say: "The whole nation adopted me!" - -However, the little mishap in the Constituent Assembly was to be the -only check that Latude suffered in the course of his glorious martyr's -career. Presented to the Society of "Friends of the Constitution," he -was elected a member by acclamation, and the Society sent a deputation -of twelve members to carry the civic crown to Madame Legros. The leader -of the deputation said, in a voice broken by emotion, "This day is the -grandest day of my life." A deputation from the principal theatres of -Paris offered Latude free admission to all performances, "so that he -might go often and forget the days of his mourning." He was surrounded -by the highest marks of consideration; pleaders begged him to support -their cases before the tribunals with the moral authority bestowed on -him by his virtue. He took advantage of this to bring definitively -before the courts his claims against the heirs of the Marquise de -Pompadour. Citizen Mony argued the case for the first time before the -court of the sixth arrondissement on July 16, 1793; on September 11 the -case came again before the magistrates: Citizens Chaumette, Laurent, and -Legrand had been designated by the Commune of Paris as counsel for the -defence, and the whole Commune was present at the hearing. Latude -obtained 60,000 livres, 10,000 of which were paid him in cash. - -And now his life became more tranquil. Madame Legros continued to lavish -her care on him. The 50,000 livres remaining due to him from the heirs -of the Marquise were paid in good farm lands situated in La Beauce, the -profits of which he regularly drew. - -Let us hasten to add that France did not find in Latude an ungrateful -child. The critical situation in which the nation was then struggling -pained him deeply. He sought the means of providing a remedy, and in -1799 brought out a "Scheme for the valuation of the eighty departments -of France to save the Republic in less than three months," and a "Memoir -on the means of re-establishing the public credit and order in the -finances of France." - -When the estates of Madame de Pompadour were sequestrated, the farms -Latude had received were taken from him; but he induced the Directory to -restore them. He was less fortunate in his requisition for a licence for -a theatre and a gaming-house. But he found consolation. The subsidies he -went on extorting from right and left, the proceeds of his farms, the -sale of his books, and the money brought in by the exhibition of his -ropeladder, which was exhibited by a showman in the different towns of -France and England, provided him with a very comfortable income. - -The Revolution became a thing of the past. Latude hailed the dawning -glory of Bonaparte, and when Bonaparte became Napoleon, Latude made his -bow to the emperor. We have a very curious letter in which he marks out -for Napoleon I. the line of conduct he should pursue to secure his own -welfare and the good of France. It begins as follows:-- - -"SIRE,--I have been five times buried alive, and am well acquainted with -misfortune. To have a heart more sympathetic than the common run of men -it is necessary to have suffered great ills.... At the time of the -Terror I had the delightful satisfaction of saving the lives of -twenty-two poor wretches.... To petition Fouquet d'Etinville on behalf -of the royalists was to persuade him that I was one myself. When I -braved death in order to save the lives of twenty-two citizens, judge, -great Emperor, if my heart can do ought but take great interest in you, -the saviour of my beloved country." - -We are given some details of the last years of Latude's life in the -_Memoirs_ of his friend, the Chevalier de Pougens, and in the _Memoirs_ -of the Duchess d'Abrantès. The Chevalier tells us that at the age of -seventy-five years he still enjoyed good health; he was "active and gay, -and appeared to enjoy to the full the delights of existence. Every day -he took long walks in Paris without experiencing the least fatigue. -People were amazed to find _no trace_ of the cruel sufferings he had -undergone in the cells during a captivity of thirty-five years." His -popularity suffered no diminution under the Empire. Junot awarded him a -pension from funds at his disposal. One day the general presented him -to his wife, along with Madame Legros, whose side Latude never left. -"When he arrived," says the Duchess d'Abrantès, "I went to greet him -with a respect and an emotion that must have been truly edifying. I took -him by the hand, conducted him to a chair, and put a cushion under his -feet; in fact, he might have been my grandfather, whom I could not have -treated better. At table I placed him on my right. But," adds the -Duchess, "my enchantment was of short duration. He talked of nothing but -his own adventures with appalling loquacity." - -At the age of eighty, a few months before his death, Latude wrote in the -most familiar terms to his protector, the Chevalier de Pougens, a member -of the Institute: "Now I assure you in the clearest possible words, that -if within ten days of the present time, the 11th Messidor, you have not -turned up in Paris (the Chevalier was staying at his country estate), I -shall start the next day and come to you with the hunger of a giant and -the thirst of a cabby, and when I have emptied your cellar and eaten you -out of house and home you will see me play the second act of the comedy -of _Jocrisse_[51]; you will see me run off with your plates, and dishes, -and tankards, and bottles--empty, you may be sure--and fling all your -furniture out of the window!" - -On July 20, 1804, Latude compiled one more circular, addressed to the -sovereigns of Europe: the kings of Prussia, Sweden, and Denmark, the -Archduke Charles, brother of the Emperor; and to the President of the -United States. To each of them he sent a copy of his _Memoirs_, -accompanied by the famous scheme for replacing with muskets the pikes -with which the sergeants were armed. He explained to each of the -sovereigns that as the country he ruled was profiting by this child of -his genius, it was only just that he should reap some benefit. - -Jean Henri, surnamed Danry, alias Danger, alias Jedor, alias Masers -d'Aubrespy, alias De Masers de Latude, died of pneumonia at Paris, on -January 1, 1805, aged eighty years. - - - - -CHAPTER VII. - -THE FOURTEENTH OF JULY. - - -In the remarkable book entitled _Paris during the Revolution_, M. -Adolphe Schmidt writes: "All the purely revolutionary events, the events -of the Fourteenth of July, of October 5 and 6, 1789, were the work of an -obscure minority of reckless and violent revolutionists. If they -succeeded, it was only because the great majority of the citizens -avoided the scene of operations or were mere passive spectators there, -attracted by curiosity, and giving in appearance an enhanced importance -to the movement." Further on he says: "After the fall of the -Gironde,[52] Dutard expressed himself in these terms: 'If, out of 50,000 -Moderates, you succeed in collecting a compact body of no more than -3000, I shall be much astonished; and if out of these 3000 there are to -be found only 500 who are agreed, and courageous enough to express their -opinion, I shall be still more astonished. And these, in truth, must -expect to be Septembrised.'[53] 'Twelve maniacs, with their blood well -up, at the head of the Sansculotte section,' writes Dutard in another -report, 'would put to flight the other forty-seven sections of Paris.' -Mercier, after the fall of the Gironde, thus expresses himself in regard -to the reign of Terror: 'Sixty brigands deluged France with blood: -500,000 men within our walls were witnesses of their atrocities, and -were not brave enough to oppose them.'" - -To enable the reader to understand the extraordinary and improbable -event which is the subject of this chapter, it would be necessary to -begin by explaining the circumstances and describing the material and -moral state of things in which it happened; and that, unhappily, would -occupy much space. Let us take the two principal facts, see what they -led to, and then come to the events of the Fourteenth of July. - -For its task of governing France, the royal power had in its hands no -administrative instrument, or, at any rate, administrative instruments -of a very rudimentary character. It ruled through tradition and -sentiment. The royal power had been created by the affection and -devotion of the nation, and in this devotion and affection lay its whole -strength. - -What, actually and practically, were the means of government in the -hands of the king? "Get rid of _lettres de cachet_," observed -Malesherbes, "and you deprive the king of all his authority, for the -_lettre de cachet_ is the only means he possesses of enforcing his will -in the kingdom." Now, for several years past, the royal power had -practically renounced _lettres de cachet_. On the other hand, during the -course of the eighteenth century, the sentiments of affection and -devotion of which we have spoken had become enfeebled, or at least had -changed their character. So it was that on the eve of the Revolution the -royal power, which stood in France for the entire administration, had, -if the expression may be allowed, melted into thin air. - -Below the royal power, the lords in the country, the upper ten in the -towns, constituted the second degree in the government. The same remarks -apply here also. And unhappily it is certain that, over the greater part -of France, the territorial lords had forgotten the duties which their -privileges and their station imposed. The old attachment of the -labouring classes to them had almost everywhere disappeared, and in many -particulars had given place to feelings of hostility. - -Thus on the eve of '89 the whole fabric of the state had no longer any -real existence: at the first shock it was bound to crumble into dust. -And as, behind the fragile outer wall, there was no solid structure--no -administrative machine, with its numerous, diverse, and nicely-balanced -parts, like that which in our time acts as a buffer against the shocks -of political crises,--the first blow aimed at the royal power was bound -to plunge the whole country into a state of disorganization and -disorder from which the tyranny of the Terror, brutal, blood-stained, -overwhelming as it was, alone could rescue it. - -Such is the first of the two facts we desire to make clear. We come now -to the second. Ever since the year 1780, France had been almost -continually in a state of famine. The rapidity and the abundance of the -international exchanges which in our days supply us constantly from the -remotest corners of the world with the necessaries of life, prevent our -knowing anything of those terrible crises which in former days swept -over the nations. "The dearth," writes Taine, "permanent, prolonged, -having already lasted ten years, and aggravated by the very outbreaks -which it provoked, went on adding fuel to all the passions of men till -they reached a blaze of madness." "The nearer we come to the Fourteenth -of July," says an eye witness, "the greater the famine becomes." "In -consequence of the bad harvest," writes Schmidt, "the price of bread had -been steadily rising from the opening of the year 1789. This state of -things was utilized by the agitators who aimed at driving the people -into excesses: these excesses in turn paralyzed trade. Business ceased, -and numbers of workers found themselves without bread." - -A few words should properly be said in regard to brigandage under the -_ancien régime_. The progress of manners and especially the development -of executive government have caused it utterly to disappear. The -reader's imagination will supply all we have not space to say. He will -recollect the lengths of daring to which a man like Cartouche[54] could -go, and recall what the forest of Bondy[55] was at the gates of Paris. - -So grew up towards the end of the _ancien régime_ what Taine has so -happily called a spontaneous anarchy. In the four months preceding the -capture of the Bastille, one can count more than three hundred riots in -France. At Nantes, on January 9, 1789, the town hall was invaded, and -the bakers' shops pillaged. All this took place to the cries of "Vive le -roi!" At Bray-sur-Seine, on May 1, peasants armed with knives and clubs -forced the farmers to lower the price of corn. At Rouen, on May 28, the -corn in the market place was plundered. In Picardy, a discharged -carabineer put himself at the head of an armed band which attacked the -villages and carried off the corn. On all sides houses were looted from -roof to cellar. At Aupt, M. de Montferrat, defending himself, was "cut -into little pieces." At La Seyne, the mob brought a coffin in front of -the house of one of the principal burgesses; he was told to prepare for -death, and they would do him the honour to bury him. He escaped, and his -house was sacked. We cull these facts haphazard from among hundreds of -others. - -The immediate neighbourhood of Paris was plunged in terror. The batches -of letters, still unpublished, preserved in the National Archives throw -the most vivid light on this point. Bands of armed vagabonds scoured the -country districts, pillaging the villages and plundering the crops. -These were the "Brigands," a term which constantly recurs in the -documents, and more and more frequently as we approach the 14th of July. -These armed bands numbered three, four, five hundred men. At Cosne, at -Orleans, at Rambouillet, it was the same story of raids on the corn. In -different localities of the environs of Paris, the people organized -themselves on a military basis. Armed burghers patrolled the streets -against the "brigands." From all sides the people rained on the king -demands for troops to protect them. Towns like Versailles, in dread of -an invasion by these ruffians, implored the king for protection: the -letters of the municipal council preserved in the National Archives are -in the highest degree instructive. - -At this moment there had collected in the outskirts of Paris those -troops whose presence was in the sequel so skilfully turned to account -by the orators of the Palais-Royal. True, the presence of the troops -made them uneasy. So far were the soldiers from having designs against -the Parisians that in the secret correspondence of Villedeuil we find -the court constantly urging that they should be reserved for the -safeguarding of the adjoining districts, which were every day exposed to -attack, and for the safe conduct of the convoys of corn coming up to -Versailles and Paris. Bands mustered around the capital. In the first -weeks of May, near Villejuif, a troop of from five to six hundred -ruffians met intending to storm Bicêtre and march on Saint-Cloud. They -came from distances of thirty, forty, and fifty leagues, and the whole -mass surged around Paris and was swallowed up there as into a sewer. -During the last days of April the shopmen saw streaming through the -barriers "a terrific number of men, ill clad and of sinister aspect." By -the first days of May, it was noticed that the appearance of the mob had -altogether changed. There was now mingled with it "a number of strangers -from all the country parts, most of them in rags, and armed with huge -clubs, the mere aspect of them showing what was to be feared." In the -words of a contemporary, "one met such physiognomies as one never -remembered having seen in the light of day." To provide occupation for a -part of these ill-favoured unemployed, whose presence everybody felt to -be disquieting, workshops were constructed at Montmartre, where from -seventeen to eighteen thousand men were employed on improvised tasks at -twenty sous a day. - -Meanwhile the electors chosen to nominate deputies to the National -Assembly had been collecting. On April 22, 1789, Thiroux de Crosne, the -lieutenant of police, speaking of the tranquillity with which the -elections were being carried on, added: "But I constantly have my eye on -the bakers." - -On April 23, de Crosne referred to the irritation which was showing -itself among certain groups of workmen in the Suburb Saint-Antoine -against two manufacturers, Dominique Henriot, the saltpetre-maker, and -Réveillon, the manufacturer of wall-papers. Henriot was known, not only -for his intelligence, but for his kindliness; in years of distress he -had sacrificed a portion of his fortune for the support of the workmen; -as to Réveillon, he was at this date one of the most remarkable -representatives of Parisian industry. A simple workman to begin with, he -was in 1789 paying 200,000 livres a year in salaries to 300 workers; -shortly before, he had carried off the prize founded by Necker for the -encouragement of useful arts. Henriot and Réveillon were said to have -made offensive remarks against the workmen in the course of the recent -electoral assemblies. They both denied, however, having uttered the -remarks attributed to them, and there is every reason to believe that -their denials were genuine. - -During the night of April 27 and the next day, howling mobs attacked the -establishments of Henriot and Réveillon, which were thoroughly -plundered. Commissary Gueullette, in his report of May 3, notes that a -wild and systematic devastation was perpetrated. Only the walls were -left standing. What was not stolen was smashed into atoms. The -"brigands"--the expression used by the Commissary--threw a part of the -plant out of the windows into the street, where the mob made bonfires of -it. Part of the crowd were drunk; nevertheless they flung themselves -into the cellars, and the casks were stove in. When casks and bottles -were empty, the rioters attacked the flasks containing colouring -matter; this they absorbed in vast quantities, and reeled about with -fearful contortions, poisoned. When these cellars were entered next day, -they presented a horrible spectacle, for the wretches had come to -quarrelling and cutting each other's throats. "The people got on to the -roofs," writes Thiroux de Crosne, "whence they rained down upon the -troops a perfect hailstorm of tiles, stones, &c.; they even set rolling -down fragments of chimneys and bits of timber; and although they were -fired upon several times and some persons were killed, it was quite -impossible to master them." - -The riot was not quelled by the troops until 10 o'clock that night; more -than a hundred persons were left dead in the street. M. Alexandre Tuetey -has devoted some remarkable pages to Réveillon's affair; he has -carefully studied the interrogatories of rioters who were arrested. The -majority, he says, had been drunk all day. Réveillon, as is well known, -only found safety by taking refuge in the Bastille. He was the only -prisoner whom the Bastille received throughout the year 1789. - -In the night following these bacchanalian orgies, the agents of the -Marquis du Châtelet, colonel of the Gardes Françaises, having crept -along one of the moats, "saw a crowd of brigands" collected on the -further side of the Trône gate. Their leader was mounted on a table, -haranguing them. - -We come upon them again in the report of Commissary Vauglenne, quoted by -M. Alexandre Tuetey. "On April 29, Vauglenne took the depositions of -bakers, confectioners, and pork butchers of the Marais, who had been -robbed by veritable bands of highwaymen, who proceed by burglary and -violence; they may possibly be starving men, but they look and act -uncommonly like gentlemen of the road." - -Meanwhile, in the garden of the Palais-Royal, Camille Desmoulins was -haranguing groups of the unemployed and ravenous outcasts, who were -pressing round him with wide glaring eyes. Desmoulins vociferates: "The -beast is in the trap; now to finish him!... Never a richer prey has ever -been offered to conquerors! Forty thousand palaces, mansions, châteaux, -two-fifths of the wealth of France will be the prize of valour. Those -who have set up as our masters will be mastered in their turn, the -nation will be purged!" It is easy to understand that in Paris the alarm -had become as acute as in the country; everyone was in terror of the -"brigands." On June 25 it was decided to form a citizen militia for the -protection of property. "The notoriety of these disorders," we read in -the minutes of the electors, "and the excesses committed by several mobs -have decided the general assembly to re-establish without delay the -militia of Paris." But a certain time was necessary for the organization -of this civil guard. On June 30, the doors of the Abbaye, where some -Gardes Françaises had been locked up, some for desertion, others for -theft, were broken in by blows from hatchets and hammers. The prisoners -were led in triumph to the Palais-Royal, where they were fêted in the -garden. The extent of the disorders was already so great that the -government, powerless to repress them, had perforce to grant a general -pardon. From that day there was no longer any need to capture the -Bastille, the _ancien régime_ was lost. - -The disturbances at the Palais-Royal, the rendezvous of idlers, light -women, and hot-headed fools, were becoming ever more violent. They began -to talk of setting fire to the place. If some honest citizen plucked up -courage to protest he was publicly whipped, thrown into the ponds, and -rolled in the mud. - -On July 11, Necker was dismissed from the ministry and replaced by -Breteuil. At this time Necker was very popular; Breteuil was not, though -he ought to have been, particularly in the eyes of supporters of a -revolutionary movement. Of all the ministers of the _ancien régime_, and -of all the men of his time, Breteuil was the one who had done most for -the suppression of _lettres de cachet_ and of state prisons. It was he -who had closed Vincennes and the Châtimoine tower of Caen, who had got -the demolition of the Bastille decided on, who had set Latude at -liberty, and how many other prisoners! who had drawn up and made -respected, even in the remotest parts of the kingdom, those admirable -circulars which will immortalize his name, by which he ordered the -immediate liberation of all prisoners whose detention was not absolutely -justified, and laid down such rigorous formalities for the future, that -the arbitrary character of _lettres de cachet_ may be said to have been -destroyed by them. Nevertheless the orators of the Palais-Royal -succeeded in persuading many people that the advent of Breteuil to the -ministry presaged a "St. Bartholomew of patriots." The agitation became -so vehement, the calumnies against the court and the government were -repeated with so much violence, that the court, in order to avoid the -slightest risk of the outbreak of a "St. Bartholomew," ordered all the -troops to be withdrawn and Paris to be left to itself. - -Meanwhile, Camille Desmoulins was continuing to thunder forth: "I have -just sounded the people. My rage against the despots was turned to -despair. I did not see the crowds, although keenly moved and dismayed, -strongly enough disposed to insurrection.... I was rather lifted on to -the table than mounted there myself. Scarcely was I there than I saw -myself surrounded by an immense throng. Here is my short address, which -I shall never forget: 'Citizens! there is not a moment to lose. I come -from Versailles; M. Necker is dismissed; this dismissal is the alarm -bell of a St. Bartholomew of patriots; this evening all the Swiss and -German battalions will march from the Champ de Mars to cut our throats. -Only one resource remains to us: we must fly to arms!'" - -The Parisians were in an abject state of fright, but it was not the -Swiss and German battalions which terrified them. The author of the -_Memorable Fortnight_, devoted heart and soul as he was to the -revolutionary movement, acknowledges that during the days from the 12th -to the 14th of July, all respectable people shut themselves up in their -houses. And while the troops and decent people were retiring, the dregs -were coming to the surface. During the night of July 12, the majority of -the toll gates, where the town dues were collected, were broken open, -plundered, and set on fire. "Brigands," armed with pikes and clubs, -scoured the streets, threatening the houses in which the trembling and -agitated citizens had shut themselves. Next day, July 13, the shops of -the bakers and wine merchants were rifled. "Girls snatched the earrings -from women who went by; if the ring resisted, the ear was torn in two." -"The house of the lieutenant of police was ransacked, and Thiroux de -Crosne had the utmost difficulty in escaping from the bands armed with -clubs and torches. Another troop, with murderous cries, arrived at the -Force, where prisoners for debt were confined: the prisoners were set -free. The Garde-Meuble was ransacked. One gang broke in with their axes -the door of the Lazarists, smashed the library, the cupboards, the -pictures, the windows, the physical laboratory, dived into the cellar, -stove in the wine-casks and got gloriously drunk. Twenty-four hours -afterwards some thirty dead and dying were found there, men and women, -one of the latter on the point of childbirth. In front of the house the -street was full of débris and of brigands, who held in their hands, some -eatables, others a pitcher, forcing wayfarers to drink and filling for -all and sundry. Wine flowed in torrents." Some had possessed themselves -of ecclesiastical robes, which they put on, and in this attire yelled -and gesticulated down the street. In the minute books of the electors we -read at this date: "On information given to the committee that the -brigands who had been dispersed showed some disposition to reassemble -for the purpose of attacking and pillaging the Royal Treasury and the -Bank, the committee ordered these two establishments to be guarded." On -the same day, they luckily succeeded in disarming more than a hundred -and fifty of these roisterers, who, drunk with wine and brandy, had -fallen asleep inside the Hôtel de Ville. Meanwhile the outskirts of -Paris were no safer than the city itself, and from the top of the towers -of the Bastille they could see the conflagrations which were started in -various quarters. - -The organization of the citizen militia against these disorders was -becoming urgent. When evening came, the majority of the districts set -actively to work. Twelve hundred good citizens mustered in the Petit -Saint-Antoine district. It was a motley crew: tradesmen and artisans, -magistrates and doctors, writers and scholars, cheek by jowl with -navvies and carpenters. The future minister of Louis XVI., Champion de -Villeneuve, filled the post of secretary. The twelve hundred citizens, -as we read in the minutes, "compelled to unite by the too well founded -alarm inspired in all the citizens by the danger which seems to threaten -them each individually, and by the imminent necessity of taking prompt -measures to avert its effects, considering that a number of -individuals, terrified perhaps by the rumours which doubtless -evil-disposed persons have disseminated, are traversing, armed and in -disorder, all the streets of the capital, and that the ordinary town -guard either mingles with them or remains a passive spectator of the -disorder it cannot arrest; considering also that the prison of the Force -has been burst into and opened for the prisoners, and that it is -threatened to force open in the same way the prisons which confine -vagabonds, vagrants, and convicts ... in consequence, the assembled -citizens decide to organize themselves into a citizen militia. Every man -will carry while on duty whatever arms he can procure, save and except -pistols, which are forbidden as dangerous weapons.... There will always -be two patrols on duty at a time, and two others will remain at the -place fixed for headquarters." Most of the other districts imitated the -proceedings of the Petit-Saint-Antoine. They sent delegates to the Hôtel -des Invalides to ask for arms. The delegates were received by Besenval, -who would have been glad to grant them what they requested; but he must -have proper instructions. He writes in his _Memoirs_ that the delegates -were in a great state of fright, saying that the "brigands" were -threatening to burn and pillage their houses. The author of the -_Memorable Fortnight_ dwells on the point that the militia of Paris was -formed in self-defence against the excesses of the brigands. Speaking of -the minute book of the Petit-Saint-Antoine district, an excellent -authority, M. Charavay, writes: "The burgesses of Paris, less alarmed -at the plans of the court than at the men to whom the name of _brigands_ -had already been given, organized themselves into a militia to resist -them: that was their only aim. The movement which on the next day swept -away the Bastille might perhaps have been repressed by the National -Guard if its organization had had greater stability." The fact could not -have been better put. - -The Hôtel de Ville was attacked, and one of the electors, Legrand, only -cleared it of the hordes who were filling it with their infernal uproar -by ordering six barrels of powder to be brought up, and threatening to -blow the place up if they did not retire. - -During the night of July 13, the shops of the bakers and wine-sellers -were pillaged. The excellent Abbé Morellet, one of the Encyclopædists, -who, as we have seen, was locked up in the Bastille under Louis XV., -writes: "I spent a great part of the night of the 13th at my windows, -watching the scum of the population armed with muskets, pikes, and -skewers, as they forced open the doors of the houses and got themselves -food and drink, money and arms." Mathieu Dumas also describes in his -_Souvenirs_ these ragged vagabonds, several almost naked, and with -horrible faces. During these two days and nights, writes Bailly, Paris -ran great risk of pillage, and was only saved by the National Guard. - -The proceedings of these bandits and the work of the National Guard are -described in a curious letter from an English doctor, named Rigby, to -his wife. "It was necessary not only to give arms to those one could -rely on, but to disarm those of whom little protection could be expected -and who might become a cause of disorder and harm. This required a good -deal of skill. Early in the afternoon we began to catch a glimpse here -and there among the swarms of people, where we saw signs of an -irritation which might soon develop into excesses, of a man of decent -appearance, carrying a musket with a soldierly air. These slowly but -surely increased in number; their intention was evidently to pacify and -at the same time to disarm the irregular bands. They had for the most -part accomplished their task before nightfall. Then the citizens who had -been officially armed occupied the streets almost exclusively: they were -divided into several sections, some mounting guard at certain points, -others patrolling the streets, all under the leadership of captains. -When night came, only very few of those who had armed themselves the -evening before could be seen. Some, however, had refused to give up -their arms, and during the night it was seen how well founded had been -the fears they had inspired, for they started to pillage. But it was too -late to do so with impunity. The looters were discovered and seized, and -we learnt next morning that several of these wretches, taken redhanded, -had been executed." Indeed, the repressive measures of the citizens were -not wanting in energy. Here and there brigands were strung up to the -lamp-posts, and then despatched, as they hung there, with musket shots. - -The author of the _Authentic History_, who left the best of the -contemporary accounts of the taking of the Bastille which we possess, -says rightly enough: "The riot began on the evening of July 12." There -was thus a combination of disorders and "brigandage" in which the -capture of the Bastille, though it stands out more prominently than the -other events, was only a part, and cannot be considered by itself. - -The morning of the Fourteenth dawned bright and sunny. A great part of -the population had remained up all night, and daylight found them still -harassed with anxiety and alarm. To have arms was the desire of all; the -citizens and supporters of order, so as to protect themselves; the -brigands, a part of whom had been disarmed, in order to procure or -recover the means of assault and pillage. There was a rush to the -Invalides, where the magazines of effective arms were. This was the -first violent action of the day. The mob carried off 28,000 muskets and -twenty-four cannon. And as it was known that other munitions of war were -deposited in the Bastille, the cry of "To the Invalides!" was succeeded -by the cry "To the Bastille!" - -We must carefully distinguish between the two elements of which the -throng flocking to the Bastille was composed. On the one hand, a horde -of nameless vagabonds, those whom the contemporary documents invariably -style the "brigands"; and, on the other hand, the respectable -citizens--these certainly formed the minority--who desired arms for the -equipment of the civil guard. The sole motive impelling this band to -the Bastille was the wish to procure arms. On this point all documents -of any value and all the historians who have studied the matter closely -are in agreement. There was no question of liberty or of tyranny, of -setting free the prisoners or of protesting against the royal authority. -The capture of the Bastille was effected amid cries of "Vive le roi!" -just as, for several months past in the provinces, the granaries had -been plundered. - -About 8 o'clock in the morning, the electors at the Hôtel de Ville -received some inhabitants of the Suburb Saint-Antoine who came to -complain that the district was threatened by the cannon trained on it -from the towers of the Bastille. These cannon were used for firing -salutes on occasions of public rejoicing, and were so placed that they -could do no harm whatever to the adjacent districts. But the electors -sent some of their number to the Bastille, where the governor, de -Launey, received the deputation with the greatest affability, kept them -to lunch, and at their request withdrew the cannon from the embrasures. -To this deputation there succeeded another, which, however, was quite -unofficial, consisting of three persons, with the advocate Thuriot de la -Rosière at the head. They were admitted as their predecessors had been. -Thuriot was the eloquent spokesman, "in the name of the nation and the -fatherland." He delivered an ultimatum to the governor and harangued the -garrison, consisting of 95 Invalides and 30 Swiss soldiers. Some -thousand men were thronging round the Bastille, vociferating wildly. The -garrison swore not to fire unless they were attacked. De Launey said -that without orders he could do no more than withdraw the cannon from -the embrasures, but he went so far as to block up these embrasures with -planks. Then Thuriot took his leave and returned to the Hôtel de Ville, -the crowd meanwhile becoming more and more threatening. - -[Illustration: THE CAPTURE OF THE BASTILLE. - -_From an anonymous contemporary painting now in the Hôtel Carnavalet._] - -"The entrance to the first courtyard, that of the barracks, was open," -says M. Fernand Bournon in his admirable account of the events of this -day; "but de Launey had ordered the garrison to retire within the -enclosure, and to raise the outer drawbridge by which the court of the -governor was reached, and which in the ordinary way used to be lowered -during the day. Two daring fellows dashed forward and scaled the roof of -the guard-house, one of them a soldier named Louis Tournay: the name of -the other is unknown. They shattered the chains of the drawbridge with -their axes, and it fell." - -It has been said in a recent work, in which defects of judgment and -criticism are scarcely masked by a cumbrous parade of erudition, that -Tournay and his companion performed their feat under the fire of the -garrison. At this moment the garrison did not fire a single shot, -contenting themselves with urging the besiegers to retire. "While M. de -Launey and his officers contented themselves with threats, these two -vigorous champions succeeded in breaking in the doors and in lowering -the outer drawbridge; then the horde of brigands advanced in a body and -dashed towards the second bridge, which they wished to capture, firing -at the troops as they ran. It was then for the first time that M. de -Launey, perceiving his error in allowing the operations at the first -bridge to be managed so quietly, ordered the soldiers to fire, which -caused a disorderly stampede on the part of the rabble, which was more -brutal than brave; and it is at this point that the calumnies against -the governor begin. Transposing the order of events, it has been -asserted that he had sent out a message of peace, that the people had -advanced in reliance on his word, and that many citizens were -massacred." This alleged treachery of de Launey, immediately hawked -about Paris, was one of the events of the day. It is contradicted not -only by all the accounts of the besieged, but by the besiegers -themselves, and is now rejected by all historians. - -A wine-seller named Cholat, aided by one Baron, nicknamed La Giroflée, -had brought into position a piece of ordnance in the long walk of the -arsenal. They fired, but the gun's recoil somewhat seriously wounded the -two artillerymen, and they were its only victims. As these means were -insufficient to overturn the Bastille, the besiegers set about devising -others. A pretty young girl named Mdlle. de Monsigny, daughter of the -captain of the company of Invalides at the Bastille, had been -encountered in the barrack yard. Some madmen imagined that she was -Mdlle. de Launey. They dragged her to the edge of the moat, and gave the -garrison to understand by their gestures that they were going to burn -her alive if the place was not surrendered. They had thrown the unhappy -child, who had fainted, upon a mattress, to which they had already set -light. M. de Monsigny saw the hideous spectacle from a window of the -towers, and, desperately rushing down to save his child, he was killed -by two shots. These were tricks in the siege of strongholds of which -Duguesclin would never have dreamed. A soldier named Aubin Bonnemère -courageously interposed and succeeded in saving the girl. - -A detachment of Gardes Françaises, coming up with two pieces of -artillery which the Hôtel de Ville had allowed to be removed, gave a -more serious aspect to the siege. But the name of Gardes Françaises must -not give rise to misapprehension: the soldiers of the regular army under -the _ancien régime_ must not be compared with those of the present day. -The regiment of Gardes Françaises in particular had fallen into a -profound state of disorganization and degradation. The privates were -permitted to follow a trade in the city, by this means augmenting their -pay. It is certain that in the majority of cases the trade they followed -was that of the bully. "Almost all the soldiers in the Guards belong to -this class," we read in the _Encyclopédie méthodique_, "and many men -indeed only enlist in the corps in order to live on the earnings of -these unfortunates." The numerous documents relating to the Gardes -Françaises preserved in the archives of the Bastille give the most -precise confirmation to this statement. We see, for example, that the -relatives of the engraver Nicolas de Larmessin requested a _lettre de -cachet_ ordering their son to be locked up in jail, where they would pay -for his keep, "because he had threatened to enlist in the Gardes -Françaises." - -From the fifteen cannon placed on the towers, not a single shot was -fired during the siege. Within the château, three guns loaded with grape -defended the inner drawbridge; the governor had only one of them fired, -and that only once. Not wishing to massacre the mob, de Launey -determined to blow up the Bastille and find his grave among the ruins. -The Invalides Ferrand and Béquart flung themselves upon him to prevent -him from carrying out his intention. "The Bastille was not captured by -main force," says Elie, whose testimony cannot be suspected of -partiality in favour of the defenders; "it surrendered before it was -attacked, on my giving my word of honour as a French officer that all -should escape unscathed if they submitted." - -We know how this promise was kept, in spite of the heroic efforts of -Elie and Hulin, to whom posterity owes enthusiastic homage. Is the mob -to be reproached for these atrocious crimes? It was a savage horde, the -scum of the population. De Launey, whose confidence and kindness had -never faltered, was massacred with every circumstance of horror. "The -Abbé Lefèvre," says Dusaulx, "was an involuntary witness of his last -moments: 'I saw him fall,' he told me, 'without being able to help him; -he defended himself like a lion, and if only ten men had behaved as he -did at the Bastille, it would not have been taken.'" His murderers -slowly severed his head from his trunk with a penknife. The operation -was performed by a cook's apprentice named Desnot, "who knew, as he -afterwards proudly said, how to manage a joint." The deposition of this -brute should be read. It has been published by M. Guiffrey in the _Revue -historique_. To give himself courage, Desnot had gulped down brandy -mixed with gunpowder, and he added that what he had done was done in the -hope of obtaining a medal. - -"We learnt by-and-by," continues Dusaulx, "of the death of M. de -Losme-Salbray, which all good men deplored." De Losme had been the good -angel of the prisoners during his term of office as major of the -Bastille: there are touching details showing to what lengths he carried -his kindliness and delicacy of feeling. At the moment when the mob was -hacking at him, there happened to pass the Marquis de Pelleport, who had -been imprisoned in the Bastille for several years; he sprang forward to -save him: "Stop!" he cried, "you are killing the best of men." But he -fell badly wounded, as also did the Chevalier de Jean, who had joined -him in the attempt to rescue the unfortunate man from the hands of the -mob. The adjutant Miray, Person the lieutenant of the Invalides, and -Dumont, one of the Invalides, were massacred. Miray was led to the -Grève, where the mob had resolved to execute him. Struck with fists and -clubs, stabbed with knives, he crawled along in his death agony. He -expired, "done to death with pin-pricks," before arriving at the place -of execution. The Invalides Asselin and Béquart were hanged. It was -Béquart who had prevented de Launey from blowing up the Bastille. "He -was gashed with two sword-strokes," we read in the _Moniteur_, "and a -sabre cut had lopped off his wrist. They carried the hand in triumph -through the streets of the city--the very hand to which so many citizens -owed their safety." "After I had passed the arcade of the Hôtel de -Ville," says Restif de la Bretonne, who has left so curious a page about -the 14th of July, "I came upon some cannibals: one--I saw him with my -own eyes--brought home to me the meaning of a horrible word heard so -often since: he was carrying at the end of a _taille-cime_[56] the -bleeding entrails of a victim of the mob's fury, and this horrible -top-knot caused no one to turn a hair. Farther on I met the captured -Invalides and Swiss: from young and pretty lips--I shudder at it -still--came screams of 'Hang them! Hang them!'" - -Further, they massacred Flesselles, the provost of the guilds, accused -of a treacherous action as imaginary as that of de Launey. They cut the -throat of Foulon, an old man of seventy-four years, who, as Taine tells -us, had spent during the preceding winter 60,000 francs in order to -provide the poor with work. They assassinated Berthier, one of the -distinguished men of the time. Foulon's head was cut off; they tore -Berthier's heart from his body to carry it in procession through -Paris--charming touch!--in a bouquet of white carnations. For the fun -was growing fast and furious. De Launey's head was borne on a pike to -the Palais Royal, then to the new bridge, where it was made to do -obeisance three times to the statue of Henri IV., with the words, -"Salute thy master!" At the Palais Royal, two of the conquerors had -merrily set themselves down at a dining-table in an entresol. As we -garnish our tables with flowers, so these men had placed on the table a -trunkless head and gory entrails; but as the crowd below cried out for -them, they shot them gaily out of the window. - -Those who had remained in front of the Bastille had dashed on in quest -of booty. As at the pillage of the warehouses of Réveillon and Henriot, -and of the convent of the Lazarists, the first impulse of the conquerors -was to bound forward to the cellar. "This rabble," writes the author of -the _Authentic History_, "were so blind drunk that they made in one body -for the quarters of the staff, breaking the furniture, doors, and -windows. All this time their comrades, taking the pillagers for some of -the garrison, were firing on them." - -No one gave a thought to the prisoners, but the keys were secured and -carried in triumph through Paris. The doors of the rooms in which the -prisoners were kept had to be broken in. The wretched men, terrified by -the uproar, were more dead than alive. These victims of arbitrary power -were exactly seven in number. Four were forgers, Béchade, Laroche, La -Corrège, and Pujade; these individuals had forged bills of exchange, to -the loss of two Parisian bankers: while their case was being dealt with -in regular course at the Châtelet, they were lodged in the Bastille, -where they consulted every day with their counsel. Then there was the -young Comte de Solages, who was guilty of monstrous crimes meriting -death; he was kept in the Bastille out of regard for his family, who -defrayed his expenses. Finally there were two lunatics, Tavernier and de -Whyte. We know what immense progress has been made during the past -century in the methods of treating lunatics. In those days they locked -them up. Tavernier and de Whyte were before long transferred to -Charenton, where assuredly they were not so well treated as they had -been at the Bastille. - -Such were the seven martyrs who were led in triumphant procession -through the streets, amid the shouts of a deeply moved people. - -Of the besiegers, ninety-eight dead were counted, some of whom had met -their death through the assailants' firing on one another. Several had -been killed by falling into the moat. Of this total, only nineteen were -married, and only five had children. These are details of some interest. - -There was no thought of burying either the conquerors or the conquered. -At midnight on Wednesday the 15th, the presence of the corpses of the -officers of the Bastille, still lying in the Place de Grève, was -notified to the commissaries of the Châtelet. In his admirable work M. -Furnand Bournon has published the ghastly report that was drawn up on -that night. It is a fitting crown to the work of the great day: "We, the -undersigned commissaries, duly noted down the declaration of the said -Sieur Houdan, and having then gone down into the courtyard of the -Châtelet (whither the corpses had just been carried), we found there -seven corpses of the male sex, the first without a head, clothed in a -coat, vest, breeches, and black silk stockings, with a fine shirt, but -no shoes; the second also without a head, clothed in a vest of red -stuff, breeches of nankeen with regimental buttons, blue silk stockings -with a small black pattern worked in; the third also headless, clothed -in a shirt, breeches, and white cotton stockings; the fourth also -headless, clothed in a blood-stained shirt, breeches, and black -stockings; the fifth clad in a shirt, blue breeches, and white gaiters, -with brown hair, apparently about forty years old, and having part of -his forearm cut off and severe bruises on his throat; the sixth clothed -in breeches and white gaiters, with severe bruises on his throat; and -the seventh, clothed in a shirt, breeches, and black silk stockings, -disfigured beyond recognition." - -Meanwhile the majority of the victors, the first moments of intoxication -having passed, were hiding themselves like men who had committed a -crime. The disorder in the city was extreme. "The commissioners of the -districts," writes the Sicilian ambassador, "seeing the peril in which -the inhabitants were placed before this enormous number of armed men, -including brigands and men let out of prison on the previous days, -formed patrols of the National Guard. They proclaimed martial law, or -rather, they issued one solitary law declaring that whoever robbed or -set fire to a house would be hanged. Indeed, not a day passed without -five and even as many as ten persons suffering this penalty. To this -salutary expedient we owe our lives and the safety of our houses." - -More than one conqueror of the Bastille was hanged in this way, which -was a great pity, for two days later his glorious brow might have been -crowned with laurels and flowers! - -It has been said that the Bastille was captured by the people of Paris. -But the number of the besiegers amounted to no more than a thousand, -among whom, as Marat has already brought to our notice, there were many -provincials and foreigners. As to the Parisians, they had come in great -numbers, as they always do, to see what was going on. We have this too -on the testimony of Marat. "I was present at the taking of the -Bastille," writes the Chancellor de Pasquier also: "what has been called -the 'fight' was not serious, and of resistance there was absolutely -none. A few musket shots were fired to which there was no reply, and -four or five cannon shots. We know the results of this boasted victory, -which has brought a shower of compliments upon the heads of the -so-called conquerors: the truth is that this great fight did not give a -moment's uneasiness to the numerous spectators who had hurried up to see -the result. Among them there was many a pretty woman; they had left -their carriages at a distance in order to approach more easily. I was -leaning on the end of the barrier which closed in the garden skirting -Beaumarchais' garden in the direction of the Place de la Bastille. By my -side was Mdlle. Contat, of the Comédie Française: we stayed to the end, -and I gave her my arm to her carriage. As pretty as any woman could be, -Mdlle. Contat added to the graces of her person an intelligence of the -most brilliant order." - -By next day there was quite another story. The Bastille had been -"stormed" in a formidable and heroic assault lasting a quarter of an -hour. The guns of the assailants had made a breach in its walls. These, -it is true, were still standing intact; but that did not signify, the -guns had made a breach, unquestionably! The seven prisoners who had been -set free had been a disappointment, for the best will in the world could -not make them anything but scoundrels and lunatics; some one invented an -eighth, the celebrated Comte de Lorges, the white-headed hero and -martyr. This Comte de Lorges had no existence; but that fact also is -nothing to the purpose: he makes an admirable and touching story. There -was talk of instruments of torture that had been discovered: "an iron -corslet, invented to hold a man fast by all his joints, and fix him in -eternal immobility:" it was really a piece of knightly armour dating -from the middle ages, taken from the magazine of obsolete arms which was -kept at the Bastille. Some one discovered also a machine "not less -destructive, which was brought to the light of day, but no one could -guess its name or its special use"; it was a secret printing-press -seized in the house of one François Lenormand in 1786. Finally, while -digging in the bastion, some one came upon the bones of Protestants who -had once been buried there, the prejudices of the time not allowing -their remains to be laid in the consecrated ground of the cemetery: the -vision of secret executions in the deepest dungeons of the Bastille was -conjured up in the mind of the discoverers, and Mirabeau sent these -terrible words echoing through France: "The ministers were lacking in -foresight, they forgot to eat the bones!" - -The compilation of the roll of the conquerors of the Bastille was a -laborious work. A great number of those who had been in the thick of the -fray did not care to make themselves known: they did not know but that -their laurel-crowned heads might be stuck aloft! It is true that these -bashful heroes were speedily replaced by a host of fine fellows -who--from the moment when it was admitted that the conquerors were -heroes, deserving of honours, pensions, and medals--were fully persuaded -that they had sprung to the assault, and in the very first rank. The -final list contained 863 names. - -Victor Fournel in a charming book has sung the epic, at once ludicrous -and lachrymose, of the men of the 14th of July. The book, which ought to -be read, gives a host of delightful episodes it is impossible to -abridge. In the sequel these founders of liberty did not shine either -through the services they rendered to the Republic, or through their -fidelity to the immortal principles. The Hulins--Hulin, however, had -done nobly in trying to save de Launey--the Palloys, the Fourniers, the -Latudes, and how many others! were the most servile lackeys of the -Empire, and those of them who survived were the most assiduous servants -of the Restoration. Under the Empire, the conquerors of the Bastille -tried to secure the Legion of Honour for the whole crew. They went about -soliciting pensions even up to 1830, and at that date, after forty-three -years, there were still 401 conquerors living. In 1848 the conquerors -made another appearance. There was still mention of pensions for the -conquerors of the Bastille in the budget of 1874--let us save the -ladder, the ladder of Latude! - -This is the amusing side of their story. But there is a painful side -too: their rivalries with the Gardes Françaises, who charged them with -filching the glory from them, and with the "volunteers of the Bastille." -The heroes were acquainted with calumny and opprobrium. There were, too, -deadly dissensions among their own body. There were the true conquerors, -and others who, while they were true conquerors, were nevertheless not -true: there were always "traitors" among the conquerors, as well as -"patriots." On July 1, 1790, two of the conquerors were found beaten to -death near Beaumarchais' garden, in front of the theatre of their -exploits. Next day there was a violent quarrel between four conquerors -and some soldiers. In December two others were assassinated near the -Champs de Mars. Early in 1791 two were wounded, and a third was -discovered with his neck in a noose, in a ditch near the military -school. Such were the nocturnal doings on the barriers. - -It remains to explain this amazing veering round of opinion, this -legend, of all things the least likely, which transformed into great men -the "brigands" of April, June, and July, 1789. - -The first reason is explained in the following excellent passage from -_Rabagas_[57]:-- - - _Carle._--But how then do you distinguish a riot from a revolution? - - _Boubard._--A riot is when the mob is defeated ... they are all - curs. A revolution is when the mob is the stronger: they are all - heroes! - -During the night of July 14, the Duke de la Rochefoucauld woke Louis -XVI. to announce to him the capture of the Bastille. "It's a revolt -then," said the king. "Sire," replied the duke, "it is a revolution." - -The day on which the royal power, in its feebleness and irresolution, -abandoned Paris to the mob, was the day of its abdication. The Parisians -attempted to organize themselves into a citizen militia in order to -shoot down the brigands. The movement on the Bastille was a stroke of -genius on the part of the latter--instinctive, no doubt, but for all -that a stroke of genius. The people now recognized its masters, and with -its usual facility it hailed the new régime with adulation. "From that -moment," said a deputy, "there was an end of liberty, even in the -Assembly; France was dumb before thirty factionaries." - -What rendered the national enthusiasm for the conquerors more easy was -precisely all those legends to which credence was given, in all -sincerity, by the most intelligent people in France--the legends on the -horrors of the Bastille and the cruelties of arbitrary power. For fifty -years they had been disseminated throughout the kingdom, and had taken -firm root. The pamphlets of Linguet and Mirabeau, the recent stupendous -success of the _Memoirs of Latude_, had given these stories renewed -strength and vigour. Compelled to bow before the triumphant mob, people -preferred to regard themselves--so they silenced their conscience--as -hailing a deliverer. There was some sincerity in this movement of -opinion, too. The same districts which on July 13 took arms against the -brigands could exclaim, after the crisis had passed: "The districts -applaud the capture of a fortress which, regarded hitherto as the seat -of despotism, dishonoured the French name under a popular king." - -In his edition of the _Memoirs of Barras_, M. George Duruy has well -explained the transformation of opinion. "In the _Memoirs_, the capture -of the Bastille is merely the object of a brief and casual mention. -Barras only retained and transmits to us one single detail. He saw -leaving the dungeons the 'victims of arbitrary power, saved at last from -rack and torture and from living tombs.' Such a dearth of information is -the more likely to surprise us in that Barras was not only a spectator -of the event, but composed, in that same year 1789, an account of it -which has now been discovered. Now his narrative of 1789 is as -interesting as the passage in the _Memoirs_ is insignificant. The -impression left by these pages, written while the events were vividly -pictured in his mind, is, we are bound to say, that the famous capture -of the Bastille was after all only a horrible and sanguinary saturnalia. -There is no word of heroism in this first narrative: nothing about -'victims of arbitrary power' snatched from 'torture and living tombs'; -but on the other hand, veritable deeds of cannibalism perpetrated by the -victors. That is what Barras saw, and what he recorded on those pages -where, at that period of his life, he noted down day by day the events -of which he was a witness. Thirty years slip by. Barras has sat on the -benches of the 'Montagne.'[58] He has remained an inflexible -revolutionist. He gathers his notes together in view of _Memoirs_ he -intends to publish. At this time, the revolutionist version of the -capture of the Bastille is officially established. It is henceforth -accepted that the Bastille fell before an impulse of heroism on the part -of the people of Paris, and that its fall brought to light horrible -mysteries of iniquity. This legend, which has so profoundly distorted -the event, was contemporary with the event itself, a spontaneous fruit -of the popular imagination. And Barras, having to speak of the capture -in his _Memoirs_, discovers his old narrative among his papers, and -reads it, I imagine, with a sort of stupefaction. What! the capture of -the Bastille was no more than that!--and he resolutely casts it aside." - -In the provinces, the outbreak had a violent counterpart. "There -instantly arose," writes Victor Fournel, "a strange, extraordinary, -grotesque panic, which swept through the greater part of France like a -hurricane of madness, and which many of us have heard our grand-fathers -tell stories about under the name of the 'day of the brigands' or 'the -day of the fear.' It broke out everywhere in the second fortnight of -July, 1789. Suddenly, one knew not whence, an awful rumour burst upon -the town or village: the brigands are here, at our very gates: they are -advancing in troops of fifteen or twenty thousand, burning the standing -crops, ravaging everything! Dust-stained couriers appear, spreading the -terrible news. An unknown horseman goes through at the gallop, with -haggard cheeks and dishevelled hair: 'Up, to arms, they are here!' Some -natives rush up: it is only too true: they have seen them, the bandits -are no more than a league or two away! The alarm bell booms out, the -people fly to arms, line up in battle order, start off to reconnoitre. -In the end, nothing happens, but their terrors revive. The brigands have -only turned aside: every man must remain under arms." In the frontier -provinces, there were rumours of foreign enemies. The Bretons and -Normans shook in fear of an English descent: in Champagne and Lorraine -a German invasion was feared. - -Along with these scenes of panic must be placed the deeds of violence, -the assassinations, plunderings, burnings, which suddenly desolated the -whole of France. In a book which sheds a flood of light on these facts, -Gustave Bord gives a thrilling picture of them. The châteaux were -invaded, and the owner, if they could lay hands on him, was roasted on -the soles of his feet. At Versailles the mob threw themselves on the -hangman as he was about to execute a parricide, and the criminal was set -free: the state of terror in which the town was plunged is depicted in -the journals of the municipal assembly. On July 23, the governor of -Champagne sends word that the rising is general in his district. At -Rennes, at Nantes, at Saint-Malo, at Angers, at Caen, at Bordeaux, at -Strasburg, at Metz, the mob engaged in miniature captures of the -Bastille more or less accompanied with pillage and assassination. Armed -bands went about cutting down the woods, breaking down the dikes, -fishing in the ponds.[59] The disorganization was complete. - -Nothing could more clearly show the character of the government under -the _ancien régime:_ it was wholly dependent on traditions. Nowhere was -there a concrete organization to secure the maintenance of order and -the enforcement of the king's decrees. France was a federation of -innumerable republics, held together by a single bond, the sentiment of -loyalty every citizen felt towards the crown. One puff of wind sent the -crown flying, and then disorder and panic bewilderment dominated the -whole nation. The door was open to all excesses, and the means of -checking them miserably failed. Under the _ancien régime_, devotion to -the king was the whole government, the whole administration, the whole -life of the state. And thus arose the necessity for the domination of -the Terror, and the legislative work of Napoleon. - -THE END. - - - - -INDEX - - -Allègre, Latude's fellow prisoner, 154, 185-192, 217. - -Ameilhon, city librarian, 55. - -Argenson, D', 60, 72, 95, 175, 182. - -Arsenal library, 55, 56. - -Atrocities of the mob, 258-266. - -Avedick, Armenian patriarch, 133. - - -Barras, 272. - -Bastille, its situation, 47; - appearance, 48; - repute, 49, 50; - archives, 50-56; - origin, 57; - site, 58; - construction, 59, 60; - additions to, 61; - appearance in later days, 61, 62; - early uses, 63; - becomes state prison, 63, 64; - prisoners, 65; - its administration, 66; - gradual transformation, 67; - character of prisoners, 68, 69; - secretary, 70; - office of lieutenant of police, 71; - his duties, 71, 72; - becomes like modern prisons, 77, 78; - abolition of torture, 78; - duration of prisoners' detention, 80; - expenses, 81; - plans for altering, 81-83; - a _prison de luxe_, 85; - treatment of prisoners, 86; - the rooms, 87; - manner of prisoners' entrance, 88, 89; - cells, 92, 93; - tower rooms, 93, 94; - furniture, 95, 96; - examination of prisoners, 96, 97; - indemnified if innocent, 98, 99; - allowed companions, 100, 101; - prison fare, 102-107; - clothes, 107, 108; - books, 108, 109; - exercise, 109; - diversions, 109, 110; - funerals, 110, 111; - liberation, 111, 112; - the Iron Mask, 114-146; - men of letters, 147-165; - capture, 238-272. - -Berryer, 175, 176, 178, 184, 188, 189, 193. - -Besmaus, de, 70. - -Binguet, 171, 179. - -Bread riots, 242, 243. - -Breteuil, 78, 248. - -Brigands, 241, 245, 250. - -Burgaud, 135. - - -Campan, Madame de, 144, 145. - -Carutti's theory of Iron Mask, 134. - -Cellamare conspiracy, 72, 73. - -Character of French government and society, 239-241. - -Chevalier, major, 49, 51, 120, 121, 187, 189, 194. - -Citizen militia, 251-253. - -Clothes of prisoners, 107, 108. - -Crosne, de, lieutenant of police, 244-246. - - -D'Aubrespy, Jeanneton, 169, 201. - -Dauger suggested as Iron Mask, 135. - -Desmoulins, 247, 249. - -Diderot, 165. - -Diversions of prisoners, 109, 110. - -Du Junca's journal, 69, 89, 90, 114-116, 122. - -Dusaulx, 51. - - -Encyclopædia, 80. - -Estrades, Abbé d', 138-142. - - -Food of prisoners, 102-107. - -Funerals, 110. - - -Games of prisoners, 101, 102. - -Gleichen, baron, 130. - -Griffet, Father, 120. - - -Heiss, Baron, first to suggest true solution of Iron Mask, 136. - -Henriot, 245. - -Houdon, sculptor, 82. - - -July 14th, 255-276. - -Jung's theory of Iron Mask, 134. - - -Kingston, Duchess of, 225, 227. - - -La Beaumelle, 152-155. - -Lagrange-Chancel, 132. - -La Reynie, 71. - -Latude, 168-237. - -Launay, Mdlle. de, _see_ Staal, Madame de. - -Launey, de, governor, 256, 258, 260. - -Lauzun, 91. - -Legros, Madame de, 223-226, 232, 233. - -Lenoir, lieutenant of police, 186. - -_Lettres de cachet_, 240. - -Lieutenancy of police created, 97. - -Linguet, 163-165. - -Loiseleur's theory of Iron Mask, 134. - -Loquin's theory of Iron Mask, 133. - -Losme, de, 261. - -Louis XIV. and Iron Mask, 137-140. - -Louis XV. and Iron Mask, 144. - -Louis XVI. and Iron Mask, 144. - -Louvois, 70, 141. - - -Maisonrouge, king's lieutenant, 73-76. - -Malesherbes, 78, 156, 216. - -Man in the Iron Mask, documents, 114-125; - legends, 125-136; - true solution, 136-146. - -Marmontel, 158-163. - -Mattioli, the Iron Mask, 136-146. - -Maurepas, 144, 173-175. - -Mirabeau, 166, 167. - -Morellet, 155-158, 253. - -Moyria, de, 218-220. - - -Necker, 248. - - -Palatine, Madame, 125. - -Palteau, M. de, 118, 119. - -Papon's theory of Iron Mask, 127. - -Parlement, 76, 77. - -Pensions to prisoners, 98, 99. - -Pompadour, Madame de, 173, 206. - -Pontchartrain, 69. - -Puget, king's lieutenant, 83. - - -Quesnay, Dr., 175, 177, 178. - - -Ravaisson, librarian, 54, 55, 134. - -Register of St. Paul's church, 117, 142, 143. - -Regnier's lines, 59. - -Renneville's meals, 103, 104. - -Réveillon, 245, 246. - -Ricarville, companion of the Iron Mask, 123, 124. - -Richelieu, Cardinal, 63-66. - -Richelieu, Duke de, 76, 129, 130. - -Rigby, Dr., 253, 254. - -Risings in the provinces, 273. - -Rochebrune, commissary, 195. - -Rohan, Cardinal de, 222. - - -Sade, Marquis de, 95. - -Saint-Mars, governor, 87, 115-119, 127, 142. - -Saint-Marc, detective, 169, 176, 180, 183, 192. - -Sartine, de, 49, 202, 203, 207, 210, 215. - -Sauvé, Madame de, her dress, 108. - -Solages, de, 84. - -Staal, Madame de, 73-76, 94, 95, 102. - - -Taulès, de, 132. - -Tavernier, 106. - -Theories on Iron Mask, 125-136. - -Thuriot de la Rosière, 256. - -Tirmont, companion of Iron Mask, 123, 124. - - -Vieux-Maisons, Madame de, 128. - -Villette, Marquis de, 224. - -Vinache's library, 109. - -Vincennes, 165-167, 180. - -Voltaire, 99, 126, 128, 129, 148-152. - -LONDON: - -GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, LD. - -ST. JOHN'S HOUSE, CLERKENWELL, E.C. - - * * * * * - -Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber: - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[1] The castle of Tours, 147 miles south-west of Paris, which Louis XI. -made his favourite residence. See Scott's _Quentin Durward_.--T. - -[2] Jean Balue (1471-1491), chaplain to Louis XI. For traitorously -divulging the king's schemes to his enemy, the Duke of Burgundy, he was -for eleven years shut up in the castle of Loches, in an iron-bound -wooden cage.--T. - -[3] A French author (1624-1693) who was involved in the fall of Louis -XIV.'s dishonest finance minister, Fouquet, in 1661, and was imprisoned -for five years in the Bastille, amusing himself with reading the Fathers -of the Church and taming a spider. See Kitchin's _History of France_, -iii. 155-157.--T. - -[4] Antoine de Caumont, duc de Lauzun (1633-1723), a courtier of Louis -XIV., whose favours to the Duke made Louvois, the minister, his bitter -enemy. He was twice imprisoned in the Bastille, the second time at the -instance of Madame de Montespan. He commanded the French auxiliaries of -James II. in Ireland. See Macaulay's _History_, Chaps. IX., XII., -XV.--T. - -[5] A game played with a sort of box, in the top of which are cut holes -of equal size, and with metal discs or balls, the object being to pitch -the balls into the holes from a distance. A similar game may be seen at -any English country fair.--T. - -[6] The famous president of the Cour des Aides and Minister of the -Interior, renowned for his consistent support of the people against -oppression. He was banished in 1771 for remonstrating against the abuses -of law; but returning to Paris to oppose the execution of Louis XVI., he -was guillotined in 1794.--T. - -[7] Antonio del Giudice, prince de Cellamare (1657-1733), the Spanish -ambassador, was the instigator of a plot against the Regent in 1718. See -Kitchin, _ib._ iii. 474.--T. - -[8] The Hôtel des Invalides, residence of pensioned soldiers, &c. still -a well-known building of Paris.--T. - -[9] A château, four miles east of Paris, notable as the place where St. -Louis, the royal lawgiver of France, dispensed justice. The _donjon_ -still exists, serving now as a soldier's barracks.--T. - -[10] One of the first prisons on the system of solitary confinement in -cells erected in Paris. It dates from 1850.--T. - -[11] The Abbé de Buquoy (1653-1740) owed his imprisonment originally to -having been found in company with dealers in contraband salt when the -_gabelle_, or salt-tax, compelled the French people to buy salt, whether -they wanted it or not, at a price _two thousand times_ its true value. -He was a man of very eccentric views, one of which was that woman was -man's chief evil, and that was why, when the patriarch Job was stripped -of children, flocks, herds, &c., his wife was left to him!--T. - -[12] The madhouse, eight miles east of Paris.--T. - -[13] A château originally outside Paris, now included in the city -itself, once used as a hospital and jail, now a hospital for aged and -indigent poor and for lunatics. The first experiments with the -guillotine were tried there.--T. - -[14] See _infra_, p. 83. - -[15] The title rôle in a comedy by Henri Mounier, entitled _Grandeur et -décadence de M. Joseph Prudhomme_ (1852). He is a writing-master, very -vain, given (like Mr. Micawber) to tall talk and long-winded periods. He -has become typical of "much cry and little wool." As an officer of the -National Guard he says, "This sabre constitutes the finest day in my -life! I accept it, and if ever I find myself at the head of your -phalanxes, I shall know how to use it in defence of our -institutions--and, if need arise, to fight for them!"--T. - -[16] In the early days of the Revolution, Paris was divided into -sections or wards, and as the _pike_ had played a great part in the -recent disturbances, one of the wards was known as the "Pike" -section.--T. - -[17] A disciple of the Marquis de Sade (see p. 35), a notorious -debauchee, whose book _Justine_ was a disgusting mixture of brutality -and obscenity.--T. - -[18] The pseudonym of Beffroy de Reigny (1757-1811), author of farces, -and of a _Précis historique de la prise de la Bastille_.--T. - -[19] The name given to the constitutional struggles of the nobles and -the Parlement of Paris against Mazarin and the royal power (1648-1654). -The name is derived from _fronde_, a sling. A wit of the Parlement, one -Bachaumont, "told the lawyers of that august body that they were like -schoolboys playing in the town ditches with their slings, who run away -directly the watchman appears, and begin again when his back is turned." -See Kitchin, iii. pp. 102-128.--T. - -[20] See _Monte-Cristo_.--T. - -[21] Delivered to the French Association for the Advancement of Science -in 1893. - -[22] The battle fought on August 10, 1557, in which Egmont with a -combined force of Spaniards, Flemish, and English (sent by Queen Mary) -routed Constable Montmorency and the finest chivalry of France. It was -in commemoration of this victory that Philip II. built the palace of the -Escurial, shaped like a gridiron because the battle was fought on St. -Lawrence's day.--T. - -[23] The following unpublished letter from Pontchartrain to Bernaville, -intimating his probable nomination as governor of the Bastille, shows -exactly what Louis XIV.'s government demanded of the head of the great -state prison:- - -"Versailles, September 28, 1707. - - "I have received your letter of yesterday. I can only repeat what I - have already written: to pay constant attention to what goes on in - the Bastille; to neglect none of the duties of a good governor; to - maintain order and discipline among the soldiers of the garrison, - seeing that they keep watch with all the necessary exactitude, and - that their wages are regularly paid; to take care that the - prisoners are well fed and treated with kindness, preventing them, - however, from having any communication with people outside and from - writing letters; finally, to be yourself especially prompt in - informing me of anything particular that may happen at the - Bastille. You will understand that in following such a line of - action you cannot but please the king, and perhaps induce him to - grant you the post of governor; on my part, you may count on my - neglecting no means of representing your services to His Majesty in - the proper light. - -"I am, &c., - -"PONTCHARTRAIN." - - - - - -[24] The appellation of the eldest brother of the reigning king.--T. - -[25] Under the _ancien régime_, there being no Minister of the Interior -(Home Secretary), each of the ministers (the War Minister, Minister for -Foreign Affairs, &c.) had a part of France under his charge. The -Minister of Paris was usually what we should call the Lord -Chamberlain.--T. - -[26] The court which up to the time of the Revolution was the seat of -justice, presided over by the Provost of Paris. It held its sittings in -the castle known as the Châtelet.--T. - -[27] A judicial, not a legislative body. It was constantly in antagonism -to the king.--T. - -[28] The famous Encyclopædia edited by D'Alembert and Diderot. It -occupied twenty years of the life of the latter, and went through many -vicissitudes; its free criticism of existing institutions provoking the -enmity of the government. Voltaire was one of its largest -contributors.--T. - -[29] This raised Linguet's indignation. "The consideration of this -enormous expense has given to some ministers, among others to M. Necker, -a notion of reform; if this should come to anything, it would be very -disgraceful to spring from no other cause. 'Suppress the Bastille out of -economy!' said on this subject, a few days ago, one of the youngest and -most eloquent orators of England." - -[30] The Hôtel Carnavalet, museum in Paris, where a large number of -documents and books are preserved relating to the history of the -city.--T. - -[31] It may be noted that the different escapes contributed to the -gradual tightening of the rules of the Bastille. After the escape of the -Comte de Bucquoy, such ornaments as the prisoners could attach cords to -were at once removed, and knives were taken from them; after the escape -of Allègre and Latude, bars of iron were placed in the chimneys, and so -forth. - -[32] The second of the four principal officers of the Bastille. The -officers were: (1) the governor; (2) the king's lieutenant; (3) the -major; (4) the adjutant. There was also a doctor, a surgeon, a -confessor, &c. The garrison consisted of Invalides.--T. - -[33] The most surprising instance is that of an Englishman, who returned -spontaneously from England to become a prisoner in the Bastille. "On -Thursday, May 22, 1693, at nightfall, M. de Jones, an Englishman, -returned from England, having come back to prison for reasons concerning -the king's service. He was located outside the château, in a little room -where M. de Besmaus keeps his library, above his office, and he is not -to appear for some days for his examination, and is to be taken great -care of."--Du Junca's Journal. - -[34] This was not the Lauzun already mentioned, but his nephew, Armand -Louis de Gontaut, duke de Biron (1747-1793), who was notorious -throughout Europe for his gallantries.--T. - -[35] An official of the royal council, whose function originally was to -examine and report on petitions to the king. He became a sort of -superior magistrate's clerk.--T. - -[36] "1751, March 2. I have received a letter from Dr. Duval (secretary -to the lieutenant of police), in which he tells me that M. Berryer -(lieutenant of police) is struck with the cost of the clothes supplied -to the prisoners for some time past; but, as you know, I only supply -things when ordered by M. Berryer, and I try to supply good clothes, so -that they may last and give the prisoners satisfaction."--Letter from -Rochebrune, commissary to the Bastille, to Major Chevalier. - -[37] These extracts are translated literally, in order to preserve the -clumsy constructions of the unlettered official.--T. - -[38] Step-sister of Louis XIV. The following extracts from her -correspondence show how, even in circles that might have been expected -to be well informed, the legend had already seized on people's -imaginations:-- - -"Marly, October 10, 1711. A man remained long years in the Bastille, and -has died there, masked. At his side he had two musketeers ready to kill -him if he took off his mask. He ate and slept masked. No doubt there was -some reason for this, for otherwise he was well treated and lodged, and -given everything he wished for. He went to communion masked; he was very -devout and read continually. No one has ever been able to learn who he -was." - -"Versailles, October 22, 1711. I have just learnt who the masked man -was, who died in the Bastille. His wearing a mask was not due to -cruelty. He was an English lord who had been mixed up in the affair of -the Duke of Berwick (natural son of James II.) against King William. He -died there so that the king might never know what became of him." - -[39] The insurgents who rose for the king against the Revolutionists in -Brittany: see Balzac's famous novel. The movement smouldered for a great -many years.--T. - -[40] The Gregorian calendar was abolished by the National Convention in -1793, who decreed that September 22, 1792, should be regarded as the -first day of a new era. The year was divided into twelve months, with -names derived from natural phenomena. Nivose (snowy) was the fourth of -these months. Thus, the period mentioned in the text includes from -December 21, 1800, to January 19, 1801.--T. - -[41] Since M. Funck-Brentano's book was published, his conclusions have -been corroborated by Vicomte Maurice Boutry in a study published in the -_Revue des Etudes historiques_ (1899, p. 172). The Vicomte furnishes an -additional proof. He says that the Duchess de Créquy, in the third book -of her _Souvenirs_, gives a _résumé_ of a conversation on the Iron Mask -between Marshal de Noailles, the Duchess de Luynes, and others, and -adds: "The most considerable and best informed persons of my time always -thought that the famous story had no other foundation than the capture -and captivity of the Piedmontese Mattioli."--T. - -[42] "I have seen these ills, and I am not twenty yet." - -[43] These verses were, of course, in Latin.--T. - -[44] Palissot was a dramatist and critic who in his comedy _Les -Philosophes_ had bitterly attacked Rousseau, Diderot, and the -Encyclopædists generally.--T. - -[45] The old prison of Paris. It was the debtors' prison, famous also -for the number of actors who were imprisoned there under the _ancien -régime_. It was demolished in 1780.--T. - -[46] "Not unto us, O Lord, but unto Thy name give glory! - -"Know our heart and search out our ways." - -[47] "The victory is won!"--T. - -[48] Charenton was under the direction of a religious order known as the -_Frères de la Charité_, who undertook the care of sick and weak-minded -poor.--T. - -[49] This was Elizabeth Chudleigh (1720-1788), the notorious beauty who -privately married the Hon. Augustus Hervey, afterwards Earl of Bristol, -separated from him after three years, and became the mistress of the -second Duke of Kingston, whom she bigamously married. After his death -she was tried by the House of Lords for bigamy, and fled to France to -escape punishment. Her gallantries and eccentricities were the talk of -Europe.--T. - -[50] Instructed by his misfortunes and his captivity how to vanquish the -efforts and the rage of tyrants, he taught the French how true courage -can win liberty. - -[51] Jocrisse is the stock French type of the booby, and as such is a -character in many comedies. He breaks a plate, for instance; his master -asks him how he managed to be so clumsy, and he instantly smashes -another, saying, "_Just like that!_" His master asks him to be sure and -wake him early in the morning; Jocrisse answers: "Right, sir, depend on -me; _but of course you'll ring_!"--T. - -[52] The Girondists (so called from Gironde, a district of Bordeaux) -were the more sober republican party in the Assembly, who were forced by -circumstances to join the Jacobins against Louis XVI. With their fall -from power in the early summer of 1792 the last hope of the monarchy -disappeared.--T. - -[53] Referring to the horrible massacres of September, 1792, when about -1400 victims perished.--T. - -[54] The French Dick Turpin. Of good education, he formed when quite a -youth a band of robbers, and became the terror of France. Like Turpin, -he is the subject of dramas and stories.--T. - -[55] A forest near Paris, on the line to Avricourt. It was a famous -haunt of brigands. There is a well-known story of a dog which attacked -and killed the murderer of its master there.--T. - -[56] Literally "cut-top": we have no equivalent in English.--T. - -[57] A five-act comedy by Victorien Sardou. - -[58] The nickname given to the Jacobins, the extreme revolutionists, who -sat on the highest seats on the left in the National Assembly.--T. - -[59] Which were the strict preserves of the aristocrats: to fish in them -was as great a crime as to shoot a landlord's rabbit was, a few years -ago, in England.--T. - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Legends of the Bastille, by Frantz Funck-Brentano - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEGENDS OF THE BASTILLE *** - -***** This file should be named 43231-8.txt or 43231-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/2/3/43231/ - -Produced by Chris Curnow, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily -keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. - - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: - - http://www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/43231-8.zip b/43231-8.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 0ea098a..0000000 --- a/43231-8.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/43231-h.zip b/43231-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index e8d00dc..0000000 --- a/43231-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/43231.txt b/43231.txt deleted file mode 100644 index d3aa75c..0000000 --- a/43231.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7704 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's Legends of the Bastille, by Frantz Funck-Brentano - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Legends of the Bastille - -Author: Frantz Funck-Brentano - -Translator: George Maidment - -Release Date: July 16, 2013 [EBook #43231] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEGENDS OF THE BASTILLE *** - - - - -Produced by Chris Curnow, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - DOWNEY & CO.'S - - _NEW PUBLICATIONS_. - - - =MEDICINE AND THE MIND.= Translated from the French of MAURICE DE - FLEURY by S. B. COLLINS, M.D. 16_s._ - - *** This work has been crowned by the French Academy. - - =OLD LONDON TAVERNS.= By EDWARD CALLOW. Illustrated. 6_s._ - - =THE GOOD QUEEN CHARLOTTE.= By PERCY FITZGERALD. With a Photogravure - reproduction of Gainsborough's Portrait and other Illustrations. - Demy 8vo. 10_s._ 6_d._ - - =THE LIFE OF JOHN MYTTON.= By NIMROD. An entirely new edition printed - from new type. With 20 Coloured Plates reproduced from Alken's - Drawings. 42_s._ net. - - =GOSSIP OF THE CENTURY.= By Mrs. PITT BYRNE. 4 vols. with numerous - Illustrations. 42_s._ - - =THE ACTOR AND HIS ART.= By STANLEY JONES. Crown 8vo. With Cover - designed by H. MITCHELL. 3_s._ 6_d._ - - - - - LEGENDS OF THE BASTILLE - -[Illustration: MODEL OF THE BASTILLE, CARVED IN ONE OF THE STONES OF THE -FORTRESS. - -_One of these models, made by the instructions of the architect Palloy, -was sent to the chief-town of every department in France._] - - - - - Legends of - the Bastille - - BY - FRANTZ FUNCK-BRENTANO - - _WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY VICTORIEN SARDOU_ - - AUTHORISED TRANSLATION BY - GEORGE MAIDMENT - - WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS - - LONDON - DOWNEY & CO. LIMITED - 1899 - - - - -BIBLIOGRAPHY - - - _Legendes et Archives de la Bastille._ Paris: Hachette et Cie., - 1898; second edition, 1899. Crowned by the French Academy. - - _Die Bastille in der Legende und nach historischen Documenten._ - German translation by Oscar Marschall von Bieberstein. Breslau: - Schottlaender, 1899. - - - - -TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE - - -In his own entertaining way, Mr. Andrew Lang has recently been taking -the scientific historian to task, and giving him a very admirable lesson -on "history as she ought to be wrote." But though the two professors to -whom he mainly addresses himself are Frenchmen, it would be doing an -injustice to France to infer that she is the _alma mater_ of the modern -dryasdust. The exact contrary is the case: France is rich in historical -writers like the Comte d'Haussonville, M. de Maulde la Claviere, M. -Gaston Boissier, to name only a few, who know how to be accurate without -being dull. - -M. Funck-Brentano, whom I have the honour of introducing here to the -English public, belongs to the same class. Of literary parentage and -connections--his uncle is Professor Lujo Brentano, whose work on the -English trade gilds is a standard--he entered in his twentieth year the -Ecole des Chartes, the famous institution which trains men in the -methods of historical research. At the end of his three years' course, -he was appointed to succeed Francois Ravaisson in the work of -classifying the archives of the Bastille in the Arsenal Library,--a work -which occupied him for more than ten years. One fruit of it is to be -seen in the huge catalogue of more than one thousand pages, printed -under official auspices and awarded the Prix Le Dissez de Penanrum by -the Academie des Sciences morales et politiques. Another is the present -work, which has been crowned by the French Academy. Meanwhile M. -Funck-Brentano had been pursuing his studies at the Sorbonne and at -Nancy, and his French thesis for the doctorate in letters was a volume -on the origins of the Hundred Years' War, which obtained for him the -highest possible distinction for a work of erudition in France, the -Grand Prix Gobert. This volume he intends to follow up with two others, -completing a social rather than a military history of the war, and this -no doubt he regards as his _magnum opus_. He is known also as a lecturer -in Belgium and Alsace as well as in Paris, and being general secretary -of the Societe des Etudes historiques and deputy professor of history at -the College of France as well as sub-librarian of the Arsenal Library, -he leads a busy life. - -Trained in the rigorous methods of the Ecole des Chartes and inspired by -the examples of Fustel de Coulanges and M. Paul Meyer, M. Funck-Brentano -has developed a most interesting and conscientious method of his own. He -depends on original sources, and subjects these to the most searching -critical tests; but this is a matter of course: his individuality -appears in regard to the publication of the results of his researches. -When he has discoveries of importance to communicate, he gives them to -the world first in the form of articles or studies in reviews of -standing, thus preparing public opinion, and at the same time affording -opportunities for the search-light of criticism to play on his work. -Some of the chapters of this book thus appeared in the various _revues_, -and have subsequently gone through a severe process of pruning and -amending. It is now eleven years since the first appearance, in the -pages of the _Revue des deux Mondes_, of the study of Latude which, in a -much altered shape, now forms one of the most interesting portions of -this book. The coming autumn will see the publication in France of a -striking work by M. Funck-Brentano on the amazing poison-dramas at Louis -XIV.'s court, and of this book also the several sections have been -appearing at intervals for several years past. - -The present work, as I have already said, is the fruit of many years of -research. Its startling revelations, so well summarized in M. Victorien -Sardou's Introduction, have revolutionized public opinion in France, and -in particular the solution of the old problem of the identity of the Man -in the Iron Mask has been accepted as final by all competent critics. -The _Athenaeum_, in reviewing the book in its French form the other day, -said that it must be taken cautiously as an ingenious bit of special -pleading, and that the Bastille appears in M. Funck-Brentano's pages in -altogether too roseate hues, suggesting further that no such results -could be obtained without prejudice from the same archives as those on -which Charpentier founded his _La Bastille devoilee_ in 1789. This -criticism seems to me to ignore several important points. Charpentier's -book, written in the heat of the revolutionary struggle, is not a -history, but a political pamphlet, which, in the nature of the case, was -bound to represent the Bastille as a horror. Moreover, Charpentier could -only have depended superficially on the archives, which, as M. -Funck-Brentano shows, were thrown into utter disorder on the day of the -capture of the Bastille. The later writer, on the other hand, approached -the subject when the revolutionary ardours had quite burnt out, and with -the independent and dispassionate mind of a trained official. He spent -thirteen years in setting the rediscovered archives in order, after his -predecessor Ravaisson had already spent a considerable time at the same -work. He was able, further (as Charpentier certainly was not), to -complete and check the testimony of the archives by means of the memoirs -of prisoners--the Abbe Morellet, Marmontel, Renneville, Dumouriez, and a -host of others. In these circumstances it would be surprising if his -conclusions were not somewhat different from those of Charpentier a -hundred years ago. - -The gravamen of the _Athenaeun's_ objection is that M. Funck-Brentano's -description of the treatment of prisoners in the Bastille applies only -to the favoured few, the implication being that M. Funck-Brentano has -shut his eyes to the cases of the larger number. But surely the reviewer -must have read the book too rapidly. M. Funck-Brentano shows, by means -of existing and accessible documents, that the fact of being sent to the -Bastille at all was itself, in the eighteenth century at least, a mark -of favour. Once at the Bastille, the prisoner, whoever he might be, was -treated without severity, unless he misbehaved. Prisoners of no social -importance, such as Renneville, Latude (a servant's love-child), -Tavernier (son of a house-porter), were fed and clothed and cared for -much better than they would have been outside the prison walls. A young -man named Estival de Texas, who was being exiled to Canada because he -was a disgrace to his family, wrote to the minister of Paris on June 22, -1726, from the roadstead of La Rochelle: "Your lordship is sending me to -a wild country, huddled with mean wretches, and condemned to a fare very -different from what your lordship granted me in the Bastille." Here was -a friendless outcast looking back regretfully on his prison fare! On -February 6, 1724, one of the king's ministers wrote to the lieutenant -of police: "I have read to the duke of Bourbon the letter you sent me -about the speeches of M. Queheon, and his royal highness has instructed -me to send you an order and a _lettre de cachet_ authorizing his removal -to the Bastille. But as he thinks that this is _an honour the fellow -little deserves_, he wishes you to postpone the execution of the warrant -for three days, in order to see if Queheon will not take the hint and -leave Paris as he was commanded." It is on such documents as these, -which are to be seen in hundreds at the Arsenal Library in Paris, that -M. Funck-Brentano has founded his conclusions. Anyone who attacks him on -his own ground is likely to come badly off. - -With M. Funck-Brentano's permission, I have omitted the greater part of -his footnotes, which are mainly references to documents inaccessible to -the English reader. On the other hand, I have ventured to supply a few -footnotes in explanation of such allusions as the Englishman not reading -French (and the translation is intended for no others) might not -understand. On the same principle I have attempted rhymed renderings of -two or three scraps of verse quoted from Regnier and Voltaire, to whom I -make my apologies. The proofs have had the advantage of revision by M. -Funck-Brentano, who is, however, in no way responsible for any -shortcomings. The Index appears in the English version alone. - -The portrait of Latude and the views of the Bastille are reproduced from -photographs of the originals specially taken by M. A. Bresson, of 40 Rue -de Passy, Paris. - -GEORGE MAIDMENT. - -_August, 1899._ - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - -INTRODUCTION 1 - - -CHAPTER I. - -THE ARCHIVES 47 - - -CHAPTER II. - -HISTORY OF THE BASTILLE 57 - - -CHAPTER III. - -LIFE IN THE BASTILLE 85 - - -CHAPTER IV. - -THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK 114 - - -CHAPTER V. - -MEN OF LETTERS IN THE BASTILLE 147 - - I. VOLTAIRE 148 - - II. LA BEAUMELLE 152 - -III. THE ABBE MORELLET 155 - - IV. MARMONTEL 158 - - V. LINGUET 163 - - VI. DIDEROT 165 - -VII. THE MARQUIS DE MIRABEAU 166 - - -CHAPTER VI. - -LATUDE 168 - - -CHAPTER VII. - -THE FOURTEENTH OF JULY 238 - -INDEX 277 - - - - -LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - -Model of the Bastille _Frontispiece_ - -Facsimile of Du Junca's note regarding the -entry of the Iron Mask _Facing page_ 115 - -Facsimile of Du Junca's note regarding the -death of the Iron Mask " 116 - -Facsimile of the Iron Mask's burial certificate " 142 - -Facsimile of the cover of Latude's explosive box " 173 - -Facsimile of Latude's writing with blood on linen " 188 - -Portrait of Latude " 229 - -The Capture of the Bastille " 257 - - - - -INTRODUCTION - - -At the great Exhibition of 1889 I visited, in company with some friends, -the reproduction of the Bastille, calculated to give all who saw it--and -the whole world must have seen it--an entirely false impression. - -You had barely cleared the doorway when you saw, in the gloom, an old -man enveloped in a long white beard, lying on the "sodden straw" of -tradition, rattling his chains and uttering doleful cries. And the guide -said to you, not without emotion, "You see here the unfortunate Latude, -who remained in this position, with both arms thus chained behind his -back, for thirty-five years!" - -This information I completed by adding in the same tone: "And it was in -this attitude that he so cleverly constructed the ladder, a hundred and -eighty feet long, which enabled him to escape." - -The company looked at me with surprise, the guide with a scowl, and I -slipped away. - -The same considerations that prompted my intervention have suggested to -M. Funck-Brentano this work on the Bastille, in which he has set the -facts in their true light, and confronted the legends which everyone -knows with the truth of which many are in ignorance. - -For in spite of all that has been written on the subject by Ravaisson, -in the introduction to his _Archives of the Bastille_, by Victor -Fournel, in his _Men of the Fourteenth of July_, and by other writers, -the popular idea of the internal administration of the Bastille in 1789 -holds by the description of Louis Blanc: "Iron cages, recalling -Plessis-les-Tours[1] and the tortures of Cardinal La Balue![2]--underground -dungeons, the loathsome haunts of toads, lizards, enormous rats, -spiders--the whole furniture consisting of one huge stone covered with a -little straw, where the prisoner breathed poison in the very air.... -Enveloped in the shades of mystery, kept in absolute ignorance of the -crime with which he was charged, and the kind of punishment awaiting -him, he ceased to belong to the earth!" - -If this Bastille of melodrama ever had any existence, the Bastille of -the eighteenth century bore the least possible resemblance to it. In -1789, these dungeons on the ground floor of the fortress, with windows -looking on the moats, were no longer reserved, as under Louis XV., for -prisoners condemned to death, dangerous madmen, or prisoners who had -been insolent, obstreperous, or violent; nor for warders guilty of -breaches of discipline. At the time of Necker's first ministry, the use -of these dungeons had been abolished altogether. - -The prisoner, put through an interrogation in the early days of his -detention, was never left in ignorance of the "delinquency" with which -he was charged, and had no reason to be concerned about the kind of -punishment awaiting him; for there had been neither torture nor -punishment of any kind at the Bastille for a hundred years. - -Instead of a dungeon or a cage of iron, every prisoner occupied a room -of fair size, its greatest defect being that it was rather poorly -lighted by a narrow window, secured by bars, some of them projecting -inwards. It was sufficiently furnished; and there was nothing to hinder -the prisoner from getting in more furniture from outside. Moreover, he -could procure whatever clothing and linen he desired, and if he had no -means to pay for them, money was supplied. Latude complained of -rheumatism, and furs were at once given him. He wanted a dressing-gown -of "red-striped calamanco"; the shops were ransacked to gratify him. A -certain Hugonnet complained that he had not received the shirts "with -embroidered ruffles" which he had asked for. A lady named Sauve wanted a -dress of white silk spotted with green flowers. In all Paris there was -only a white dress with green stripes to be found, with which it was -hoped that she would be satisfied. - -Every room was provided with a fireplace or a stove. Firewood was -supplied, and light; the prisoner could have as many candles as he -pleased. Paper, pens, and ink were at his disposal; though he was -deprived of them temporarily if he made bad use of them, like Latude, -who scribbled all day long only to heap insults in his letters on the -governor and the lieutenant of police. He could borrow books from the -library, and was at liberty to have books sent in from outside. La -Beaumelle had six hundred volumes in his room. He might breed birds, -cats, and dogs--by no means being reduced to taming the legendary spider -of Pellisson,[3] which figures also in the story of Lauzun,[4] and, -indeed, of all prisoners in every age. Instruments of music were -allowed. Renneville played the fiddle, and Latude the flute. There were -concerts in the prisoners' rooms and in the apartments of the governor. - -Every prisoner could work at embroidery, at the turning lathe, or the -joiner's bench, at pleasure. All whose conduct was irreproachable were -allowed to come and go, to pay each other visits, to play at -backgammon, cards, or chess in their rooms; at skittles, bowls, or -_tonneau_[5] in the courtyard. La Rouerie asked for a billiard table for -himself and his friends, and he got it. - -The prisoners were permitted to walk on the platform of the fortress, -from which they could see the people passing up and down the Rue -Saint-Antoine and the vicinity, and watch the animated crowds on the -boulevard at the hours when fashionable people were accustomed to take -their drives. By the aid of telescopes and big letters written on boards -they were able to communicate with the people of the neighbourhood, and, -like Latude, to keep up a secret correspondence with the grisettes of -the district. Michelet, with too obvious a design, declares that under -Louis XVI. the regulations of the prison were more severe than under -Louis XV., and that this promenade on the platform was done away with. -There is not a word of truth in it. The promenade was forbidden only to -those prisoners who, like the Marquis de Sade, took advantage of it to -stir up riots among the passers-by; and from the accession of Louis -XVI. and the visitation of Malesherbes,[6] the rule of the prison grew -milder day by day. - -Certain of the prisoners were invited to dine with the governor, and to -walk in his gardens, in excellent company. Some were allowed to leave -the fortress, on condition of returning in the evening; others were even -allowed to remain out all night! - -Those who had servants could have them in attendance if the servants -were willing to share their captivity. Or they had room-mates, as was -the case with Latude and Allegre. - -In regard to food, the prisoners are unanimous in declaring that it was -abundant and good. "I had five dishes at dinner," says Dumouriez, "and -five at supper, without reckoning dessert." The Provost de Beaumont -declared that he had quitted the Bastille with regret, because there he -had been able to eat and drink to his heart's content. Poultier -d'Elmotte says: "M. de Launey had many a friendly chat with me, and -sent me what dishes I wished for." Baron Hennequin, a hypochondriac who -found fault with everything, confesses nevertheless that they gave him -more meat than he could eat. The Abbe de Buquoy affirms that he fared -sumptuously, and that it was the king's intention that the prisoners -should be well fed. The splenetic Linguet owns, in his pamphlet, that he -had three good meals a day, and that meat was supplied to him in such -quantities that his suspicions were aroused: "They meant to poison me!" -he says. But he omits to say that de Launey sent him every morning the -menu for the day, on which he marked down with his own hand the dishes -he fancied, "choosing always the most dainty, and in sufficient -quantities to have satisfied five or six epicures." - -In Louis XIV.'s time, Renneville drew up the following list of dishes -served to him: "Oysters, prawns, fowls, capons, mutton, veal, young -pigeons; forcemeat pies and patties; asparagus, cauliflower, green peas, -artichokes; salmon, soles, pike, trout, every kind of fish whether -fresh-water or salt; pastry, and fruits in their season." We find Latude -complaining that the fowls given him were not stuffed! M. -Funck-Brentano tells the amusing story of Marmontel's eating by mistake -the dinner intended for his servant, and finding it excellent. - -Mdlle. de Launay, afterwards Madame de Staal, who was imprisoned for -complicity in the Cellamare[7] plot, relates that on the first evening -of her sojourn in the Bastille, she and her maid were both terrified by -the strange and prolonged sound, beneath their feet, of a mysterious -machine, which conjured up visions of an instrument of torture. When -they came to inquire, they found that their room was over the kitchen, -and the terrible machine was the roasting-jack! - -The prisoners were not only allowed to receive visits from their -relations and friends, but to keep them to dinner or to make up a -rubber. Thus Madame de Staal held receptions in the afternoon, and in -the evening there was high play. "And this time," she says, "was the -happiest in my life." - -Bussy-Rabutin received the whole court, and all his friends--especially -those of the fair sex. M. de Bonrepos--an assumed name--was so -comfortable in the Bastille that when he was directed to retire to the -Invalides,[8] he could only be removed by force. - -"I there spent six weeks," says Morellet, "so pleasantly, that I chuckle -to this day when I think of them." And when he left, he exclaimed: "God -rest those jolly tyrants!" - -Voltaire remained there for twelve days, with a recommendation from the -lieutenant of police that he should be treated with all the -consideration "due to his genius." - -The objection may be raised that these cases are all of great lords or -men of letters, towards whom the government of those days was -exceptionally lenient. (How delightful to find writers put on the same -footing with peers!) But the objection is groundless. - -I have referred to Renneville and Latude, prisoners of very little -account. The one was a spy; the other a swindler. In the three-volume -narrative left us by Renneville, you hear of nothing but how he kept -open house and made merry with his companions. They gambled and smoked, -ate and drank, fuddled and fought, gossiped with their neighbours of -both sexes, and passed one another pastry and excellent wine through the -chimneys. How gladly the prisoners in our jails to-day would accommodate -themselves to such a life! Renneville, assuredly, was not treated with -the same consideration as Voltaire; but, frankly, would you have wished -it? - -As to Latude--who was supplied with dressing-gowns to suit his -fancy--the reader will see from M. Funck-Brentano's narrative that no -one but himself was to blame if he did not dwell at Vincennes[9] or in -the Bastille on the best of terms--or even leave his prison at the -shortest notice, by the front gate, and with a well-lined pocket. - -For that was one of the harsh measures of this horrible Bastille--to -send away the poor wretches, when their time was expired, with a few -hundred livres in their pockets, and to compensate such as were found to -be innocent! See what M. Funck-Brentano says of Sube, who, for a -detention of eighteen days, received 3000 livres (L240 to-day), or of -others, who, after an imprisonment of two years, were consoled with an -annual pension of 2400 francs of our reckoning. Voltaire spent twelve -days in the Bastille, and was assured of an annual pension of 1200 -livres for life. What is to be said now of our contemporary justice, -which, after some months of imprisonment on suspicion, dismisses the -poor fellow, arrested by mistake, with no other indemnity than the -friendly admonition: "Go! and take care we don't catch you again!" - -Some wag will be sure to say that I am making out the Bastille to have -been a palace of delight. We can spare him his little jest. A prison is -always a prison, however pleasant it may be; and the best of cheer is no -compensation for the loss of liberty. But there is a wide difference, it -will be granted, between the reality and the notion generally -held--between this "hotel for men of letters," as some one called it, -and the hideous black holes of our system of solitary confinement. I -once said that I should prefer three years in the Bastille to three -months at Mazas.[10] I do not retract. - - * * * * * - -Linguet and Latude, unquestionably, were the two men whose habit of -drawing the long bow has done most to propagate the fables about the -Bastille, the falsity of which is established by incontrovertible -documents. Party spirit has not failed to take seriously the interested -calumnies of Linguet, who used his spurious martyrdom to advertise -himself, and the lies of Latude, exploiting to good purpose a captivity -which he had made his career. - -Let us leave Linguet, who, after having so earnestly urged the -demolition of the Bastille, had reason to regret it at the Conciergerie -at the moment of mounting the revolutionary tumbril, and speak a little -of the other, this captive who was as ingenious in escaping from prison, -when locked up, as in hugging his chains when offered the means of -release. - -For the bulk of mankind, thirty-five years of captivity was the price -Latude paid for a mere practical joke: the sending to Madame de -Pompadour of a harmless powder that was taken for poison. The punishment -is regarded as terrific: I do not wonder at it. But if, instead of -relying on the gentleman's own fanfaronades, the reader will take the -trouble to look at the biography written by M. Funck-Brentano and amply -supported by documents, he will speedily see that if Latude remained in -prison for thirty-five years, it was entirely by his own choice; and -that his worst enemy, his most implacable persecutor, the author of all -his miseries was--himself. - -If, after the piece of trickery which led to his arrest, he had followed -the advice of the excellent Berryer, who counselled patience and -promised his speedy liberation, he might have got off with a few months -of restraint at Vincennes, where his confinement was so rigorous that he -had only to push the garden gate to be free! - -That was the first folly calculated to injure his cause, for the new -fault was more serious than the old. He was caught; he was locked in the -cells of the Bastille: but the kind-hearted Berryer soon removed him. -Instead of behaving himself quietly, however, our man begins to grow -restless, to harangue, to abuse everybody, and on the books lent him to -scribble insulting verses on the Pompadour. But they allow him an -apartment, then give him a servant, then a companion, Allegre. And then -comes the famous escape. One hardly knows which to wonder at the most: -the ingenuity of the two rogues, or the guileless management of this -prison which allows them to collect undisturbed a gimlet, a saw, a -compass, a pulley, fourteen hundred feet of rope, a rope ladder 180 feet -long, with 218 wooden rungs; to conceal all these between the floor and -the ceiling below, without anyone ever thinking to look there; and, -after having cut through a wall four and a half feet thick, to get clear -away without firing a shot! - -They were not the first to get across those old walls. Renneville -mentions several escapes, the most famous being that of the Abbe de -Buquoy.[11] But little importance seems to have been attached to them. - -With Allegre and Latude it was a different matter. The passers-by must -have seen, in the early morning, the ladder swinging from top to bottom -of the wall, and the escape was no longer a secret. The Bastille is -discredited. It is possible, then, to escape from it. The chagrined -police are on their mettle. There will be laughter at their expense. The -fugitives are both well known, too. They will take good care to spread -the story of their escape, with plenty of gibes against the governor, -the lieutenant of police, the ministry, the favourite, the king! This -scandal must be averted at any cost; the fugitives must be caught! - -And we cannot help pitying these two wretches who, after a flight so -admirably contrived, got arrested so stupidly: Allegre at Brussels, -through an abusive letter written to the Pompadour; Latude in Holland, -through a letter begging help from his mother. - -Latude is again under lock and key, and this time condemned to a -stricter confinement. And then the hubbub begins again: outcries, -demands, acts of violence, threats! He exasperates and daunts men who -had the best will in the world to help him. He is despatched to the -fortress of Vincennes, and promised his liberty if he will only keep -quiet. His liberation, on his own showing, was but a matter of days. He -is allowed to walk on the bank of the moat. He takes advantage of it to -escape again! - -Captured once more, he is once more lodged at Vincennes, and the whole -business begins over again. But they are good enough to consider him a -little mad, and after a stay at Charenton,[12] where he was very well -treated, he at last gets his dismissal, with the recommendation to -betake himself to his own part of the country quietly. Ah, that would -not be like Latude! He scampers over Paris, railing against De Sartine, -De Marigny; hawking his pamphlets; claiming 150,000 livres as -damages!--and, finally, extorting money from a charitable lady by -menaces! - -This is the last straw. Patience is exhausted, and he is clapped into -Bicetre[13] as a dangerous lunatic. Imagine his fury and disgust! - -Let us be just. Suppose, in our own days, a swindler, sentenced to a few -months' imprisonment, insulting the police, the magistrates, the court, -the president; sentenced on this account to a longer term, escaping -once, twice, a third time; always caught, put in jail again, sentenced -to still longer terms: then when at last released, after having done his -time, scattering broadcast insulting libels against the chief of police, -the ministers, the parliament, and insisting on the President of the -Republic paying him damages to the tune of 150,000 francs; to crown it -all, getting money out of some good woman by working on her fears! You -will agree with me that such a swaggering blade would not have much -difficulty in putting together thirty-five years in jail! - -But these sentences would of course be public, and provide no soil for -the growth of those legends to which closed doors always give rise. Yet -in all that relates to the causes and the duration of the man's -imprisonment, his case would be precisely that of Latude--except that -for him there would be no furs, no promenading in the gardens, no -stuffed fowls for his lunch! - -Besides some fifty autograph letters from Latude, addressed from Bicetre -to his good angel, Madame Legros, in which he shows himself in his true -character, an intriguing, vain, insolent, bragging, insupportable -humbug, I have one, written to M. de Sartine, which Latude published as -a pendant to the pamphlet with which he hoped to move Madame de -Pompadour to pity, and in which every phrase is an insult. This letter -was put up at public auction, and these first lines of it were -reproduced in the catalogue:-- - -"I am supporting with patience the loss of my best years and of my -fortune. I am enduring my rheumatism, the weakness of my arm, and a ring -of iron around my body for the rest of my life!" - -A journalist, one of those who learn their history from Louis Blanc, had -a vision of Latude for ever riveted by a ring of iron to a pillar in -some underground dungeon, and exclaimed with indignation: "A ring of -iron! How horrible!" - -And it was only a linen band! - -That fabulous iron collar is a type of the whole legend of the -unfortunate Latude! - - * * * * * - -Everything connected with the Bastille has assumed a fabulous character. - -What glorious days were those of the 13th and 14th of July, as the -popular imagination conjures them up in reliance on Michelet, who, in a -vivid, impassioned, picturesque, dramatic, admirable style, has -written, not the history, but the romance of the French Revolution! - -Look at his account of the 13th. He shows you all Paris in revolt -against Versailles, and with superb enthusiasm running to arms to try -issues with the royal army. It is fine as literature. Historically, it -is pure fiction. - -The Parisians were assuredly devoted to the "new ideas," that is, the -suppression of the abuses and the privileges specified in the memorials -of the States General; in a word, to the reforms longed for by the whole -of France. But they had no conception of gaining them without the -concurrence of the monarchy, to which they were sincerely attached. That -crowd of scared men running to the Hotel de Ville to demand arms, who -are represented by the revolutionary writers as exasperated by the -dismissal of Necker and ready to undermine the throne for the sake of -that Genevan, were much less alarmed at what was hatching at Versailles -than at what was going on in Paris. If they wished for arms, it was for -their own security. The dissolution of the National Assembly, which was -regarded as certain, was setting all minds in a ferment, and -ill-designing people took advantage of the general uneasiness and -agitation to drive matters to the worst extremities, creating disorder -everywhere. The police had disappeared; the streets were in the hands of -the mob. Bands of ruffians--among them those ill-favoured rascals who -since the month of May had been flocking, as at a word of command, into -Paris from heaven knows where, and who had already been seen at work, -pillaging Reveillon's[14] establishment--roamed in every direction, -insulting women, stripping wayfarers, looting the shops, opening the -prisons, burning the barriers. On July 13 the electors of Paris resolved -on the formation of a citizen militia for the protection of the town, -and the scheme was adopted on the same day by every district, with -articles of constitution, quoted by M. Funck-Brentano, which specify the -intentions of the signatories. It was expressly in self-defence against -the "Brigands," as they were called, that the citizen militia was -formed: "To protect the citizens," ran the minutes of the -Petit-Saint-Antoine district, "against the dangers which threaten them -each individually." "In a word," says M. Victor Fournel, "the -dominating sentiment was fear. Up till the 14th of July, the Parisian -middle-classes showed far more concern at the manifold excesses -committed by the populace after Necker's dismissal than at the schemes -of the court." And M. Jacques Charavay, who was the first to publish the -text of the minutes in question, says not a word too much when he draws -from them this conclusion: "The movement which next day swept away the -Bastille might possibly have been stifled by the National Guard, if its -organization had had greater stability." - -All that was wanting to these good intentions was direction, a man at -the helm, and particularly the support of Besenval. But his conduct was -amazing! He left Versailles with 35,000 men and an order signed by the -king--obtained not without difficulty--authorizing him "to repel force -by force." Now let us see a summary of his military operations:-- - -On the 13th, towards four o'clock in the afternoon, a skirmish of the -German regiment on the Place Vendome, where it came into collision with -the "demonstration"--as we should say to-day--which was displaying busts -of Necker and the Duke of Orleans, and dispersed it. - -At six o'clock, a march of the same horse soldiers to the -swinging-bridge of the Tuileries, where they had five or six chairs -thrown at their head; and the massacre, by M. de Lambesc, of the -legendary grey-beard who, an hour after, was describing his tragic end -at the Palais-Royal! - -At nine o'clock, a military promenade of the same regiment along the -boulevards. A volley from the Gardes Francaises slew two of their -number, and the regiment beat a retreat without returning fire, to the -great surprise of M. de Maleissye, officer of the Guards. For, by his -own confession, if the cavalry had charged, it would easily have routed -the Gardes Francaises "in the state of drunkenness in which they then -were." - -And Besenval, terrified at such a resistance, assembled all his troops, -shut himself up with them in the Champ de Mars, and did not move another -step! - -We ask ourselves, "Was he a fool? or was he a traitor?" He was a fool, -for he thought he had "three hundred thousand men" in front of him, took -every excited person for a rebel, and did not understand that out of -every hundred Parisians there were ninety who were relying on him to -bring the mutineers to reason. - -He had no confidence in his troops, he said. - -It was rather for them to have no confidence in him, and to lose heart -utterly at such a spectacle of cowardice. But he was slandering them. -One solitary regiment showed disloyalty. And if he had only given the -Swiss the word to march, their conduct on August 10 gives ample proof -that they could have been depended on. - -"And then," says he again, "I was fearful of letting loose civil war!" - -Indeed! And so a soldier going to suppress a revolt is not to run the -risk of fighting! - -Last reason of all: "I requested orders from Versailles--and did not get -them!" - -What, then, had he in his pocket? - -Finally, after having sent word to Flesselles and De Launey to maintain -their position till he arrived, and after having allowed the arms of the -Invalides to be looted under his eyes without a single effort to save -them, he waited till the Bastille was taken before making up his mind to -leave the Champ de Mars, and to return quietly to Versailles with his -35,000 men, who had not fired a shot! - -Ah! those were the days for rioting! - - * * * * * - -"On July 13," says Michelet, "Paris was defending herself." (Against -whom?) "On the 14th, she attacked! A voice wakened her and cried, 'On, -and take the Bastille!' And that day was the day of the entire People!" - -Admirable poetry; but every word a lie! - -Listen to Marat, who is not open to suspicion, and who saw things at -closer quarters. "The Bastille, badly defended, was captured by a -handful of soldiers and a gang of wretches for the most part Germans and -provincials. The Parisians, those everlasting star-gazers, came there -out of curiosity!" - -In reality, Michelet's "entire people" reduces itself to a bare thousand -assailants, of whom three hundred at most took part in the fight: Gardes -Francaises and deserters of all arms, lawyers' clerks, and citizens who -had lost their heads: fine fellows who thought themselves engaged in -meritorious work in rushing on these inoffensive walls; bandits -attracted by the riot which promised them theft and murder with -impunity. And a number of mere spectators--spectators above all! - -"I was present," says Chancellor Pasquier, "at the taking of the -Bastille. What is called the fight was not serious. The resistance was -absolutely nil. The truth is, that this grand fight did not cause an -instant's alarm to the spectators, who had flocked up to see the result. -Among them there were many ladies of the greatest elegance. In order to -get more easily to the front they had left their carriages at a -distance. By my side was Mdlle. Contat, of the Comedie Francaise. We -stayed to see the finish, and then I escorted her on my arm to her -carriage in the Place Royale." - -"The Bastille was not taken; truth must be told, it surrendered." It is -Michelet himself who makes this statement, and he adds: "what ruined it -was its own evil conscience!" - -It would be too simple to acknowledge that it was the incapacity of its -governor. - -There is no connoisseur in old prints but is acquainted with those -last-century views which represent the taking of the Bastille. The -platform of the fortress bristles with cannon all firing together, -"belching forth death,"--without the slightest attention on the part of -the assailants, for all the balls from this artillery, passing over -their heads, would only kill inoffensive wayfarers without so much as -scratching a single one of the besiegers! - -And the Bastille did not fire a single shot in self-defence! - -In the morning, at the request of Thuriot de la Roziere, De Launey had -readily consented to the withdrawal of the fifteen cannon of the -platform from their embrasures, and had blocked up the embrasures with -planks. Of the three guns which later on he ranged batterywise before -the entrance gate, not one was effective, and the discharge attributed -to one of them came from a piece of ordnance on the wall. - -He placed such absolute reliance on succour from Besenval that, on -evacuating the arsenal and getting the whole garrison together into the -Bastille--eighty-two Invalides and M. de Flue's thirty-two Swiss--he had -forgotten to increase his stock of provisions. Now, the Bastille had no -reserve of provisions. Every morning, like a good housewife, it received -the goods ordered the night before, brought by the different purveyors; -on this day, they were intercepted. So it happened that at three o'clock -in the afternoon the garrison was without its usual rations, and the -Invalides, who had been for a week past going in and out of all the inns -in the neighbourhood, and were disposed to open the doors to their good -friends of the suburbs, used the scantiness of their rations as a -pretext for mutiny, for refusing to fight, and for muddling the brains, -never very clear, of the unhappy De Launey. - -"On the day of my arrival," says De Flue, "I was able to take this man's -measure from the absolutely imbecile preparations which he made for the -defence of his position. I saw clearly that we should be very poorly led -in case of attack. He was so struck with terror at the idea of it that, -when night came on, he took the shadows of trees for enemies! Incapable, -irresolute, devoting all his attention to trifles and neglecting -important duties--such was the man." - -Abandoned by Besenval, instead of cowing his Invalides into obedience by -his energy, and maintaining his position to famishing point behind walls -over which the balls of the besiegers flew without killing more than -one man, De Launey lost his head, made a feint of firing the powder -magazine, capitulated, and opened his gates to men who, as Chateaubriand -says, "could never have cleared them if he had only kept them shut." - -If this poor creature had done his duty, and Besenval had done his, -things would have had quite a different complexion. That is not to say -that the Revolution would have been averted--far from it! The Revolution -was legitimate, desirable, and, under the generous impulse of a whole -nation, irresistible. But it would have followed another bent, and would -have triumphed at a slighter cost, with less ruin and less bloodshed. -The consequences of the 14th of July were disastrous. The mere words, -"The Bastille is taken!" were the signal for the most frightful -disorders throughout France. It seemed as though those old walls were -dragging down with them in their fall all authority, all respect, all -discipline; as though the floodgates were being opened to every kind of -excess. Peasants went about in bands, ravaging, pillaging, firing the -chateaux, the burghers' houses, and burning alive those who fell into -their hands. The soldiers mutinied, insulted their chiefs, and fell to -carousing with the malefactors whom they set free. There was not a town -or village where the mob did not put on menacing airs, where decent -people were not molested by the brawlers of the clubs and the -street-corners. Such violence led to a rapid reaction, and there were -numerous defections--of men who, on the very eve of the outbreak, among -the magistracy, the army, the clergy, the nobility, though sympathizing -with the new ideas, abruptly cut themselves loose from the movement, -like the good Duke de la Rochefoucauld, who exclaimed, "Liberty is not -entered by such a door as this!" Hovering between the desire and the -fear of granting the promised reforms, urged on one side to resistance, -on the other to submission, and more than ever destitute of all -political acumen and all will power, the king went to Paris, and, -bending before the revolt, approved of the assassination of his most -faithful servants--and took, on that fatal day, his first step towards -the scaffold! Henceforth, under the pressure of the populace, to whom -its first success had shown the measure of its strength, and who became -every day more exacting, more threatening, the Revolution was to go on -in its perverse course, stumbling at every step, until it came to the -orgy of '93, which, properly speaking, was only the systematizing of -brigandage. Malouet was right indeed: what we symbolize in our festival -of the 14th of July is not the rising sun, the dawn of Liberty; it is -the first lurid lightning flash of the Terror! - -Doctor Rigby, after having walked up and down the whole afternoon in the -Jardin Monceau without the least idea of what was going on in the Suburb -Saint-Antoine, returned in the evening to his house near the -Palais-Royal. He saw the mob reeling in drunkenness. Men and women were -laughing, crying, and embracing one another: "The Bastille is taken! At -last we are free!" And not the least enthusiastic were those very men of -the citizen militia who, ready yesterday to fight the insurrection, were -to-day hailing its triumph! The first sabre brandished by the first -national guard was in point of fact that of Joseph Prudhomme![15] - -All at once this delirious crowd shudders, parts asunder with cries of -horror! - -Down the Rue Saint-Honore comes a yelling mob of wine-soaked -malefactors, bearing along, at the ends of two pikes, the still bleeding -heads of De Launey and De Flesselles! - -And the silly folk, so madly rejoiced by the fall of an imaginary -tyranny which has not even the wits to defend itself, go their several -ways, struck dumb with consternation. - -For here the Real is making its entrance! - - * * * * * - -Do not fancy that because the Bastille has opened its gates, the legends -which give it so cruel a name are going to vanish into thin air, like -the phantoms of an ancient chateau when light is let in. - -While Michelet's "entire Paris" is making short work of the Invalides -who surrendered the place; cutting in pieces the man who prevented its -blowing up; slaughtering Major de Losme, the friend and benefactor of -the prisoners; torturing the hapless De Launey, who, from the Bastille -to the Hotel de Ville, stabbed, slashed, hacked with sabres and pikes -and bayonets, is finally decapitated by the aid of a short knife--an -episode which Michelet skilfully slurs over--while all the criminals of -the district, crowding along in the wake of the combatants, are rushing -to the official buildings, looting, smashing, throwing into the moats -furniture, books, official papers, archives, the remnants of which will -be collected with such difficulty--some good people are saying to -themselves: "But come now, there are some prisoners! Suppose we go and -set them free?" - -Here let us see what Louis Blanc has to say:-- - -"Meanwhile the doors of the cells" (he insists on the cells) "were burst -in with a mighty effort; the prisoners were free! Alas! for three of -them it was too late! The first, whose name was the Comte de Solages, a -victim for seven years of the incomprehensible vengeance of an -implacable father, found neither relatives who would consent to -acknowledge him, nor his property, which had become the prey of covetous -collateral heirs! The second was called Whyte. Of what crime was he -guilty, accused, of, at any rate, suspected? No one has ever known! The -man himself was questioned in vain. In the Bastille he had lost his -reason. The third, Tavernier, at the sight of his deliverers, fancied he -saw his executioners coming, and put himself on the defensive. Throwing -their arms round his neck they undeceived him; but next day he was met -roaming through the town, muttering wild and whirling words. He was -mad!" - -As many wilful errors as there are words! - -The Comte de Solages was an execrable libertine, confined at the request -of his family for "atrocious and notorious crimes." His relatives -nevertheless had the humanity to take him in after his deliverance, and -it was with them that he died in 1825. - -Whyte and Tavernier did not go mad in the Bastille. They were in the -Bastille because they were mad; and the second was, further, implicated -in an assassination. Finding shelter with a perruquier of the -neighbourhood, he set about smashing all his host's belongings, which -necessitated his banishment to Charenton, where Whyte soon rejoined him. -It was not worth the trouble of changing their quarters! - -Four other prisoners who were set free, Correge, Bechade, Pujade, and -Laroche, were imprisoned for forgery. And so Louis Blanc is careful -silently to pass them over! - -Ten days before, another victim of tyranny had been groaning in -irons--the Marquis de Sade, who, from the height of the platform, used -to provoke the passers-by with the aid of a speaking trumpet. De Launey -was compelled to transfer him to Vincennes, thus depriving the victors -of the glory of liberating the future author of _Justine_. The Republic -took its revenge in making him later secretary of the "Pike" ward,[16] -an office for which he was marked out by his virtues! - -But of all these prisoners the most celebrated, the most popular, the -man whose misfortunes all Paris deplored, was the famous Comte de -Lorges, who, according to the biographical sketch devoted to him by the -unknown author of his deliverance, had been shut up for thirty-two -years. The story must be read in the pamphlet of Citizen Rousselet, -conqueror of the Bastille: "The tide of humanity penetrates into ways -narrowed by mistrust. An iron door opens: what does one see? Is this a -man? Good heavens! this old man loaded with irons! the splendour of his -brow, the whiteness of his beard hanging over his breast! What majesty! -the fire still flashing from his eyes seems to shed a gentle light in -this lugubrious abode!" - -Surprised at seeing so many armed men, he asks them if Louis XV. is -still alive. They set him free, they lead him to the Hotel de Ville. - -For fifteen days all Paris went to visit the black dungeon in which this -unhappy wretch had been shut up for so many years without other light -than that which escaped "from his eyes"! A stone from that dungeon had a -place in the Curtius Museum. His portrait was published. A print -represents him at the moment when his chains were broken, seated on a -chair in his cell, a pitcher of water by his side! - -And this hapless greybeard--he was never seen! He never existed! - -In reality there were in the Bastille, on the 14th of July, only seven -prisoners--two madmen, a _Sadique_,[17] and four forgers. But about -their number and their right to imprisonment Michelet remains dumb: to -discuss that would spoil his epic! And he excels in making the most of -everything that can support his case, and in ignoring everything that -damages it. And so he contents himself with speaking of the two who had -"gone mad"!--a prevarication worthy of Louis Blanc, nay, unworthy even -of him! - -The conquerors were somewhat surprised at the small number of victims, -more surprised still to find them comfortably installed in rooms, some -of which were furnished with arm-chairs in Utrecht velvet! The author of -_The Bastille Unmasked_ exclaims: "What! No corpses! No skeletons! No -men in chains!" "The taking of the Bastille," said "Cousin Jacques,"[18] -"has opened the eyes of the public on the kind of captivity experienced -there." - -But in this he was greatly mistaken. Legends die hard! A Bastille -without cells, dungeons, cages of iron! Public opinion did not admit -that it could have been deceived on that point. - -"Several prisoners," says the _History of Remarkable Events_, "were set -at liberty; but some, and perhaps the greater number, had already died -of hunger, because men could not find their way about this monstrous -prison. Some of these prisoners confined within four walls received food -only through holes cut in the wall. A party of prisoners was found -starved to death, because their cells were not discovered till several -days had elapsed!" - -Another pamphlet on the underground cells discovered in the Bastille, -resuscitating an old fable which had already done duty for the Cardinal -de Richelieu, shows us a prisoner taken from his cell and led by the -governor into "a room which had nothing sinister in its appearance. It -was lit by more than fifty candles. Sweet-scented flowers filled it with -a delicious perfume. The tyrant chatted amicably with his prisoner.... -Then he gave the horrible signal: a bascule let into the floor opened, -and the wretched man disappeared, falling upon a wheel stuck with razors -and set in motion by invisible hands." And the author winds up with this -magnificent reflection:--"Such a punishment, so basely contrived, is not -even credible--and yet it was at Paris, in that beautiful and -flourishing city, that this took place!" - -Dorat-Cubieres, who was one of the literary disgraces of the eighteenth -century, goes further! He saw, with his own eyes, one of those dens -where the captive, shut up with enough bread to last him a week, had -thereafter nothing else to subsist on but his own flesh. "In this den," -he says, "we came upon a horrible skeleton, the sight of which made me -shrink back with horror!" - -And the popular picture-mongers did not fail to propagate these -insanities. I have an engraving of the time nicely calculated to stir -sensitive hearts. Upon the steps of a gloomy cellar the conquerors are -dragging along a man whom his uniform shows to be one of the defenders -of the Bastille, and are pointing out to him an old man being carried -away, another being cut down from the ceiling where he is hanging by the -arms; yet others lying on a wheel furnished with iron teeth, chained to -it, twisted into horrible contortions by abominable machines; and in a -recess behind a grating appears the skeleton--which Dorat-Cubieres never -saw! - -The non-existence of these dungeons and holes with skeletons was too -great a shock to settled beliefs. This Bastille _must_ contain concealed -below ground some unknown cells where its victims were moaning! And -naturally enough, when one bent down the ear, one heard their despairing -appeals! But after having pierced through vaults, sunk pits, dug, -sounded everywhere, there was no help for it but to give up these -fancies, though--an agreeable thing to have to say!--with regret. - -They fell back then on instruments of torture. For though the rack had -been abolished for a hundred years, how was it possible to conceive of -the Bastille without some slight instruments of torture? - -They had no difficulty in finding them--"chains," says Louis Blanc, -"which the hands of many innocent men had perhaps worn, machines of -which no one could guess the use: an old iron corslet which seemed to -have been invented to reduce man to everlasting immobility!" - -As a matter of fact, these chains belonged to two statuettes of -prisoners which stood on either side of the great clock in the -courtyard. The machines, the use of which no one could guess, were the -fragments of a clandestine printing-press that had been pulled to -pieces. And the iron corslet was a piece of fifteenth-century armour! - -Skeletons, too, were missing, though indeed some bones were found in the -apartment of the surgeon of the fortress; but the utmost bad faith could -not but be compelled to acknowledge that these were anatomical -specimens. Happily for the legend, a more serious discovery was made: -"two skeletons, chained to a cannon-ball," as the register of the -district of Saint-Louis la Culture declared. - -They both came to light in the rubbish dug out during the construction -of the bastion afterwards turned into a garden for the governor. "One," -says the report of Fourcroy, Vicq-d'Azyr, and Sabatier, instructed to -examine them, "was found turned head downwards on the steps of a steep -staircase, entirely covered with earth, and appears to be that of a -workman who had fallen by accident down this dark staircase, where he -was not seen by the men working at the embankment. The other, carefully -buried in a sort of ditch, had evidently been laid there a long time -previously, before there was any idea of filling up the bastion." - -As to the cannon-ball, it must have dated back to the Fronde.[19] - -But skeletons were necessary! They had found some: they might as well -profit by them! - -The demolisher of the Bastille, that charlatan Palloy, exhibited them to -the veneration of the faithful in a cellar by the light of a funereal -lamp, after which they were honoured with a magnificent funeral, with -drums, clergy, a procession of working men, between two lines of -National Guards, from the Bastille to the Church of St. Paul. And -finally, in the graveyard adjoining the church, they raised to them, -amid four poplars, a monument of which a contemporary print has -preserved the likeness. - -After such a ceremony, dispute if you dare the authenticity of the -relics! - - * * * * * - -The memory of the Man in the Iron Mask is so closely bound up with the -story of the Bastille that M. Funck-Brentano could not neglect this -great enigma about which for two hundred years so much ink has been -spilt. He strips off this famous mask--which, by the way, was of -velvet--and shows us the face which the world has been so anxious to -see: the face of Mattioli, the confidant of the Duke of Mantua and the -betrayer of both Louis XIV. and his own master. - -M. Funck-Brentano's demonstration is so convincing as to leave no room -for doubt. But one dare not hope that the good public will accept his -conclusions as final. To the public, mystery is ever more attractive -than the truth. There is a want of prestige about Mattioli; while about -a twin brother of Louis XIV.--ah, _there_ is something that appeals to -the imagination! - -And then there are the guides, the showmen, to reckon with--those -faithful guardians of legends, whose propaganda is more aggressive than -that of scholars. When you reflect that every day, at the Isles of -Saint-Marguerite, the masked man's cell is shown to visitors by a good -woman who retails all the traditional fables about the luxurious life of -the prisoner, his lace, his plate, and the attentions shown him by M. -de Saint-Mars, you will agree that a struggle with this daily discourse -would be hopeless. And you would not come off with a whole skin! - -I was visiting the Chateau d'If before the new buildings were erected. -The show-woman of the place, another worthy dame, pointed out to us the -ruined cells of the Abbe Faria and Edmond Dantes.[20] And the spectators -were musing on the story as they contemplated the ruins. - -"It seems to me," I said, "that these cells are rather near one another, -but surely Alexandre Dumas put them a little farther apart!" - -"Oh, well!" replied the good creature, withering me with a glance of -contempt, "if, when I'm relating gospel truth, the gentleman begins -quoting a novelist--!" - -To come nearer home. Follow, one of these days, a batch of Cook's -tourists at Versailles, shown round by an English cicerone. You will see -him point out the window from which Louis XVI. issued, on a flying -bridge, to reach his scaffold, erected in the marble court! The guide is -no fool. He knows well enough that the Place de la Concorde would not -appeal to the imagination of his countrymen; while it is quite natural -to them to draw a parallel in their minds between the scaffold of Louis -XVI. at Versailles and that of Charles I. at Whitehall. - -And the conclusion of the whole matter is this: that whatever may be -said or written, nothing will prevail against the popular beliefs that -the Bastille was "the hell of living men," and that it was taken by -storm. Legends are the history of the people, especially those which -flatter their instincts, prejudices, and passions. You will never -convince them of their falsity. - -M. Funck-Brentano must also expect to be treated as a "reactionary," for -such is, to many people, any one who does not unreservedly decry the -_ancien regime_. It had, assuredly, its vices and abuses, which the -Revolution swept away--to replace them by others, much more tolerable, -to be sure; but that is no reason for slandering the past and painting -it blacker than it really was. The fanatical supporters of the -Revolution have founded in its honour a sort of cult whose intolerance -is often irritating. To hear them you would fancy that before its birth -there was nothing but darkness, ignorance, iniquity, and wretchedness! -And so we are to give it wholehearted admiration, and palliate its -errors and its crimes; even gilding, as Chateaubriand said, the iron of -its guillotine. These idolaters of the Revolution are very injudicious. -By endeavouring to compel admiration for all that it effected, good and -ill without distinction, they provoke the very unreasonable inclination -to regard its whole achievement with abhorrence. It could well dispense -with such a surplusage of zeal, for it is strong enough to bear the -truth; and its work, after all, is great enough to need no justification -or glorification by means of legends. - -VICTORIEN SARDOU. - - - - -LEGENDS OF THE BASTILLE - - - - -CHAPTER I. - -THE ARCHIVES. - - -"The Bastille," wrote Sainte-Foix, "is a castle which, without being -strong, is one of the most formidable in Europe, and about it I shall -say nothing." "Silence is safer than speech on that subject," was the -saying in Paris. - -At the extremity of the Rue Saint-Antoine, as one entered the suburb, -appeared the eight lofty towers, sombre, massive, plunging their -moss-grown feet into pools of muddy water. Their walls were pierced at -intervals with narrow, iron-barred windows: they were crowned with -battlements. Situated not far from the Marais, the blithe and wealthy -quarter, and quite near to the Suburb Saint-Antoine, where industry -raised its perpetual hum, the Bastille, charged with gloom and silence, -formed an impressive contrast. - -The common impression it made is conveyed by Restif de la Bretonne in -his _Nights of Paris_: "It was a nightmare, that awesome Bastille, on -which, as I passed each evening along the Rue Saint-Gilles, I never -dared to turn my eyes." - -The towers had an air of mystery, harsh and melancholy, and the royal -government threw mystery like a cloud around them. At nightfall, when -the shutters were closed, a cab would cross the drawbridge, and from -time to time, in the blackness of night, funeral processions, vague -shadows which the light of a torch set flickering on the walls, would -make their silent exit. How many of those who had entered there had ever -been seen again? And if perchance one met a former prisoner, to the -first question he would reply that on leaving he had signed a promise to -reveal nothing of what he had seen. This former prisoner had, as a -matter of fact, never seen anything to speak of. Absolute silence was -imposed upon the warders. "There is no exchanging of confidences in this -place," writes Madame de Staal, "and the people you come across have all -such freezing physiognomies that you would think twice before asking the -most trifling question." "The first article of their code," says -Linguet, "is the impenetrable mystery which envelops all their -operations." - -We know how legends are formed. Sometimes you see them open out like -flowers brilliant under the sun's bright beams, you see them blossom -under the glorious radiance that lights up the life of heroes. The man -himself has long gone down into the tomb; the legend survives; it -streams across the ages, like a meteor leaving its trail of light; it -grows, broadens out, with ever-increasing lustre and glow: in this light -we see Themistocles, Leonidas, Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, Napoleon. - -Or may be, on the contrary, the legend is born in some remote corner, -covered with shade and silence. There men have lived their lives, there -it has been their lot to suffer. Their moans have risen in solitude and -confinement, and the only ears that heard them were harder than their -stone walls. These moans, heard by no compassionate soul, the great -resounding soul of the people catches up, swelling them with all its -might. Soon, among the mass of the people, there passes a blast -irresistible in its strength, like the tempest that upheaves the -restless waves. Then is the sea loosed from its chains: the tumultuous -breakers dash upon the affrighted shore: the sea-walls are all swept -away! - -In a letter written by Chevalier, the major of the Bastille, to Sartine, -the chief of the police, he spoke of the common gossip on the Bastille -that was going about. "Although utterly false," he said, "I think it -very dangerous on account of its dissemination through the kingdom, and -that has now been going on for several years." No attention was paid to -Chevalier's warning. Mystery continued to be the rule at the Bastille -and in all that related to it. "The mildness of manners and of the -government," writes La Harpe, "had caused needlessly harsh measures in -great part to disappear. They lived on in the imagination of the -people, augmented and strengthened by the tales which credulity and hate -seize upon." Ere long the _Memoirs_ of Latude and of Linguet appeared. -Latude concealed his grievous faults, to paint his long sufferings in -strokes of fire. Linguet, with his rare literary talent, made of the -Bastille a picture dark in the extreme, compressing the gist of his -pamphlet into the sentence: "Except perhaps in hell, there are no -tortures to approach those of the Bastille." At the same period, the -great Mirabeau was launching his powerful plea against _lettres de -cachet_, "arbitrary orders." These books produced a mighty -reverberation. The Revolution broke out like a clap of thunder. The -Bastille was disembowelled. The frowning towers crumbled stone by stone -under the picks of the demolishers, and, as if they had been the -pedestal of the _ancien regime_, that too toppled over with a crash. - -One of the halls of the Bastille contained, in boxes carefully arranged, -the entire history of the celebrated fortress from the year 1659, at -which date the foundation of this precious store of archives had been -begun. There were collected the documents concerning, not only the -prisoners of the Bastille, but all the persons who had been lodged -there, either under sentence of exile, or simply arrested within the -limits of the generality of Paris in virtue of a _lettre de cachet_. - -The documents in this store-room had been in charge of archivists, who -throughout the eighteenth century had laboured with zeal and -intelligence at putting in order papers which, on the eve of the -Revolution, were counted by hundreds of thousands. The whole mass was -now in perfect order, classified and docketed. The major of the chateau, -Chevalier, had even been commissioned to make these documents the basis -of a history of the prisoners. - -The Bastille was taken. In the disorder, what was the fate of the -archives? The ransacking of the papers continued for two days, writes -Dusaulx, one of the commissioners elected by the Assembly for the -preservation of the archives of the Bastille. "When, on Thursday the -16th, my colleagues and myself went down into the sort of cellar where -the archives were, we found the boxes in very orderly arrangement on the -shelves, but they were already empty. The most important documents had -been carried off: the rest were strewn on the floor, scattered about the -courtyard, and even in the moats. However, the curious still found some -gleanings there." The testimony of Dusaulx is only too well confirmed. -"I went to see the siege of the Bastille," writes Restif de la Bretonne; -"when I arrived it was all over, the place was taken. Infuriated men -were throwing papers, documents of great historical value, from the top -of the towers into the moats." Among these papers, some had been burnt, -some torn, registers had been torn to shreds and trailed in the mud. The -mob had invaded the halls of the chateau: men of learning and mere -curiosity hunters strove eagerly to get possession of as many of these -documents as possible, in which they thought they were sure to find -startling revelations. "There is talk of the son of a celebrated -magistrate," writes Gabriel Brizard, "who went off with his carriage -full of them." Villenave, then twenty-seven years of age and already a -collector, gathered a rich harvest for his study, and Beaumarchais, in -the course of a patriotic ramble through the interior of the captured -fortress, was careful to get together a certain number of these papers. - -The papers purloined from the archives on the day of the capture and the -day following became dispersed throughout France and Europe. A large -packet came into the hands of Pierre Lubrowski, an attache in the -Russian embassy. Sold in 1805, with his whole collection, to the Emperor -Alexander, the papers were deposited in the Hermitage Palace. To-day -they are preserved in the Imperial Library at St. Petersburg. - -Fortunately, the custody of the captured fortress was entrusted on July -15 to the company of arquebusiers, which received orders to prevent the -removal of any more papers. On July 16 one of the members present at a -sitting of the Electoral Assembly, sprang forward to the table and -cried, "Ah, gentlemen, let us save the papers! It is said that the -papers of the Bastille are being plundered; let us hasten to collect the -remnants of these old title-deeds of an intolerable despotism, so that -we may inspire our latest posterity with their horror!" There was -rapturous applause. A committee was nominated, consisting of Dusaulx, De -Chamseru, Gorneau, and Cailleau. Let us follow the style of the period: -"Before the Bastille the commissioners received a triumphant reception. -Amid the cheers of the people, who had been informed of their mission, -ten distinguished men of letters besought them to lead the commissioners -into the heart of that famous fortress, so long detested." When they got -into the Bastille, the commissioners were not long in perceiving that -they were a little behind the fair: "Many boxes were empty, and there -was an immense heap of papers in complete disorder." - -The question of the papers of the Bastille grew day by day -extraordinarily popular. The Electoral Assembly had just appointed -commissioners to collect them; La Fayette, commander of the National -Guards, imposed a similar duty on the St. Elizabeth district; Bailly, -the mayor of Paris, delegated Dusaulx to the same office. In the -Constituent Assembly, the Comte de Chatenay-Lanty proposed that the -municipality of Paris should be instructed to get together the papers -found at the Bastille, so that they might be arranged, and that extracts -from them might be printed and published, "in order to keep for ever -alive in the hearts of Frenchmen, by means of this reading, the -detestation of arbitrary orders and the love of liberty"! This book was -to be the preface to the constitution. Finally, the district of St. Roch -took the initiative in calling upon the electors to restore to the -nation the papers carried off from the Bastille by Beaumarchais. - -In the sitting of July 24, the Electoral Assembly passed a resolution -enjoining such citizens as were in possession of papers from the -Bastille to bring them back to the Hotel de Ville. The appeal was -responded to, and the restitutions were numerous. - -When the pillage and destruction had been stopped and possession had -been regained of a part of the stolen documents, the papers were -consigned to three different depositories; but it was not long before -they were deposited all together in the convent of St. Louis la Culture. -At length, on November 2, 1791, the Commune of Paris resolved to have -the precious documents placed in the city library. The decision was so -much the more happy in that the transfer, while placing the papers under -the guardianship of trained men and genuine librarians, did not -necessitate removal, since the city library at that date occupied the -same quarters as the archives of the Bastille, namely, the convent of -St. Louis la Culture. - -To the revolutionary period succeeded times of greater calm. The -archives of the Bastille, after being the object of so much discussion, -and having occupied the Constituent Assembly, the Electoral Assembly, -the Paris Commune, the press, Mirabeau, La Fayette, Bailly, all Paris, -the whole of France, fell into absolute oblivion. They were lost from -sight; the very recollection of them was effaced. In 1840, a young -librarian named Francois Ravaisson discovered them in the Arsenal -library at the bottom of a veritable dungeon. How had they got stranded -there? - -Ameilhon, the city librarian, had been elected on April 22, 1797, keeper -of the Arsenal library. Anxious to enrich the new depository of which he -had become the head, he obtained a decree handing over the papers of the -Bastille to the Arsenal library. The librarians recoiled in dismay -before this invasion of documents, more than 600,000 in number and in -the most admired disorder. Then, having put their heads together, they -had the papers crammed into a dusty back-room, putting off the sorting -of them from day to day. Forty years slipped away. And if it happened -that some old antiquary, curious and importunate, asked to be allowed to -consult the documents he had heard spoken of in his youth, he was -answered--no doubt in perfect good faith--that they did not know what he -was talking about. - -In 1840 Francois Ravaisson had to get some repairs done in his kitchen -at the Arsenal library. The slabs of the flooring were raised, when -there came to view, in the yawning hole, a mass of old papers. It -happened by the merest chance that, as he drew a leaf out of the heap, -Ravaisson laid his hand on a _lettre de cachet_. He understood at once -that he had just discovered the lost treasure. Fifty years of laborious -effort have now restored the order which the victors of the 14th of July -and successive removals had destroyed. The archives of the Bastille -still constitute, at the present day, an imposing collection, in spite -of the gaps made by fire and pillage in 1789, for ever to be regretted. -The administration of the Arsenal library has acquired copies of the -documents coming from the Bastille which are preserved at St. -Petersburg. The archives of the Bastille are now open to inspection by -any visitor to the Arsenal library, in rooms specially fitted up for -them. Several registers had holes burnt in them on the day of the -capture of the Bastille, their binding is scorched black, their leaves -are yellow. In the boxes the documents are now numbered, and they are -daily consulted by men of letters. The catalogue has been compiled and -published recently, through the assiduity of the minister of public -instruction. - -It is by the light of these documents, of undeniable genuineness and -authority, that the black shade which so long brooded over the Bastille -has at length been dispelled. The legends have melted away in the clear -light of history, as the thick cloak of mist with which night covers the -earth is dissipated by the morning sun; and enigmas which mankind, -wearied of fruitless investigations, had resigned itself to declare -insoluble, have now at last been solved. - - - - -CHAPTER II. - -HISTORY OF THE BASTILLE. - - -Julius Caesar describes a structure three stories high which his -legionaries used rapidly to erect in front of towns they were besieging. -Such was the remote origin of the "bastides" or "bastilles," as these -movable fortresses were called in the Middle Ages. Froissart, speaking -of a place that was being invested, says that "bastides were stationed -on the roads and in the open country" in such a manner that the town -could get no food supplies. It was not long before the designation was -applied to the fixed towers erected on the ramparts for the defence of -the towns, and more particularly to those which were constructed at the -entrance gates. - -In 1356, the chroniclers mention some important works that had been done -on the circumvallations of Paris. These were constructions interrupting -the wall at intervals, and so placed as to protect either an entrance -gate or the wall itself. The special designations of _eschiffles_, -_guerites_, or _barbacanes_ were applied to such of these buildings as -rose between two gates of the city, while the _bastilles_ or _bastides_ -were those which defended the gates. The first stone of the edifice -which for more than four centuries was to remain famous under the name -of the Bastille was laid on April 22, 1370, by the mayor of Paris in -person, Hugh Aubriot, the object being to strengthen the defences of the -city against the English. To reproach the king, Charles V., with the -construction of a cruel prison would be almost as reasonable as to -reproach Louis-Philippe with the construction of the fortress of Mont -Valerien. We borrow these details from M. Fernand Bournon's excellent -work on the Bastille in the _Histoire generale de Paris_. - -"The Bastille," writes M. Bournon, "at the time of its capture on July -14, 1789, was still identical, except in some trifling particulars, with -the work of the architects of the fourteenth century." The Place de la -Bastille of the present day does not correspond exactly to the site of -the fortress. Mentally to restore that site it is necessary to take away -the last houses of the Rue Saint-Antoine and the Boulevard Henri IV.; -the ground they occupy was then covered with the chateau and its glacis. -The round towers, however, must have extended considerably in advance of -the line of the houses and have encroached upon the pavement. The plan -reproducing the site exactly is to-day marked by lines of white stones, -by means of which all Parisians may get some notion of it if they go to -the Place de la Bastille. - -M. Auge de Lassus, who drew so largely upon the works of M. Bournon and -ourselves for his lecture on the Bastille,[21] will permit us in our -turn to borrow from him the description he gave of the Bastille, so far -as its construction is concerned. Prints of the commonest kind which -have circulated in thousands, the more recent reconstruction which in -1889 gave Paris so much entertainment, have familiarized us with the -aspect of the Bastille, whose eight circular towers, connected by -curtains of equal height, give us the impression of a box all of a -piece, or, if you prefer it, an enormous sarcophagus. The eight towers -all had their names. There were the Corner, the Chapel, and the Well -towers, names readily accounted for by their position or by details of -their construction. Then came the Bertaudiere and Baziniere towers, -baptized by the names of two former prisoners. The Treasure tower was so -called because it had received on many occasions, notably under Henri -IV., the custody of the public money. The excellent poet Mathurin -Regnier alludes to this fact in these oft-quoted lines:-- - - "Now mark these parsons, sons of ill-got gain, - Whose grasping sires for years have stolen amain, - Whose family coffers vaster wealth conceal, - Than fills that royal store-house, the Bastille." - -The seventh tower was known as the County tower, owing its name, as M. -Bournon conjectures, to the feudal dignity called the County of Paris. -"The hypothesis," he adds, "derives the greater weight from the fact -that the mayors of Paris were called, up to the end of the _ancien -regime_, mayors of the town and viscounty of Paris." The eighth tower -bore a name which, for the tower of a prison, is very remarkable. It was -called the Tower of Liberty. This odd appellation had come to it from -the circumstance that it had been the part of the Bastille where -prisoners were lodged who enjoyed exceptionally favourable treatment, -those who had the "liberty" of walking during the day in the courtyards -of the chateau. These prisoners were said to be "in the liberty of the -court"; the officers of the chateau called them the "prisoners of the -liberty" in contradistinction to the prisoners "in durance"; and that -one of the eight towers in which they were lodged was thus, quite -naturally, called "the Tower of Liberty." - -The towers of the Chapel and the Treasure, which were the oldest, had -flanked the original gateway, but this was soon walled up, leaving -however in the masonry the outline of its arch, and even the statues of -saints and crowned princes that had been the only ornaments of its bare -walls. "In accordance with custom," says M. Auge de Lassus, "the -entrance to the Bastille was single and double at the same time; the -gate for vehicles, defended by its drawbridge, was flanked by a smaller -gate reserved for foot passengers, and this, too, was only accessible -when a small drawbridge was lowered." - -In the first of the two courtyards of the Bastille, D'Argenson had -placed a monumental clock held up by large sculptured figures -representing prisoners in chains. The heavy chains fell in graceful -curves around the clock-face, as a kind of ornamentation. D'Argenson and -his artists had a ferocious taste. - -On the morrow of the defeat at St. Quentin,[22] the fear of invasion -decided Henri II., under the advice of Coligny, to strengthen the -Bastille. It was then, accordingly, that there was constructed, in front -of the Saint-Antoine gate, the bastion which was at a later date to be -adorned with a garden for the prisoners to walk in. - -Around the massive and forbidding prison, in the course of the -seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, quite a little town sprang up and -flourished, as in the Middle Ages happened around lofty and impressive -cathedrals. Barbers, cobblers, drink-sellers, poulterers, cheesemongers, -and general dealers had their shops there. These new buildings -encroached on the Rue Saint-Antoine, and extended as far as the convent -of the Visitation, the chapel of which, converted into a Protestant -place of worship, still exists. - -"In its latter days," writes M. de Lassus, "the Bastille with its -appendages presented an appearance somewhat as follows:--On the Rue -Saint-Antoine, a gateway of considerable size, and, with its trophies of -arms, making some pretensions to a triumphal arch, gave access to a -first court skirted with shops, and open, at least during the day, to -all comers. People might pass through it freely, but were not allowed to -loiter there. Then appeared a second entrance, a double one for horse -and foot traffic, each gate defended by its drawbridge. Admittance -through this was more difficult, and the sentry's instructions more -rigorous; this was the outer guard. As soon as this entrance was passed, -one came to the court of the governor, who received the more or less -voluntary visitor. On the right stretched the quarters of the governor -and his staff, contiguous to the armoury. Then there were the moats, -originally supplied by the waters of the Seine--at that time people -frequently fell in and were drowned, the moats not being protected by -any railing--in later times they were for the most part dry. Then rose -the lofty towers of the citadel, encircled, nearly a hundred feet up, by -their crown of battlements; and then one found the last drawbridge, most -often raised, at any rate before the carriage gate, the door for foot -passengers alone remaining accessible, under still more rigorous -conditions." - -These conditions, so rigorous for contemporaries--the Czar Peter the -Great himself found them inflexible--are removed for the historian: -thanks to the numerous memoirs left by prisoners, thanks to the -documents relating to the administration of the Bastille now in the -Arsenal library, and to the correspondence of the lieutenants of police, -we shall penetrate into the interior of these well-fenced precincts and -follow the life of the prisoners day by day. - -In its early days, then, the Bastille was not a prison, though it became -such as early as the reign of Charles VI. Yet for two centuries it kept -its character as a military citadel. Sometimes the kings gave lodgment -there to great personages who were passing through Paris. Louis XI. and -Francis I. held brilliant fetes there, of which the chroniclers speak -with admiration. - -It is Richelieu who must be considered the founder of the Bastille--the -Bastille, that is, as a royal prison, the Bastille of the seventeenth -and eighteenth centuries. Before him, imprisonment in the old fortress -was merely casual; it is to him that we must trace the conception of the -state prison as an instrument of government. Here we shall be arrested -by the question, what is to be understood by a state prison? The term, -vague and open to discussion, is explained by M. Bournon. "By a state -prison--taking the Bastille as a particular instance--must be understood -a prison for those who have committed a crime or misdemeanour not -provided for by the common law; for those who, rightly or wrongly, have -appeared dangerous to the safety of the state, whether the nation itself -is concerned, or its head, or a body more or less considerable of -citizens, a body sometimes no larger than the family of the suspect. If -we add to this class of prisoners personages too conspicuous to be -punished for a crime at common law on equal terms with the ordinary -malefactor, and for whom it would appear inevitable that an exceptional -prison should be reserved, we shall have passed in review the different -kinds of delinquents who expiated their misdeeds at the Bastille from -the time of Richelieu to the Revolution." - -The administration of the Bastille, which, up to the reign of Louis -XIII., was entrusted to great lords, dukes, constables, marshals of -France--the Marshal de Bassompierre, the Constable de Luynes, the -Marshal de Vitry, the Duke of Luxemburg, to mention only the last of -them--was placed by Richelieu in the hands of a real jailer, Leclerc du -Tremblay, brother of Pere Joseph.[23] - -Documents throwing any light on the Bastille at the time when the Red -Man, as Victor Hugo named Richelieu, was supreme, are however very -rare. An advocate, Maton de la Varenne, published in 1786, in his -_Revolutions of Paris_, a letter which ostensibly had been written on -December 1, 1642, to Richelieu, at that time ill. In it we read: "I, -whom you are causing to rot in the Bastille for having disobeyed your -commandment, which would have brought upon my soul condemnation to -eternal hell, and would have made me appear in eternity with hands -stained with blood----" It is impossible to guarantee the authenticity -of this document. To us it appears suspicious, the text having been -published at a time when many apocryphal documents were produced as -coming from the archives of the Bastille. More worthy of arresting our -attention is the "return of the prisoners who are in the chateau of the -Bastille," a document of Richelieu's time which M. Bournon discovered in -the archives of the Foreign Office. This catalogue, containing -fifty-three names, is the oldest list of prisoners of the Bastille known -up to the present time. Among the prisoners several are suspected or -convicted of evil designs against "Monsieur le cardinal," some are -accused of an intention to "complot," that is, to conspire against the -throne, or of being spies. There is an "extravagant" priest, a monk who -had "opposed Cluni's election," three hermits, three coiners, the -Marquis d'Assigny, condemned to death, but whose punishment had been -commuted to perpetual imprisonment, a score or so of lords designated as -"madmen, vile scoundrels, evil wretches," or accused of some definite -crime, theft or murder; finally, those whose name is followed by the -simple note, "Queen-mother," or "Monsieur,"[24] whence we may conclude -that the clerk had no exact information about the prisoners of the -cardinal. We shall give later the list of the prisoners in the Bastille -on the day of its capture, July 14, 1789; and the comparison between the -two lists at the two periods, the remotest and the most recent that we -could select, will be instructive. We have also, to assist us in forming -a judgment of the Bastille in Richelieu's time, the memoirs of -Bassompierre and of Laporte, which transport us into a state prison, -elegant, we might almost say luxurious, reserved for prisoners of birth -and breeding, where they lived observing all social usages in their -mutual relations, paying and returning calls. But the Bastille preserved -its military character for many more years, and among the prisoners we -find especially a number of officers punished for breaches of -discipline. Prisoners of war were confined there, and foreign personages -of high rank arrested by way of reprisal, secret agents and spies -employed in France by hostile nations; finally, powerful lords who had -incurred the king's displeasure. The court intrigues under Richelieu and -Mazarin contributed to the diversion of the Bastille from its original -intention: they began to incarcerate there _valets de chambre_ who had -somehow become mixed up in the plots of sovereigns. - -Religious persecution was revived by the government of Louis XIV., and -ere long a whole world of gazetteers and "novelists," the journalists of -the period, were seen swarming like flies in the sun. Louis XIV. was not -precisely a stickler for the liberty of the press, but on the other hand -he shrank from cooping up men of letters, Jansenists and Protestants -convinced of the truth of their beliefs, pell-mell with the vagabonds -and thiefs confined at Bicetre, Saint-Lazare, and the other prisons of -Paris. He threw open to them, too generously no doubt, the portals of -his chateau in the Suburb Saint-Antoine, where they mixed with young men -of family undergoing a mild course of the Bastille at the request of -their parents, and with quarrelsome nobles whom the marshals of France, -anxious to avoid duels, used to send there to forget their animosities. -Further, the reign of Louis XIV. was marked by some great trials which -produced a strange and appalling impression, and threw around the -accused a halo of mystery--trials for magic and sorcery, cases of -poisoning and base coining. The accused parties in these cases were -confined in the Bastille. And here we encounter a fresh departure from -the primitive character of the old fortress; prisoners were sent there -whose cases were tried by the regularly constituted judges. Henceforth -prisoners who appeared before the court of the Arsenal were divided -between the Bastille and the fortress of Vincennes. - -This is the grand epoch in the history of the Bastille: it is now a -veritable prison of state. Writers can speak of its "nobleness." It -shows itself to us in colours at once charming and awe-inspiring, -brilliant, majestic, now filled with sounds of merriment, now veiled -with an appalling silence. From the gloomy regions within the massive -walls there come to us the sounds of song and laughter mingled with -cries of despair, with sobs and tears. This is the period of the Iron -Mask: the period when the governor receives mysterious letters from the -court. "I beg you, sir, to see that, if anyone comes to ask for news of -the prisoner whom Desgrez conducted to the Bastille this morning by -order of the king, nothing be said about him, and that, if possible, in -accordance with the intention of His Majesty and the accompanying -instructions, no one may get to know him or even his name." "M. de -Bernaville (the name of one of the governors of the Bastille), having -given orders for the conveyance of an important prisoner to the prison -of my chateau of the Bastille, I send this letter to inform you of my -intention that you receive him there and keep him closely guarded until -further orders, warning you not to permit him, under any pretext -whatever, to hold communication with any person, either by word of mouth -or in writing." The prisoners surrounded with so absolute a silence -almost all belonged to the same category, namely, distinguished spies, -who seem to have been rather numerous in France at the full tide of -Louis XIV.'s wars, and who were hunted down with an eagerness which grew -in proportion as fortune frowned on the royal armies. We read in the -Journal kept by the King's lieutenant, Du Junca: "On Wednesday, -December 22, about ten o'clock in the morning, M. de la Coste, provost -of the King's armies, came here, bringing and leaving in our custody a -prisoner whom for greater secrecy he caused to enter by our new gate, -which allows us to pass into or out of the garden of the Arsenal at all -hours--the which prisoner, M. d'Estingen by name, a German, but married -in England, was received by the governor by order of the King sent by -the hand of the Marquis de Barbezieux, with explicit instructions to -keep the prisoner's presence a secret and to prevent him from holding -communication with anyone, in speech or writing: the which prisoner is a -widower, without children, a man of intelligence, and doing a brisk -trade in news of what is happening in France, sending his information to -Germany, England, and Holland: a gentlemanly spy." On February 10, 1710, -Pontchartrain wrote to Bernaville, governor of the Bastille: "I cannot -refrain from telling you that you and the Chevalier de la Croix speak a -good deal too much and too openly about the foreign prisoners you have. -Secrecy and mystery is one of your first duties, as I must ask you to -remember. Neither D'Argenson nor any other than those I have apprized -you of should see these prisoners. Give explicit warning to the Abbe -Renaudot and to de la Croix of the necessity of maintaining an -inviolable and impenetrable secrecy." - -It happened also at that period that a prisoner remained in complete -ignorance of the reason of his incarceration: "The prisoner at the -Bastille named J. J. du Vacquay," writes Louvois to the governor, "has -complained to the King that he has been kept there for thirteen years -without knowing the reason: be good enough to let me know what minister -signed the warrant under which he is detained, so that I may report to -His Majesty." - -As the greater part of the papers relating to the arrest were destroyed -as soon as the incarceration was effected, it sometimes happened that in -certain cases the reasons were not known even in the offices of the -ministers. Thus Seignelay writes to the governor, M. de Besmaus: "The -King has commanded me to write and ask you who is a certain prisoner -named Dumesnil, how long he has been at the Bastille, and for what -reason he was placed there." "The demoiselle de Mirail, a prisoner at -the Bastille, having demanded her liberty of the King, His Majesty has -instructed me to write and ask you the reason of her detention; if you -know it, be good enough to inform me at your earliest convenience." -Again, we find Louvois writing to the same effect: "I am sending you a -letter from M. Coquet, in regard to which the King has commanded me to -ask who signed the warrant under which he was sent to the Bastille, and -whether you know the reason of his being sent there." "Sir, I am writing -a line merely to ask you to let me know who is Piat de la Fontaine, who -has been five years at the Bastille, and whether you do not remember why -he was placed there." - -Letters of this kind are, it is true, very rare; yet if one compares the -state of things they disclose with the extraordinary comfort and luxury -with which the prisoners were surrounded, they help to characterize the -celebrated prison at this epoch of its history, namely, the seventeenth -century. - -In 1667 the office of lieutenant of police had been created. The first -to hold the title was Gabriel Nicolas de la Reynie, a man of the -greatest worth. It is very important to note that under the _ancien -regime_ the lieutenant of police had a double function, being at the -same time a subordinate of the minister of Paris[25] and a member of the -Chatelet.[26] His duties were thus of a twofold nature, administrative -and judicial. Now the Bastille, as a state prison, was more especially -an administrative institution; but gradually, owing to the character of -the persons brought there as prisoners, it became difficult to avoid -turning it also into a judicial institution, and the minister of Paris -became accustomed to delegate his subordinate, the lieutenant of police, -to conduct the examination of the prisoners at the Bastille. Though La -Reynie took practically the whole responsibility of the administration -of the Bastille, his visits to the prison itself were nevertheless -relatively rare, and on every occasion a permit signed by Louis XIV. or -by Colbert was necessary. - -La Reynie was succeeded by D'Argenson. Under him the powers of the -lieutenant of police were very largely extended, and the Bastille was -comprised within his jurisdiction. Henceforth the lieutenant of police -will enter the state prison whenever it seems good to him, as lord and -master, accompanied by his subordinates at the Chatelet, clerks and -inspectors of police; the prisoners will be in direct and constant -communication with him, and he will make an inspection of all the -chambers at least once a year. We find that at every change in the -lieutenancy of police, it sufficed for the minister of Paris to send the -name of the new officer to the governor. Dating from this period, the -prison in the Suburb Saint-Antoine remained under the authority of a -magistrate. - -The Regency was a transition period between the reigns of Louis XIV. and -Louis XV., and there was a corresponding transition period in the -history of the Bastille. The incarcerations were less numerous and less -rigorous, but the rule of the prison lost something of that aristocratic -air which had characterized it. The most important episode in the -history of the Bastille during the Regency was the incarceration of -those who were accused of complicity in the Cellamare conspiracy. Among -these was Mdlle de Launay, later to be known as Madame de Staal. She -has left some charming pages about her imprisonment, in which we find, -related with a fluent and subtle pen, the little romance which we -proceed to outline. - -Mdlle de Launay was secretary to the Duchess of Maine. She had had some -part in drawing up the scheme of the Cellamare conspiracy, which, if it -had succeeded, would have placed the king of Spain on the throne of -France. On December 10, 1718, the Regent sent her, with several of her -accomplices, to the Bastille, less with the idea of punishing her for -machinations against the state than to obtain from her details of the -conspiracy. At that period of her life she was of but moderate fortune -and rank, and it would not have been strange if she had been treated -with rigour. She found at the Bastille, on the contrary, unexpected -comfort and consideration. In her _Memoirs_, she writes that her sojourn -at the Bastille was the pleasantest time of her life. Her maid, Rondel, -was permitted to live with her. She was installed in a veritable suite -of rooms. She complained of the mice there, and a cat was given her, to -drive out the mice and provide some amusement. By and by there were -kittens, and the sportive tricks of the numerous little family cheered -her wonderfully, she said. Mdlle de Launay was regularly invited to dine -with the governor; she spent her days in writing and card-playing. The -king's lieutenant, Maisonrouge, a man well on in years, who held, after -the governor, the first place in the administration of the chateau, -conceived a profound and pathetic passion for the fair prisoner. He -declared that nothing would give him greater happiness than to make her -his wife. His apartments happened to be near those of Mdlle de Launay. -Unhappily for the king's lieutenant, there was in the neighbourhood a -third suite, occupied by a young and brilliant nobleman, the Chevalier -de Menil, who also was implicated in the Cellamare affair. The fair -prisoner was not acquainted with him. Maisonrouge impresses us as a man -of great dignity, and rare nobility of character. He spoke to the two -young prisoners about each other, hoping, by bringing them into -communication, to provide them with fresh distractions, more -particularly the lady, whom he loved. The Chevalier de Menil and Mdlle -de Launay could not see each other; they had never met. They began by -exchanging epistles in verse. Like everything that came from her pen, -the verses of Mdlle de Launay were full of animation and charm. The good -Maisonrouge played post between them, happy to see his little friend's -delight in the diversion she owed to him. It was not long before the -verses carried from one room to the other by Maisonrouge began to speak -of love, and this love--surprising as it may seem, but not difficult to -understand in the sequestered life of the Bastille--ere long became real -in the consciousness of the young people, who saw each other in -imagination under the most charming colours. Maisonrouge was soon -induced to contrive an interview between them. It is a delightful -moment. The two captives had never seen each other, yet loved each -other passionately: what will their mutual impressions be? Mdlle de -Launay's impression, when she saw the gay chevalier, was of unmixed -enthusiasm; the chevalier's, maybe, was more subdued; but if it is true, -as someone has said, that to nuns the gardener represents mankind, to a -prisoner every young woman must be an exquisite creature. The interviews -continued under the benevolent eye of Maisonrouge, who watched the -development of Mdlle de Launay's love for Menil--the love of the girl -whom he himself loved intensely, but whose happiness he preferred to his -own. There are delightful details which may be found delightfully -described in Mdlle de Launay's _Memoirs_. It is M. Bournon's opinion -that, according to the testimony of Mdlle de Launay herself, this idyll -of the Bastille had "the denouement that might have been foretold." We -have caught no hint of the sort in the _Memoirs_ of Madame de Staal, but -then, M. Bournon is no doubt the better psychologist. At any rate, the -governor of the Bastille got wind of the diversions of the lovers. He -put his foot down. Menil was transferred to a distant tower, Mdlle de -Launay shed tears, and, incredible as it seems, Maisonrouge, while -redoubling his efforts to please her, sympathized with her lot to the -point of arranging fresh and more difficult interviews with the sparkish -chevalier. Mdlle de Launay left the prison in the spring of 1720, after -having sent to the Regent a detailed statement of the facts of the -conspiracy, which hitherto she had refused to furnish. Once at liberty, -she vainly implored the Chevalier de Menil to fulfil his pledges and -make her his wife. Maisonrouge died in the following year, of -disappointment, says the gay coquette, at his failure to get from her, -during her imprisonment, the promise of marriage which now she would -have been glad enough to fulfil. - -It seems as though under the Regency everything at the Bastille turned -on love--a reflection of the epoch itself. The young Duke de Richelieu -was locked up there because he did not love his wife. The brilliant -nobleman was kept under lock and key for several weeks, "in solitude and -gloom," he says, when suddenly the door of his room flew open and Madame -de Richelieu appeared, a wonder of grace, brightness and charm: "The -fair angel," writes the duke, "who flew from heaven to earth to set -Peter free was not so radiant." - -We have seen how the Bastille had been transformed from a military -citadel into a prison of state. We shall now witness, under the -government of the Duke of Orleans, another transformation, betokened by -an event which is of little apparent importance. The Duke de Richelieu -was imprisoned in the Bastille a second time as the result of a duel: a -judge of the Parlement went there to question him and the Parlement -tried his case. The Parlement[27] at the Bastille, in the prison of the -king! From that moment the fortress continued year by year to grow more -like our modern prisons. "Under the Cardinal de Fleury," writes La -Harpe, "this famous chateau was inhabited by hardly any but Jansenist -writers: it then became the enforced residence of champions of -philosophy and authors of clandestine satires, and acted as a foil to -their obscurity and shame." It became increasingly the practice to -confine there accused persons whose cases were regularly tried at the -Chatelet or even before the Parlement. By the second half of the -eighteenth century accused persons had come to be incarcerated in the -Bastille by direct order of the Chatelet, which would have seemed -incredible to a contemporary of Louis XIV. The summoning officer would -post himself before the towers, and there, while the prisoner pressed -his head close against the bars of the window, the officer would shout -the terms of the writ at him across the moat. The advocates defending -the accused obtained permission to go and consult their clients, and -they were the only persons who were permitted to interview the prisoners -in private. On the appointed day the prisoner was transferred to the law -courts quietly and by night to avoid the curiosity of the crowd. - -Under Louis XVI. the judges of the Parlement visited the Bastille as -they visited the other prisons; at length the minister Breteuil sent -instructions to the officials informing them that no more _lettres de -cachet_ would be issued without stating the duration of the penalty to -which the guilty person was condemned and the grounds for his -punishment. The Bastille was now merely a prison like the others, -except that the prisoners were better treated there. - -In 1713 Voysin, the Secretary of State, wrote to D'Argenson: -"Beaumanielle is not sufficiently deserving of consideration to warrant -his removal from the Chatelet to the Bastille." La Harpe has well -described the transformation which from this time came over the great -state prison by saying that, from the beginning of the century, none of -the prisoners who had been placed there "had merited the honour." His -remark receives corroboration from Linguet: "It is not, in these latter -days especially, for criminals of state that the Bastille is reserved: -it has become in some sort the antichambre of the conciergerie." - -If the glories of the Bastille paled as it grew older, on the other hand -torture, which, it is true, had never been applied except by order of -the courts, had completely disappeared. From the beginning of the -eighteenth century, the cells and chains were merely a temporary -punishment reserved for insubordinate prisoners: from the accession of -Louis XVI. they had fallen into disuse. Breteuil forbade any person -whatever to be placed in the cells, which were the rooms on the lowest -floor of each tower, a sort of damp and gloomy vaults. On September 11, -1775, Malesherbes writes: "No prisoner should be refused material for -reading and writing. The abuse it is pretended that they may make of it -cannot be dangerous, confined so closely as they are. Nor should any -refusal be made to the desire of such as may wish to devote themselves -to other occupations, provided they do not require you to leave in their -hands tools of which they might avail themselves to effect their escape. -If any of them should wish to write to his family and his friends, he -must be permitted to receive replies, and to send replies to their -letters after having read them. In all this you must be guided by your -prudence and your humanity." The reading of the gazettes, formerly -rigidly forbidden, was now authorised. - -It must further be remarked that the number of prisoners confined in the -Bastille was not so large as might be thought. During the whole reign of -Louis XVI. the Bastille received no more than two hundred and forty -prisoners, an average of sixteen a year; while it had room for forty-two -in separate apartments. - -Under Louis XIV., at the period when the government was most liberal in -dispensing its _lettres de cachet_, an average of only thirty prisoners -a year entered the chateau, and their captivity was for the most part of -short duration. Dumouriez informs us in his _Memoirs_ that during his -detention he had never more than eighteen fellow prisoners, and that -more than once he had only six. M. Alfred Begis has drawn up a list of -the prisoners detained in the Bastille from 1781 to 1789. In May, 1788, -it contained twenty-seven prisoners, the highest figure reached during -these eight year; in September, 1782, it contained ten; in April, 1783, -seven; in June of the same year, seven; in December, 1788, nine; in -February, 1789, nine; at the time of its capture, July 14, 1789, there -were seven. - -True, not only men were locked up in the Bastille, but also books when -they appeared dangerous. The royal warrant under which they were -incarcerated was even drawn up on the model of the _lettres de cachet_. -M. Bournon has published a specimen of these. The books were shut up in -a closet between the towers of the Treasure and the County, over an old -passage communicating with the bastion. In 1733 the lieutenant of police -instructed the governor of the Bastille to receive at the chateau "all -the apparatus of a clandestine printing-press which had been seized in a -chamber of the Saint-Victor abbey: the which you will be good enough to -have placed in the store room of the Bastille." When the books ceased to -appear dangerous, they were set at liberty. In this way the -_Encyclopaedia_[28] was liberated after a detention of some years. - -We have just seen that during the reign of Louis XVI. the Bastille did -not receive more than sixteen prisoners a year, on an average. Several -of these were only detained for a few days. From 1783 to 1789 the -Bastille remained almost empty, and would have been absolutely empty if -it had not been decided to place there prisoners who should properly -have been elsewhere. As early as February, 1784, the fortress of -Vincennes, which served as a sort of overflow pipe to the Bastille, had -been shut for lack of prisoners. The system of _lettres de cachet_ was -slipping away into the past. On the other hand, the Bastille was a -source of great expense to the King. The governor alone received 60,000 -livres annually. When you add the salaries and board of the officers of -the garrison, the turnkeys, the physicians, the surgeon, the apothecary, -the chaplains; when you add the food--this alone in 1774 came to 67,000 -livres--and the clothing of the prisoners, and the upkeep of the -buildings, the total will appear outrageous, for the figures given above -must be tripled to represent the value of the present day. So Necker, -seeing that the Bastille was of no further utility, thought of -suppressing it "for economy's sake,"[29] and he was not the only one in -high places to speak of this suppression. The Carnavalet[30] museum -possesses a scheme drawn up in 1784 by Corbet, the superintending -architect to the city of Paris, whence the project has an official -character: it is a scheme for a "Place Louis XVI." to be opened up on -the site of the old fortress. We learn from Millin that other artists -"were occupied with a scheme for erecting a monument on the site of the -Bastille." One of these schemes deserves special mention. Seven of the -eight towers were to be destroyed, the eighth to remain standing, but in -a significant state of dilapidation: on the site of the demolished -towers a monument was to be erected to the glory of Louis XVI. This -monument was to consist of a pedestal formed by piling up chains and -bolts taken from the state prison, above which would rise a statue of -the king, one hand extended towards the ruined tower with the gesture of -a deliverer. It is to be regretted, if not for the beauty, at least, for -the picturesqueness of Paris, that this scheme was never put into -execution. Davy de Chavigne, king's counsellor and auditor to the -treasury, was allowed to present to the Royal Academy of Architecture, -at its sitting on June 8, 1789, "a plan for a monument on the site of -the Bastille, to be decreed by the States General to Louis XVI. as the -restorer of the public liberty." On this subject the famous sculptor -Houdon wrote to Chavigne: "I am very anxious for the plan to be adopted. -The idea of erecting a monument to liberty on the very spot where -slavery has reigned up to the present, appears to me particularly well -conceived, and well calculated to inspire genius. I shall think myself -only too fortunate to be among the artists who will celebrate the epoch -of the regeneration of France." - -We have seen prints, long anterior to 1789--one of them the frontispiece -of the edition of Linguet's _Memoirs_ that appeared in 1783--representing -Louis XVI. extending his hand towards the lofty towers, which workmen -are in the act of demolishing. - -Among the archives of the Bastille are preserved two reports drawn up in -1788 by the king's lieutenant, Puget, the most important personage in -the fortress after the governor. He proposes the suppression of the -state prison, the demolition of the old chateau, and the sale of the -ground for the benefit of the crown. It may be said of these schemes, as -of the plan of the architect Corbet, that they would not have been -propounded if they had not been approved in high places. - -Further, in the year 1784, an ardent supporter of the old state of -things cried: "Oh! if our young monarch ever committed a fault so great, -if he so far belied the most ancient usages of this government, if it -were possible that one day he could be tempted to destroy you" (the -author is apostrophizing the Bastille) "to raise on your ruins a -monument to the liberator-king...." The demolition of the Bastille was -decided on; and it would have been accomplished as a government -undertaking but for the outbreak of the Revolution. - -From January 1 to July 14, 1789, that is to say for more than six -months, only one solitary prisoner entered the Bastille; and what a -prisoner!--Reveillon, the paper manufacturer of the Suburb -Saint-Antoine, who was shut up on May 1 at his own request, in order to -escape the fury of the mob. The same year, the lieutenant of police, de -Crosne, made an inspection of the Bastille, accompanied by a judge of -the Parlement; their object was to arrange officially about the -destruction of the state prison. - -Thus, on the eve of the Revolution, the Bastille no longer existed, -though its towers were still standing. - -The victors of the 14th of July set free seven prisoners: four forgers -whose arrest had been ordered by the Chatelet, whose case had been -regularly tried, and whose proper place was an ordinary prison; two -madmen who ought to have been at Charenton; and the Comte de Solages, a -young nobleman who had been guilty of a monstrous crime over which it -was desired to throw a veil out of regard for his family; he was -maintained on a pension paid by his father. The conquerors of the -Bastille destroyed an old fortified castle: the state prison no longer -existed. They "broke in an open door." That was said of them even in -1789. - - - - -CHAPTER III. - -LIFE IN THE BASTILLE. - - -Having sketched rapidly and with bold strokes the outlines of the -history of the Bastille from its foundation to its fall, we intend to -show how the rule to which prisoners in the fortress of the Suburb -Saint-Antoine were submitted underwent its own process of -transformation, parallel with the transformation of the prison itself. -To understand the facts which follow, and which are of a kind to astound -the mind of everyone in these days, it is necessary to remember what we -have already said as to the character of the Bastille. It was the prison -of luxury, the aristocratic prison of the _ancien regime_, the _prison -de luxe_ at a period when it was no dishonour, as we shall see later, to -be confined there. We must remember the phrase of the minister of Paris -writing to D'Argenson, in regard to a personage of but modest rank, that -this individual did not deserve "consideration" enough to be put in the -Bastille. Let us reflect on this observation of Mercier in his excellent -_Pictures of Paris_: "The people fear the Chatelet more than the -Bastille. Of the latter they have no dread, because it is almost unknown -to them." - -We have shown how the Bastille, originally a military citadel, had -become a prison of state; then, little by little, had approximated to -the ordinary prisons, until the day when it died a natural death ere it -could be assassinated. The same transformation took place in the -treatment of the prisoners. Midway in the seventeenth century, the -Bastille had none of the characteristics of a prison, but was simply a -chateau in which the king caused certain of his subjects to sojourn, for -one cause or another. They lived there just as they thought proper, -furnishing their rooms according to their fancy with their own -furniture, indulging their tastes in regard to food at their own -expense, and waited on by their own servants. When a prisoner was rich -he could live at the Bastille in princely style; when he was poor, he -lived there very wretchedly. When the prisoner had no property at all, -the king did not for that reason give him furniture or food; but he gave -him money which he might use as seemed good to him in providing himself -with furniture and food: money of which he could retain a part--a number -of prisoners did not fail to do so--these savings becoming his own -property. This system, the character of which it is important to -recognize, underwent gradual modification during the course of the -seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, approximating, without ever -becoming identical with, the system of our modern prisons. Thus the -king, instead of granting pensions individually to the poorest of the -prisoners, came to endow the Bastille with a certain fixed number of -pensions for the less fortunate prisoners. The recipients of these -pensions continued to enjoy them for long years, and if they did not -wish the whole of the money to be expended on their support, the balance -was handed over to them. So we see certain individuals getting little -fortunes together by the mere fact of their having been prisoners in the -Bastille--a circumstance which has so much surprised historians because -they have not sought its cause. It even happened that prisoners, when -their liberation was announced to them, asked to remain a little longer -in order to swell their savings, a favour which was sometimes granted -them. In the course of the eighteenth century the money destined to the -maintenance of the prisoners at the Bastille could not be diverted from -its purpose; the prisoners were no longer able to appropriate a part; -the whole sum had to be expended. - -It was only in the second half of the seventeenth century that the king -had some rooms at the Bastille furnished for such prisoners as were -without means of procuring furniture themselves. And it is very -interesting to note that it was only at the extreme end of the century, -under the administration of Saint-Mars, that certain apartments of the -Bastille were arranged in the prison style with bars and bolts. Until -then they had been simply the rooms of a stronghold.[31] - -Let us follow the prisoner from his entrance to his exit. - -When the _lettre de cachet_ had been signed, it was usually a sort of -sheriff's officer who effected the arrest. He appeared in company with -five or six men-at-arms, and signified the arrest by touching his quarry -with a white staff. A coach was in waiting. The police officer politely -begged the person he was instructed to secure to step into the coach, -and took his place beside him. And, according to the testimony of -various memoirs, while the vehicle was rolling along with lowered -blinds, there was a pleasant conversational exchange of courtesies up to -the moment of the prisoner's finding himself within the walls of the -Bastille. A certain Lafort was living in furnished apartments with a -young and pretty Englishwoman whom he had abducted, when one evening, -about sunset, a police officer arrived. The coach was at the door. -Preliminaries were settled on both sides with as much politeness as if a -visit or an evening party had been the topic of discussion. They all got -into the vehicle, even the young man's lackey who, beguiled by -appearances, mounted behind. Arrived at the Bastille, the lackey lost no -time in descending to open the door: there was general astonishment, -especially on the part of the poor servant, when he learnt that since he -had entered the Bastille along with his master, he must stay with him. - -Most often the officer and his companions surprised their quarry early -in the morning, on rising from bed. Imagine then the coach with the -prisoner and the police officer inside, arriving before the Bastille, in -the first court in front of the castle keep. "Who goes there?" cries the -sentinel. "The king's writ!" replies the officer. At this, the shops we -have seen attached to the flanks of the chateau are bound at once to be -shut. The soldiers on guard have to turn their faces to the wall, or -perhaps to pull their hats over their eyes. The coach passes the -outpost, a bell sounds. "Advance!" cries the officer on duty. The -drawbridge is lowered and the coach rattles over the stout iron-clamped -boards. For greater secrecy, spies and prisoners of war were taken in by -a private door leading to the gardens of the Arsenal. - -Officers and noblemen presented themselves before the Bastille alone, -unless they were accompanied by relatives or friends. "It is my -intention," the king had written to them, "that you betake yourselves to -my chateau of the Bastille." And no one dreamt of declining the royal -invitation. Further, when the governor desired to transfer one of them -from one prison to another, he contented himself with telling him so. We -find in the Journal of Du Junca, king's lieutenant[32] at the Bastille, -several notes like the following: "Monday, December 26, 1695, about ten -o'clock in the morning, M. de Villars, lieutenant-colonel of the -regiment of Vosges infantry, came and reported himself a prisoner, as -ordered by M. Barbezieux, though he was a prisoner in the citadel of -Grenoble, whence he came direct without being brought by anyone."[33] On -the arrival of the prisoner, the king's lieutenant, accompanied by the -captain of the gates, came to receive him as he got out of his carriage. -The officers of the chateau at once led the new-comer into the presence -of the governor, who received him civilly, invited him to sit down, and -after having endorsed the _lettre de cachet_ conversed with him for some -time. Under Louis XIV. the governor in most cases even kept his new -guest, as well as the persons who had accompanied him, to lunch or -dinner. Meanwhile his quarters had been got ready. We read in Du Junca's -Journal that on January 26, 1695, a certain De Courlandon, a colonel of -cavalry, presented himself for incarceration at the Bastille. There -being no room ready to receive him, the governor asked him to go and -pass the night in a neighbouring inn, at the sign of the _Crown_, and -to return next day. "Whereupon M. de Courlandon did not fail to return -about eleven o'clock in the morning, having dined with M. de Besmaus -(the governor), and in the afternoon he entered the chateau." - -The reader will not be surprised at learning that the prospect of -incarceration at the Bastille did not always strike the future prisoner -with terror. We read in the _Memoirs_ of the Duke de Lauzun:[34] -"Scolded for two hours on end by everybody who fancied himself entitled -to do so, I thought I could not do better than go to Paris and await -developments. A few hours after my arrival, I received a letter from my -father telling me that it had been decided to put us all in the -Bastille, and that I should probably be arrested during the night. I -determined at least to finish gaily, so I invited some pretty girls from -the Opera to supper, so that I might await the officer without -impatience. Seeing that he did not arrive, I determined on the bold move -of going to Fontainebleau and joining the king's hunt. He did not speak -to me once during the chase, which was such a confirmation of our -disgrace that on our return no one gave us the customary salute. But I -did not lose heart; in the evening I was in attendance, and the king -came to me. 'You are all,' he said, 'hotheaded rips, but funny dogs all -the same; come along and have supper, and bring M. de Guemene and the -Chevalier de Luxembourg.'" - -Before the new arrival was installed in the chamber prepared for him, he -was taken to the great council hall, where he was requested to empty his -pockets. Only notorious rogues were searched. If the prisoner had upon -him money, jewels, or other articles such as knives and scissors, the -use of which was not allowed by the regulations, they were done up in a -parcel which he himself sealed, with his own seal if he had one; if not, -with the seal of the Bastille. Finally, he was conducted to the room -reserved for him. - -Each of the eight towers of the Bastille contained four or five stories -of rooms or cells. The worst of these rooms were on the lowest floor, -and these were what were called the "cells,"--octagonal vaults, cold and -damp, partly under ground; the walls, grey with mould, were bare from -floor to ceiling, the latter a groined arch. A bench and a bed of straw -covered with a paltry coverlet, formed the whole appointments. Daylight -feebly flickered through the vent-hole opening on to the moat. When the -Seine was in flood, the water came through the walls and swamped the -cells; and then any prisoners who might happen to be in them were -removed. During the reign of Louis XIV. the cells were sometimes -occupied by prisoners of the lowest class and criminals condemned to -death. Later, under Louis XV., the cells ceased to be used except as a -place of punishment for insubordinate prisoners who assaulted their -guardians or fellow-prisoners, or for turnkeys and sentinels of the -chateau who had committed breaches of discipline. They stayed in the -cells for a short time in irons. The cells had fallen into disuse by -the time the Revolution broke out; since the first ministry of Necker, -it had been forbidden to confine in them any one whatever, and none of -the warders questioned on July 18 remembered having seen any one placed -in them. The two prisoners, Tavernier and Bechade, whom the conquerors -of the 14th of July found in one of these dungeons, had been placed -there, at the moment of the attack, by the officers of the chateau, for -fear lest amid the rain of bullets some harm should befall them. - -The worst rooms after the cells were the _calottes_, the rooms on the -floor above. In summer the heat was extreme in them, and in winter the -cold, in spite of the stoves. They were octagons whose ceilings, as the -name implies, were shaped like a skull-cap. High enough in the centre, -they gradually diminished in height towards the sides. It was impossible -to stand upright except in the middle of the room. - -The prisoners were only placed in the cells and _calottes_ under -exceptional circumstances. Every tower had two or three floors of lofty -and airy chambers, and in these the prisoners lived. They were octagons -from fifteen to sixteen feet in diameter and from fifteen to twenty feet -high. Light entered through large windows approached by three steps. We -have said that it was only towards the end of Louis XIV.'s reign that -these rooms were arranged like prison cells with bars and bolts. They -were warmed with open fireplaces or stoves. The ceiling was whitewashed, -the floor of brick. On the walls the prisoners had chalked verses, -mottoes, and designs. - -One artistic prisoner amused himself by decorating the bare walls with -paintings. The governor, delighted at seeing him thus find relaxation, -moved him from room to room; when he had finished filling one with his -designs and arabesques, he was placed in another. Some of these rooms -were decorated with portraits of Louis XIV. placed above the -chimney-piece, a characteristic detail which helps to show what the -Bastille was at this period: the chateau of the king, where the king -received a certain number of his subjects as his willing or unwilling -guests. - -The best rooms in the Bastille were those that were fitted up in the -eighteenth century for the accommodation of the staff. These were what -were called the "suites." In these were placed invalids and prisoners of -distinction. - -At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the furniture of these -apartments was still extremely simple: they were absolutely empty. The -reason of this we have indicated above. "I arrived," says Madame de -Staal, "at a room where there was nothing but four walls, very filthy, -and daubed all over by my predecessors for want of something better to -do. It was so destitute of furniture that someone went and got a little -straw chair for me to sit on, and two stones to support a lighted -faggot, and a little candle-end was neatly stuck on the wall to give me -light." - -The prisoners sent to their own homes for a table, bed, and chair, or -they hired these from the upholsterer of the Bastille. When they had -nothing to bless themselves with, the government, as we have already -said, did not provide them with furniture. It gave them money, sometimes -considerable sums, which permitted them to adorn their rooms after their -own fancy. This was the case in regard to all prisoners up to 1684. At -this date the king ordered the administration to supply furniture to -those of the prisoners whose detention was to be kept secret, for, by -getting in bedding from their own houses or the houses of friends, they -made known their arrest. D'Argenson had half a dozen of the rooms -permanently furnished, others were furnished under Louis XV.; under -Louis XVI., almost all were furnished. The appointments were very -modest: a bed of green baize with curtains, one or two tables, several -chairs, fire-dogs, a shovel, and a small pair of tongs. But after having -undergone examination, the prisoner retained the right of getting in -furniture from outside. And in this way the rooms of the prisoners were -sometimes adorned with great elegance. Madame de Staal relates that she -had hers hung with tapestry; the Marquis de Sade covered the bare walls -with long and brilliant hangings: other prisoners ornamented their rooms -with family portraits: they procured chests of drawers, desks, round -tables, dressing-cases, armchairs, cushions in Utrecht velvet; the -inventories of articles belonging to the prisoners show that they -managed to secure everything they thought necessary. The Abbe Brigault, -who was imprisoned at the same time as Madame de Staal and for the same -affair, brought into the Bastille five arm-chairs, two pieces of -tapestry, eleven serge hangings, eight chairs, a bureau, a small table, -three pictures, &c. The list of effects taken out of the Bastille by the -Comte de Belle-Isle when he was set at liberty includes a library -consisting of 333 volumes and ten atlases, a complete service of fine -linen and plate for the table, a bed furnished with gold-bordered red -damask, four pieces of tapestry on antique subjects, two mirrors, a -screen of gold-bordered red damask matching the bed, two folding -screens, two armchairs with cushions, an armchair in leather, three -chairs in tapestry, an overmantel of gilt copper, tables, drawers, -stands, candlestick of plated copper, &c. We might multiply examples, -even from among prisoners of middle station. - -It was the rule that prisoners newly arrived at the Bastille should be -examined within twenty-four hours. It sometimes happened, however, that -one or another remained for two or three weeks before appearing before -the magistrate. The Chatelet commissioner, specially delegated to the -Bastille for these examinations, founded his questions on notes supplied -him by the lieutenant of police, who, indeed, often went in person to -see the prisoners. A special commission was appointed for affairs of -importance. Dumouriez says that he was examined after nine hours of -detention by three commissioners: "The president was an old councillor -of state named Marville, a man of intelligence, but coarse and -sarcastic. The second was M. de Sartine, lieutenant of police and -councillor of state, a man of polish and refinement. The third was a -_maitre des requetes_[35] named Villevaux, a very insincere and -disputatious fellow. The clerk, who had more intelligence than any of -them, was an advocate named Beaumont." - -We have found many instances of prisoners who spoke in high terms of -their judges. And it cannot be said that prisoners at the Bastille -escaped judgment. A Chatelet commissioner examined them and sent the -official report of his examination, with a statement of his opinion, to -the lieutenant of police. He decided whether the arrest should be -sustained. Moreover, it would be a mistake to compare the lieutenant of -police under the _ancien regime_ with the prefect of police of to-day; -the lieutenants of police, selected from former _maitres des requetes_, -had a judicial character: the documents of the period call them -"magistrates"; they issued decrees without appeal and pronounced penal -sentences, even condemning to the galleys; they were at the same time -justices of the peace with an extensive jurisdiction. In addition to the -examination held on the entrance of a prisoner, the lieutenants of -police, in the course of their frequent visits, addressed to the -ministers of Paris reports on the prisoners,--reports in which they -discussed the evidence, and which constituted veritable judgments. - -When the prisoner was recognized as innocent, a new _lettre de cachet_ -soon set him at liberty. The verdict of "no true bill" often supervened -with a rapidity which the decisions of our police magistrates would do -well to emulate. A certain Barbier, who entered the Bastille on February -15, 1753, was found not guilty and set at liberty the next day. Of the -279 persons imprisoned in the Bastille during the last fifteen years of -the _ancien regime_, thirty-eight benefited by the dropping of the -indictment. - -Finally--and here is a point on which the new method might well model -itself on that of the Bastille--when a detention was recognized as -unjust, the victim was indemnified. A great number of examples might be -mentioned. An advocate named Sube left the Bastille on June 18, 1767, -after a detention of eighteen days; he had been falsely accused of the -authorship of a book against the king, and received compensation to the -tune of 3000 livres, more than L240 of our money. A certain Pereyra, -imprisoned in the Bastille from November 7, 1771, to April 12, 1772, and -then from July 1 to September 26, 1774, having been found to be -innocent, was reinstated in all his property, and received from the king -a life pension of 1200 livres, more than L100 to-day. A certain number -of those accused in the Canada case, when the charge was withdrawn, -received a life pension on leaving the Bastille. At other times, the -detention of an individual might throw his family into want. He was kept -in the Bastille, if it was thought he deserved it, but his people were -assisted. Under date September 3, 1763, the Duke de Choiseul writes to -the lieutenant of police: "I have received the letter you did me the -honour of writing to me in favour of the children of the Sieur -Joncaire-Chabert. I have the pleasure to inform you that I have got for -them a second subsidy of 300 livres (nearly L30 to-day) in consideration -of the sad condition you informed me they were in." Louis XIV. -guaranteed to Pellisson, at his liberation, a pension of 2000 crowns. -The Regent granted to Voltaire, when he left the Bastille, a pension of -1200 livres. Louis XVI. awarded to Latude an annuity of 400 livres, and -to La Rocheguerault an annuity of 400 crowns. The minister Breteuil -pensioned all the prisoners whom he set at liberty. Brun de Condamine, -confined from 1779 to 1783, received on leaving a sum of 600 livres. -Renneville speaks of a prisoner to whom Seignelay gave an important -situation in compensation for his detention at the Bastille. We hear of -one, Toussaint Socquart, a commissioner of the Chatelet and of police -whose offices were restored to him when he came out of the Bastille. In -fact, contrary to detention in our modern prisons, incarceration in the -Bastille did not cast the slightest slur on the prisoner's character, -even in the eyes of those to whom his arrest was due, and instances have -been known of men who, on their release from the Bastille, not only -were reinstated in public offices, but reached the highest positions. - -Until his examinations were quite completed, the prisoner was kept in -close confinement. None but the officers of the chateau were allowed to -communicate with him. And during this time he lived in solitude, unless -he had brought a servant with him. The administration readily permitted -the prisoners to avail themselves of the services of their valets, who -were boarded at the king's expense. It even happened that the government -sometimes gave their prisoners valets, paying not only for their board, -but also their wages at the rate of 900 livres a year. One might cite -prisoners of inferior rank who thus had servants to wait on them. Two or -three prisoners were sometimes put together in one room. Prison life has -no greater terror than solitude. In absolute solitude many of the -prisoners became mad. In company, the hours of captivity seemed less -tedious and oppressive. Father and son, mother and daughter, aunt and -niece, lived together. Many might be named. On September 7, 1693, a lady -named De la Fontaine was taken to the Bastille for the second time. The -first time, she had been imprisoned quite alone; but this new detention -evoked the compassion of the lieutenant of police, who, to please the -poor lady, sent her husband to the Bastille, locked him up with her, and -gave them a lackey to wait on them. - -The examinations being ended, the prisoners enjoyed a greater liberty. -They could then enter into communication with the people of the town. -They obtained permission to see their relatives and friends. These -sometimes paid them visits in their rooms; but as a rule the interviews -took place in the council-hall, in presence of one of the officers of -the chateau. They were usually permitted to discuss only family affairs -and business matters. All conversation on the Bastille and the reasons -for their imprisonment was forbidden. The rules of the prison increased -in severity as time went on. Towards the end of Louis XV.'s reign the -lieutenant of police went so far as to prescribe the subjects of -conversation which would alone be permitted in the course of the visits -the prisoners received. "They may talk to the prisoner about the harvest -his vineyards will yield this year, about cancelling a lease, about a -match for his niece, about the health of his parents." But it is -necessary to read the _Memoirs_ of Gourville, Fontaine, Bussy-Rabutin, -Hennequin, Madame de Staal, the Duke de Richelieu, to form a general -idea of life at the Bastille under Louis XIV. and under the Regent. -Several prisoners were free to move about through the chateau wherever -it seemed good to them; they entered the rooms of their fellow-prisoners -at all hours of the day. The governor contented himself with locking -them in their own rooms at night. The prisoners who had the "liberty of -the court" organized games of bowls or _tonneau_, and hobnobbed with the -officers of the garrison. Fontaine relates that they might have been -seen from the top of the towers, collected fifty at a time in the inner -court Bussy-Rabutin's room was open to all comers: his wife and friends -visited him; he gave dinners to persons from court, plotted love -intrigues there, and corresponded freely with his friends and relatives. -Several prisoners even had permission to take a walk into the town on -condition of their returning to the chateau in the evening. Two brothers -were placed in the Bastille together. They went out when they pleased, -taking turns; it was sufficient for one or other to be always at the -chateau. The officers of the staff gossiped with the prisoners and gave -them advice as to the best means of obtaining their liberty. - -This animated, courtly, and elegant life is described with infinite -charm by Madame de Staal, whom we have already cited. "We all used to -spend a part of the day with the governor. We dined with him, and after -dinner I enjoyed a rubber of ombre with Messieurs de Pompadour and de -Boisdavis, Menil advising me. When it was over we returned to our own -apartments. The company met again in my rooms before supper, for which -we returned to the governor's, and after that we all went to bed." - -As to the manner in which the prisoners were fed and looked after, that -is surprising indeed, and what we shall say about it, though rigidly -accurate, will perhaps be regarded as an exaggeration. The governor drew -three livres a day for the maintenance of a man of inferior rank; five -livres for the maintenance of a tradesman; ten livres for a banker, a -magistrate, or a man of letters; fifteen livres for a judge of the -Parlement; thirty-six livres for a marshal of France. The Cardinal de -Rohan had 120 francs a day spent on him. The Prince de Courlande, during -a stay of five months at the Bastille, spent 22,000 francs. These -figures must be doubled and trebled to give the value they would -represent to-day. - -We read, too, with the greatest astonishment the description of the -meals the prisoners made. Renneville, whose evidence is the more -important in that his book is a pamphlet against the administration of -the Bastille, speaks in these terms of his first meal: "The turnkey put -one of my serviettes on the table and placed my dinner on it, which -consisted of pea soup garnished with lettuce, well simmered and -appetizing to look at, with a quarter of fowl to follow; in one dish -there was a juicy beef-steak, with plenty of gravy and a sprinkling of -parsley, in another a quarter of forcemeat pie well stuffed with -sweetbreads, cock's combs, asparagus, mushrooms, and truffles; and in a -third a ragout of sheep's tongue, the whole excellently cooked; for -dessert, a biscuit and two pippins. The turnkey insisted on pouring out -my wine. This was good burgundy, and the bread was excellent. I asked -him to drink, but he declared it was not permitted. I asked if I should -pay for my food, or whether I was indebted to the king for it. He told -me that I had only to ask freely for whatever would give me pleasure, -that they would try to satisfy me, and that His Majesty paid for it -all." The "most Christian" king desired that his guests should fast on -Fridays and in Lent, but he did not treat them any the worse on that -account. "I had," says Renneville, "six dishes, and an admirable prawn -soup. Among the fish there was a very fine weever, a large fried sole, -and a perch, all very well seasoned, with three other dishes." At this -period Renneville's board cost ten francs a day; later he was reduced to -the rate of the prisoners of a lower class. "They much reduced my usual -fare," he says; "I had, however, a good soup with fried bread crumbs, a -passable piece of beef, a ragout of sheep's tongue, and two custards for -dessert. I was treated in pretty much the same manner the whole time I -was in this gloomy place; sometimes they gave me, after my soup, a wing -or leg of fowl, sometimes they put two little patties on the edge of the -dish." - -Towards the end of Louis XV.'s reign, Dumouriez eulogizes the cookery of -the Bastille in almost the same terms. On the day of his entrance, -noticing that they were serving a fish dinner, he asked for a fowl to be -got from a neighbouring eating-house. "A fowl!" said the major, "don't -you know that to-day is Friday?" "Your business is to look after me and -not my conscience. I am an invalid, for the Bastille itself is a -disease," replied the prisoner. In an hour's time the fowl was on the -table. Subsequently he asked for his dinner and supper to be served at -the same time, between three and four o'clock. His valet, a good cook, -used to make him stews. "You fared very well at the Bastille; there -were always five dishes at dinner and three at supper, without the -dessert, and the whole being put on the table at once, appeared -magnificent." There is a letter from the major of the Bastille addressed -in 1764 to the lieutenant of police, discussing a prisoner named Vieilh, -who never ate butcher's meat; so they had to feed him exclusively on -game and poultry. Things were much the same under Louis XVI., as -Poultier d'Elmotte testifies: "De Launey, the governor, used to come and -have a friendly chat with me; he got them to consult my taste as regards -food, and to supply me with anything I wished for." The bookseller -Hardy, transferred in 1766 to the Bastille with the members of the -Breton deputation, declares frankly that they were all treated in the -best possible way. Finally, Linguet himself, in spite of his desire to -paint the lot of the victims of the Bastille in the most sombre colours, -is obliged to confess that food was supplied in abundance. Every morning -the cook sent up to him a menu on which he marked the dishes he fancied. - -The account books of the Bastille confirm the testimony of former -prisoners. The following, according to these documents, are the meals -that La Bourdonnais enjoyed during July, 1750. Every day the menu -contains soup, beef, veal, beans, French beans, two eggs, bread, -strawberries, cherries, gooseberries, oranges, two bottles of red wine, -and two bottles of beer. In addition to this regular bill of fare we -note on July 2, a fowl and a bottle of Muscat; on the 4th, a bottle of -Muscat; on the 7th, tea; on the 12th, a bottle of brandy; on the 13th, -some flowers; on the 14th, some quails; on the 15th, a turkey; on the -16th, a melon; on the 17th, a fowl; on the 18th, a young rabbit; on the -19th, a bottle of brandy; on the 20th, a chicken and ham sausage and two -melons; and so on. - -Tavernier was a prisoner of mean station, son of a doorkeeper of Paris -de Montmartel. He was implicated in a plot against the King's life, and -was one of the seven prisoners set free on the 14th of July. He was -found out of his mind in his cell. After he had been led in triumph -through the streets of Paris, he was shut up at Charenton. He was a -martyr, people exclaimed. He was certainly not so well off in his new -abode as he had been at the Bastille. We have an account of what was -supplied to him at the Bastille in addition to the ordinary meals, in -November, 1788, in March and May, 1789, three of the last months of his -imprisonment. In November we find: tobacco, four bottles of brandy, -sixty bottles of wine, thirty bottles of beer, two pounds of coffee, -three pounds of sugar, a turkey, oysters, chestnuts, apples, and pears; -in March: tobacco, four bottles of brandy, forty-four bottles of wine, -sixty bottles of beer, coffee, sugar, fowls, cheese; in May: tobacco, -four bottles of brandy, sixty-two bottles of wine, thirty-one bottles of -beer, pigeons, coffee, sugar, cheese, &c. We have the menus of the -Marquis de Sade for January, 1789: chocolate cream, a fat chicken -stuffed with chestnuts, pullets with truffles, potted ham, apricot -marmalade, &c. - -The facts we are describing were the rule. The prisoners who were -treated with the least consideration fed very well. Only those who were -sent down to the cells were sometimes put on bread and water, but that -was only a temporary punishment. - -When a complaint was formulated by any prisoner in regard to his food, a -reprimand to the governor soon followed. Then the lieutenant of police -inquired of the person concerned if he was better treated than formerly. -"His Majesty tells me," writes Pontchartrain to De Launey, "that -complaints have been raised about the bad food of the prisoners; he -instructs me to write to you to give the matter great attention." And -Sartine wrote jokingly to Major de Losmes: "I am quite willing for you -to get the clothes of Sieur Dubois enlarged, and I hope all your -prisoners may enjoy as excellent health." - -Further, the king clothed those of the prisoners who were too poor to -buy their own clothes. He did not give them a prison uniform, but -dressing-gowns padded or lined with rabbit skin, breeches of coloured -stuff, vests lined with silk plush and fancy coats.[36] The commissary -at the Bastille appointed to look after the supplies took the prisoners' -measure, and inquired about their tastes, and the colours and styles -that suited them best. A lady prisoner named Sauve asked to have made -for her a dress of white silk, dotted with green flowers. The wife of -commissary Rochebrune spent several days in going the round of the Paris -shops, and then wrote in despair that no dressmaker had such a material, -the nearest approach to it being a white silk with green stripes: if -Madame Sauve would be satisfied with that, they would send to take her -measure. "Monsieur le major," writes a prisoner named Hugonnet, "the -shirts they brought me yesterday are not a bit what I asked for, for I -remember having written 'fine, and with embroidered ruffles'; instead of -which these things are coarse, made of wretched linen, and with ruffles -at best only fit for a turnkey; and so I shall be glad if you will send -them back to the commissary; and let him keep them, for I declare I -won't have them." - -The governor also saw that the prisoners had some means of diversion. -The poorest he provided with pocket-money and tobacco. - -About the beginning of the seventeenth century, a Neapolitan named -Vinache died at the Bastille, after founding a library there for the use -of his fellow-prisoners. This library was gradually augmented by -donations from the governors, by gifts from various prisoners, and even -by the generosity of a citizen of Paris whose compassion had been -excited for the lot of the prisoners. The books consisted of romances, -works of science and philosophy, and religious books, light literature -predominating. The lieutenant of police, Berryer, struck out of the -list of books that were being sent one day to the binder a "poem on the -greatness of God," as being on "too melancholy a subject for prisoners." -The prisoners also procured books from outside. We have mentioned the -Comte de Belle-Isle, who had more than three hundred books and atlases -at the Bastille. La Beaumelle collected a library of more than 600 -volumes. The administration, moreover, never refused to get for the -prisoners, out of the royal funds and sometimes at considerable expense, -such works as they said were necessary to their studies. The works of -Voltaire and Puffendorf were readily placed in their hands. Finally, -under Louis XVI., they were allowed to read the gazettes. - -After the permission to have books and to write, the most coveted favour -was that of walking exercise. Refusal of this was rare. The prisoners -might walk, either on the towers of the Bastille, or in the inner -courts, or lastly along the bastion, which was transformed into a -garden. To fresh invigorating air the platform of the towers added the -attraction of the finest view. Fontaine relates that Sacy went to the -top of the towers every day after dinner. He there walked about in -company with the officers, who gave him news of the town and the -prisoners. - -In their rooms the prisoners amused themselves with feeding cats and -birds and animals of all kinds: they taught dogs tricks. Some were -allowed to have a violin or a clavecin. Pellisson was shut up with a -Basque who used to play to him on the musette. The Duke de Richelieu -boasts of the operatic airs he sang in parts with his neighbours in the -Bastille, Mdlle. de Launay among them, with her head at the bars of her -window; "we got up choruses of a sort, with fine effect." - -Other prisoners killed time with embroidery, weaving or knitting; some -made ornaments for the chapel of the chateau. Some devoted themselves to -carpentry, turned wood, made small articles of furniture. Artists -painted and sketched. "The occupation of M. de Villeroi was somewhat -singular: he had very fine clothes, which he was for ever unpicking and -sewing together again with much cleverness." The prisoners who lived -several in one room played at cards, chess, and backgammon. In 1788, at -the time of the troubles in Brittany, a dozen noblemen of that country -were shut up in the Bastille. They lived together, and asked for a -billiard table to amuse themselves; the table was set up in the -apartments of the major, and there these gentlemen went for their games. - -The prisoners who died in the Bastille were interred in the graveyard of -St. Paul's; the funeral service was held in the church of St. Paul, and -the burial certificate, bearing the family name of the deceased, was -drawn up in the vestry. It is not true that the names of the deceased -were wrongly stated in the register in order that their identity might -be concealed from the public. The Man in the Iron Mask was inscribed on -the register of St. Paul's under his real name. Jews, Protestants, and -suicides were buried in the garden of the chateau, the prejudices of the -period not allowing their remains to be laid in consecrated ground. - -Those who were liberated had a happier fate. Their dismissal was ordered -by a _lettre de cachet_, as their incarceration had been. These orders -for their liberation, so anxiously expected, were brought by the court -"distributors of packets" or by the ordinary post; sometimes relatives -and friends themselves brought the sealed envelope, in order to have the -joy of taking away at once those whose deliverance they came to effect. - -The governor, or, in his absence, the king's lieutenant, came into the -prisoner's chamber and announced that he was free. The papers and other -effects which had been taken from him on entrance were restored to him, -the major getting a receipt for them; then he signed a promise to reveal -nothing of what he had seen at the chateau. Many of the prisoners -refused to submit to this formality, and were liberated notwithstanding; -others, after having signed, retailed everywhere all they knew about the -prison, and were not interfered with. When the prisoner only recovered -his freedom under certain conditions, he was required to give an -undertaking to submit to the king's pleasure. - -All these formalities having been completed, the governor, with that -feeling for good form which characterized the men of the _ancien -regime_, had the man who had been his guest served for the last time -with an excellent dinner. If the prisoner was a man of good society, -the governor would even go so far as to invite him to his own table, and -then, the meal over and the good-byes said, he placed his own carriage -at the prisoner's disposal, and often entered it himself to accompany -him to his destination. - -More than one prisoner thus restored to the world must have felt greatly -embarrassed before a day was past, and have been at a loss what to do or -where to go. The administration of the Bastille sometimes gave money to -one and another to enable them to get along for a time. In December, -1783, a certain Dubu de la Tagnerette, after being set at liberty, was -lodged in the governor's house for a fortnight until he had found -apartments that would suit him. Moreover, many of the prisoners were -actually annoyed at being dismissed: we could cite examples of persons -who sought to get themselves sent to the Bastille; others refused to -accept their liberty, and others did their best to get their detention -prolonged. - -"Many come out," says Renneville, "very sad at having to leave." Le -Maistre de Sacy and Fontaine affirm that the years spent at the Bastille -were the best years in their lives. "The innocent life we lived," says -Renneville again, "Messieurs Hamilton, Schrader, and myself, seemed so -pleasant to M. Hamilton that he begged me to write a description of it -in verse." The _Memoirs_ of Madame de Staal represent her years at the -Bastille as the happiest she ever knew. "In my heart of hearts, I was -very far from desiring my liberty." "I stayed at the Bastille for six -weeks," observes the Abbe Morellet, "which sped away--I chuckle still as -I think of them--very pleasantly for me." And later, Dumouriez declares -that at the Bastille he was happy and never felt dull. - -Such was the rule of the celebrated state prison. In the last century -there was no place of detention in Europe where the prisoners were -surrounded with so many comforts and attentions: there is no such place -in these days. - -But in spite of these very real alleviations, it would be absurd to -pretend that the prisoners were in general reconciled to their -incarceration. Nothing is a consolation for the loss of liberty. How -many poor wretches, in their despair, have dashed their heads against -the thick walls while wife and children and concerns of the utmost -gravity were summoning them from without! The Bastille was the cause of -ruin to many; within its walls were shed tears which were never dried. - -An eighteenth-century writer thus defined the state prison: "A bastille -is any house solidly built, hermetically sealed, and diligently guarded, -where any person, of whatever rank, age, or sex, may enter without -knowing why, remain without knowing how long, hoping to leave it, but -not knowing how." These lines, written by an apologist for the old state -prison, contain its condemnation, without appeal, before the modern -mind. - - - - -CHAPTER IV. - -THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK. - - -For two centuries no question has excited public opinion more than that -of the Man in the Iron Mask. The books written on the subject would fill -a library. People despaired of ever lifting the veil. "The story of the -Iron Mask," says Michelet, "will probably remain for ever obscure," and -Henri Martin adds: "History has no right to pronounce judgment on what -will never leave the domain of conjecture." To-day, the doubt no longer -exists. The problem is solved. Before disclosing the solution which -criticism has unanimously declared correct, we propose to transcribe the -scanty authentic documents that we possess on the masked man, and then -to state the principal solutions which have been proposed, before -arriving at the true solution. - - -1. THE DOCUMENTS. - -_The Register of the Bastille._--To begin with, let us quote the text -which is the origin and foundation of all the works published on the -question of the Iron Mask. - -[Illustration: Note in Du Junca's Journal regarding the entrance to the -Bastille (September 18, 1698) of the Man in the Iron Mask.] - -Etienne du Junca, king's lieutenant at the Bastille, in a journal -which he began to keep on October 2, 1690, when he entered upon his -office--a sort of register in which he recorded day by day the details -concerning the arrival of the prisoners--writes, under date September -18, 1698, these lines,[37] which the popular legend has rendered -memorable:-- - -"Thursday, September 18 (1698), at three o'clock in the afternoon, M. de -Saint-Mars, governor of the chateau of the Bastille, made his first -appearance, coming from his governorship of the Isles of -Sainte-Marguerite-Honorat, bringing with him, in his conveyance, a -prisoner he had formerly at Pignerol, whom he caused to be always -masked, whose name is not mentioned; directly he got out of the carriage -he put him in the first room of the Baziniere tower, waiting till night -for me to take him, at nine o'clock, and put him with M. de Rosarges, -one of the sergeants brought by the governor, alone in the third room of -the Bertaudiere tower, which I had had furnished with all necessaries -some days before his arrival, having received orders to that effect from -M. de Saint-Mars: the which prisoner will be looked after and waited on -by M. de Rosarges, and maintained by the governor." - -In a second register, supplementary to the first, in which du Junca -records details of the liberation or the death of the prisoners, we -read, under date November 19, 1703:-- - -"On the same day, November 19, 1703, the unknown prisoner, always masked -with a mask of black velvet, whom M. de Saint-Mars, the governor, -brought with him on coming from the Isles de Sainte-Marguerite, whom he -had kept for a long time, the which happening to be a little ill -yesterday on coming from mass, he died to-day, about ten o'clock at -night, without having had a serious illness; it could not have been -slighter. M. Giraut, our chaplain, confessed him yesterday, is surprised -at his death. He did not receive the sacrament, and our chaplain -exhorted him a moment before he died. And this unknown prisoner, kept -here for so long, was buried on Tuesday at four o'clock p.m., November -20, in the graveyard of St. Paul, our parish; on the register of burial -he was given a name also unknown. M. de Rosarges, major, and Arreil, -surgeon, signed the register." - -And in the margin:-- - -"I have since learnt that they called him M. de Marchiel on the -register, and that forty livres was the cost of the funeral." - -The registers of du Junca were preserved among the ancient archives of -the Bastille, whence they passed to the Arsenal library, where they are -now kept. They are drawn up in the clumsy handwriting of a soldier, with -little skill in penmanship. The spelling is bad. But the facts are -stated with precision, and have always proved accurate when checked. - -[Illustration: Notice in Du Junca's Journal of the death of the masked -prisoner in the Bastille (November 19, 1703).] - -The extract from the second register shows that the mysterious -prisoner wore, not a mask of iron, but one of black velvet. - -Further, the entry on the register of St. Paul's church has been -discovered. It reads:-- - -"On the 19th, Marchioly, aged 45 years or thereabouts, died in the -Bastille, whose body was buried in the churchyard of St. Paul, his -parish, the 20th of the present month, in the presence of M. Rosage -(_sic_), major of the Bastille, and of M. Reglhe (_sic_), surgeon major -of the Bastille, who signed.--(Signed) ROSARGES, REILHE." - -Such are the fundamental documents for the story of the Iron Mask; we -shall see by and by that they are sufficient to establish the truth. - -_The Letter of the Governor of Sainte-Marguerite._--We have just seen, -from the register of du Junca, that the masked man had been at the Isles -of Sainte-Marguerite under the charge of Saint-Mars, who, on being -appointed governor of the Bastille, had brought the prisoner with him. -In the correspondence exchanged between Saint-Mars and the minister -Barbezieux, occurs the following letter, dated January 6, 1696, in which -Saint-Mars describes his method of dealing with the prisoners, and the -masked man is referred to under the appellation "my ancient prisoner." - - "MY LORD,--You command me to tell you what is the practice, when I - am absent or ill, as to the visits made and precautions taken daily - in regard to the prisoners committed to my charge. My two - lieutenants serve the meals at the regular hours, just as they - have seen me do, and as I still do very often when I am well. The - first of my lieutenants, who takes the keys of the prison of _my - ancient prisoner_, with whom we commence, opens the three doors and - enters the chamber of the prisoner, who politely hands him the - plates and dishes, put one on top of another, to give them into the - hands of the lieutenant, who has only to go through two doors to - hand them to one of my sergeants, who takes them and places them on - a table two steps away, where is the second lieutenant, who - examines everything that enters and leaves the prison, and sees - that there is nothing written on the plate; and after they have - given him the utensil, they examine his bed inside and out, and - then the gratings and windows of his room, and very often the man - himself: after having asked him very politely if he wants anything - else, they lock the doors and proceed to similar business with the - other prisoners." - -_The Letter of M. de Palteau._--On June 19, 1768, M. de Formanoir de -Palteau addressed from the chateau of Palteau, near Villeneuve-le-Roi, -to the celebrated Freron, editor of the _Annee Litteraire_, a letter -which was inserted in the number for June 30, 1768. The author of this -letter was the grand-nephew of Saint-Mars. At the time when the latter -was appointed governor of the Bastille, the chateau of Palteau belonged -to him, and he halted there with his prisoner on the way from the Isles -of Sainte-Marguerite to Paris. - -"In 1698," writes M. de Palteau, "M. de Saint-Mars passed from the -governorship of the Isles of Sainte-Marguerite to that of the Bastille. -On his way to take up his duties, he stayed with his prisoner on his -estate at Palteau. The masked man arrived in a conveyance which preceded -that of M. de Saint-Mars; they were accompanied by several horsemen. The -peasants went to meet their lord: M. de Saint-Mars ate with his -prisoner, who had his back turned to the windows of the dining-hall -looking on the courtyard. The peasants whom I have questioned could not -see whether he ate with his mask on; but they observed very well that M. -de Saint-Mars, who was opposite him at table, had two pistols beside his -plate. They had only one footman to wait on them, and he fetched the -dishes from an ante-room where they were brought him, carefully shutting -the door of the dining-hall behind him. When the prisoner crossed the -courtyard, he always had his black mask over his face; the peasants -noticed that his lips and teeth were not covered, that he was tall and -had white hair. M. de Saint-Mars slept in a bed that was put up for him -near that of the masked man." - -This account is marked throughout with the stamp of truth. M. de -Palteau, the writer, makes no attempt to draw inferences from it. He -declares for none of the hypotheses then under discussion in regard to -the identity of the mysterious unknown. He is content to report the -testimony of those of his peasants who saw the masked man when he passed -through their lord's estates. The only detail in the story which we are -able to check--a characteristic detail, it is true--is that of the black -mask of which M. de Palteau speaks: it corresponds exactly to the mask -of black velvet mentioned in du Junca's register. - -The chateau of Palteau is still in existence. In his work on -Superintendent Fouquet, M. Jules Lair gives a description of it. "The -chateau of Palteau, situated on an eminence among woods and vines, -presented at that time, as it does to-day, the aspect of a great lordly -mansion in the style of the time of Henri IV. and Louis XIII. First -there is a wide courtyard, then two wings; within, the principal -building and the chapel. The lower story is supported on arches, and its -lofty windows go right up into the roof, and light the place from floor -to attic." Since the eighteenth century, however, the chateau has -undergone some modifications. The room in which Saint-Mars dined with -his prisoner is now used as a kitchen. - -_The Notes of Major Chevalier._--In addition to the entries in du -Junca's Journal which we have transcribed, scholars are accustomed to -invoke, as equally worthy of credence though later in date, the -testimony of Father Griffet, chaplain of the Bastille, and that of Major -Chevalier. - -The extracts from du Junca quoted above were published for the first -time in 1769 by Father Griffet, who added the following comments: "The -memory of the masked prisoner was still preserved among the officers, -soldiers, and servants of the Bastille, when M. de Launey, who has long -been the governor, came to occupy a place on the staff of the garrison. -Those who had seen him with his mask, when he crossed the courtyard on -his way to attend mass, said that after his death the order was given to -burn everything he had used, such as linen, clothes, cushions, -counterpanes, &c.: that the very walls of the room he had occupied had -to be scraped and whitewashed again, and that all the tiles of the -flooring were taken up and replaced by others, because they were so -afraid that he had found the means to conceal some notes or some mark, -the discovery of which would have revealed his name." - -The testimony of Father Griffet happens to be confirmed by some notes -from the pen of a major of the Bastille named Chevalier. The major was -not a personage of the highest rank in the administration of the -Bastille, since above him were the governor and the king's lieutenant: -but he was the most important personage. The whole internal -administration, so far as the prisoners were concerned, was entrusted to -him. Chevalier fulfilled these duties for nearly thirty-eight years, -from 1749 to 1787. M. Fernand Bournon's estimate of him is as follows: -"Chevalier is a type of the devoted hard-working official who has no -ambition to rise above a rather subordinate rank. It would be impossible -to say how much the administration of the Bastille owed to his zeal and -to his perfect familiarity with a service of extraordinary difficulty." - -Among notes put together with a view to a history of the Bastille, -Chevalier gives in condensed form the information furnished by du -Junca's register, and adds: "This is the famous masked man whom no one -has ever known. He was treated with great distinction by the governor, -and was seen only by M. de Rosarges, major of the said chateau, who had -sole charge of him; he was not ill except for a few hours, and died -rather suddenly: interred at St. Paul's, on Tuesday, November 20, 1703, -at 4 o'clock p.m., under the name of Marchiergues. He was buried in a -new white shroud, given by the governor, and practically everything in -his room was burnt, such as his bed, chairs, tables, and other bits of -furniture, or else melted down, and the whole was thrown into the -privies." - -These notes of Father Griffet and Major Chevalier have derived great -force, in the eyes of historians, from their exact agreement; but a -close examination shows that the testimony of Chevalier was the source -of Father Griffet's information; in fact, Chevalier was major of the -Bastille when the Jesuit compiled his work, and it is doubtless upon his -authority that the latter depended. - -Documents recently published in the _Revue Bleue_ upset these -assertions, which appeared to be based on the firmest foundations. - -In the Journal of du Junca, which we have already mentioned, we read -under date April 30, 1701: "Sunday, April 30, about 9 o'clock in the -evening, M. Aumont the younger came, bringing and handing over to us a -prisoner named M. Maranville, alias Ricarville, who was an officer in -the army, a malcontent, too free with his tongue, a worthless fellow: -whom I received in obedience to the king's orders sent through the Count -of Pontchartrain: whom I have had put along with the man Tirmon, in the -second room of the Bertaudiere tower, with the _ancient prisoner_, both -being well locked in." - -The "ancient prisoner" here referred to is no other than the masked man. -When he entered the Bastille, as we have seen, on September 18, 1698, he -was placed in the third room of the Bertaudiere tower. In 1701, the -Bastille happened to be crowded with prisoners, and they had to put -several together in one and the same room; so the man in the mask was -placed with two companions. One of them, Jean-Alexandre de Ricarville, -also called Maranville, had been denounced as a "retailer of ill speech -against the State, finding fault with the policy of France and lauding -that of foreigners, especially that of the Dutch." The police reports -depict him as a beggarly fellow, poorly dressed, and about sixty years -old. He had formerly been, as du Junca says, an officer in the royal -troops. Maranville left the Bastille on October 19, 1708. He was -transferred to Charenton, where he died in February, 1709. It must be -pointed out that Charenton was then an "open" prison, where the -prisoners associated with one another and had numerous relations with -the outside world. - -The second of the fellow-prisoners of the man in the mask, -Dominique-Francois Tirmont, was a servant. When he was placed in the -Bastille, on July 30, 1700, he was nineteen years old. He was accused of -sorcery and of debauching young girls. He was put in the second room of -the Bertaudiere tower, where he was joined by Maranville and the man in -the mask. On December 14, 1701, he was transferred to Bicetre. He lost -his reason in 1703 and died in 1708. - -The man in the mask was taken out of the third room of the Bertaudiere -tower, in which he had been placed on his entrance to the Bastille, on -March 6, 1701, in order to make room for a woman named Anne Randon, a -"witch and fortune-teller," who was shut up alone in it. The masked -prisoner was then placed in the "second Bertaudiere" with Tirmont, who -had been there, as we have just seen, since July 30, 1700. Maranville -joined them on April 30, 1701. Not long after, the masked man was -transferred to another room, with or without Maranville. Tirmont had -been taken to Bicetre in 1701. We find that on February 26, 1703, the -Abbe Gonzel, a priest of Franche-Comte, accused of being a spy, was shut -up alone in the "second Bertaudiere." - -These facts are of undeniable authenticity, and one sees at a glance the -consequences springing from them. At the time when the masked prisoner -shared the same room with fellow-captives, other prisoners at the -Bastille were kept rigorously isolated, in spite of the crowded state of -the prison, so much more important did the reasons for their -incarceration seem! The man in the mask was associated with persons of -the lowest class, who were soon afterwards to leave and take their -places with the ruck of prisoners at Charenton and Bicetre. We read in a -report of D'Argenson that there was even some talk of enlisting one of -them, Tirmont, in the army. Such, then, was this strange personage, the -repository of a terrible secret of which Madame Palatine[38] was already -speaking in mysterious terms, the man who puzzled kings, Louis XV., -Louis XVI., who puzzled the very officers of the Bastille, and caused -them to write stories as remote as possible from the reality! - - -2. THE LEGEND. - -If the very officers of the Bastille indulged such wild freaks of -imagination, what flights into dreamland might not the thoughts of the -public be expected to take? The movement is a very curious one to -follow. To begin with, we have the light Venetian mask transforming -itself into an iron mask with steel articulations which the prisoner -was never without. The consideration--imaginary, as we have seen--with -which the prisoner is supposed to have been treated, and which is -referred to in the notes of Major Chevalier, becomes transformed into -marks of a boundless deference shown by the jailers towards their -captive. The story was that Saint-Mars, the governor, a knight of St. -Louis, never spoke to the prisoner except standing, with bared head, -that he served him at table with his own hands and on silver plate, and -that he supplied him with the most luxurious raiment his fancy could -devise. Chevalier says that after his death his room at the Bastille was -done up like new, to prevent his successor from discovering any -tell-tale evidence in some corner. Speaking of the time when the masked -man was at the Isles of Sainte-Marguerite, Voltaire relates: "One day -the prisoner wrote with a knife on a silver dish, and threw the dish out -of the window towards a boat moored on the shore, almost at the foot of -the tower. A fisherman, to whom the boat belonged, picked up the dish -and carried it to the governor. Astonished, he asked the fisherman, -'Have you read what is written on this dish, and has anyone seen it in -your hands?' 'I cannot read,' replied the fisher, 'I have only just -found it, and no one has seen it.' The poor man was detained until the -governor was assured he could not read and that no one had seen the -dish. 'Go,' he said, 'it is lucky for you that you can't read!'" - -In Father Papon's _History of Provence_, linen takes the place of the -dish. The upshot is more tragic: "I found in the citadel an officer of -the Free Company, aged 79 years. He told me several times that a barber -of that company saw one day, under the prisoner's window, something -white floating on the water; he went and picked it up and carried it to -M. de Saint-Mars. It was a shirt of fine linen, folded with no apparent -care, and covered with the prisoner's writing. M. de Saint-Mars, after -unfolding it and reading a few lines, asked the barber, with an air of -great embarrassment, if he had not had the curiosity to read what was on -it. The barber protested over and over again that he had read nothing; -but, two days after, he was found dead in his bed." - -And the fact that Saint-Mars had had the body of the prisoner buried in -a white cloth struck the imagination, and was developed in its turn into -an extraordinary taste on the part of the prisoner for linen of the -finest quality and for costly lace--all which was taken to prove that -the masked man was a son of Anne of Austria, who had a very special -love, it was declared, for valuable lace and fine linen. - -_A Brother of Louis XIV._--We are able to fix with precision, we -believe, the origin of the legend which made the Iron Mask a brother of -Louis XIV. Moreover, it was due to this suggestion, which was hinted at -from the first, that the story of the prisoner made so great a noise. -The glory of it belongs to the most famous writer of the eighteenth -century. With a boldness of imagination for which to-day he would be -envied by the cleverest journalistic inventor of sensational paragraphs, -Voltaire started this monstrous hoax on its vigorous flight. - -In 1745 there had just appeared a sort of romance entitled _Notes -towards the History of Persia_, which was attributed, not without some -reason, to Madame de Vieux-Maisons. The book contained a story within a -story, in which the mysterious prisoner, who was beginning to be talked -about everywhere, was identified with the Duke de Vermandois, and to -this fact was due the sensation which the book caused. Voltaire -immediately saw how he could turn the circumstance to account. He had -himself at one time been confined in the Bastille, which was one reason -for speaking of it; but he did not dare put in circulation suddenly, -without some preparation, the terrible story he had just conceived, and, -with a very delicate sensitiveness to public opinion, he contented -himself with printing the following paragraph in the first edition of -his _Age of Louis XIV._: "A few months after the death of Mazarin there -occurred an event which is unexampled in history, and, what is not less -strange, has been passed over in silence by all the historians. There -was sent with the utmost secrecy to the chateau of the Isle of -Sainte-Marguerite, in the Sea of Provence, an unknown prisoner, of more -than ordinary height, young, and with features of rare nobility and -beauty. On the way, this prisoner wore a mask the chinpiece of which was -fitted with springs of steel, which allowed him to eat freely with the -mask covering his face. The order had been given to kill him if he -uncovered. He remained in the island until an officer in whom great -confidence was placed, named Saint-Mars, governor of Pignerol, having -been made governor of the Bastille, came to the Isle of -Sainte-Marguerite to fetch him, and conducted him to the Bastille, -always masked. The Marquis de Louvois saw him in the island before his -removal, and remained standing while he spoke to him, with a -consideration savouring of respect." Voltaire, however, does not say who -this extraordinary prisoner was. He observed the impression produced on -the public by his story. Then he ventured more boldly, and in the first -edition of his _Questions on the Encyclopaedia_ insinuated that the -motive for covering the prisoner's face with a mask was fear lest some -too striking likeness should be recognized. He still refrained from -giving his name, but already everyone was on tip-toe with the -expectation of startling news. At last, in the second edition of -_Questions on the Encyclopaedia_, Voltaire intrepidly added that the man -in the mask was a uterine brother of Louis XIV., a son of Mazarin and -Anne of Austria, and older than the king. We know what incomparable -agitators of public opinion the Encyclopaedists were. - -Once hatched, the story was not long in producing a numerous progeny, -which grew in their turn and became a monstrous brood. - -We read in the _Memoirs_ of the Duke de Richelieu, compiled by his -secretary the Abbe Soulavie, that Mdlle. de Valois, the Regent's -daughter and at this date the mistress of Richelieu, consented, at the -instigation of the latter, to prostitute herself to her -father--tradition has it that the Regent was enamoured of his -daughter--in order to get sight of an account of the Iron Mask drawn up -by Saint-Mars. According to this story, which the author of the -_Memoirs_ prints in its entirety, Louis XIV. was born at noon, and at -half-past eight in the evening, while the king was at supper, the queen -was brought to bed of a second son, who was put out of sight so as to -avoid subsequent dissensions in the state. - -The Baron de Gleichen goes still farther. He is at the pains to prove -that it was the true heir to the throne who was put out of sight, to the -profit of a child of the queen and the cardinal. Having became masters -of the situation at the death of the king, they substituted their son -for the Dauphin, the substitution being facilitated by a strong likeness -between the children. One sees at a glance the consequences of this -theory, which nullifies the legitimacy of the last Bourbons. - -But the career of imagination was not yet to be checked. The legend came -into full bloom under the first empire. Pamphlets then appeared in which -the version of Baron de Gleichen was revived. Louis XIV. had been only a -bastard, the son of foreigners; the lawful heir had been imprisoned at -the Isles of Sainte-Marguerite, where he had married the daughter of one -of his keepers. Of this marriage was born a child who, as soon as he was -weaned, was sent to Corsica, and entrusted to a reliable person, as a -child coming of "good stock," in Italian, _Buona-parte_. Of that child -the Emperor was the direct descendant. The right of Napoleon I. to the -throne of France established by the Iron Mask!--there is a discovery -which the great Dumas missed. But, incredible as it seems, there were -men who actually took these fables seriously. In a Vendean manifesto -circulated among the Chouans,[39] in Nivose of the year IX,[40] we read: -"It is not wise for the Royalist party to rely on the assurances given -by some emissaries of Napoleon, that he seized the throne only to -restore the Bourbons; everything proves that he only awaits the general -pacification to declare himself, and that he means to base his right on -the birth of the children of the Iron Mask!" - -We shall not stay to refute the hypothesis which makes the Iron Mask a -brother of Louis XIV. Marius Topin has already done so in the clearest -possible manner. The notion, moreover, has long been abandoned. The last -writers who adhered to it date from the revolutionary period. - -_The Successive Incarnations of the Iron Mask._--"Never has an Indian -deity," says Paul de Saint-Victor, speaking of the Iron Mask, "undergone -so many metempsychoses and so many avatars." It would take too long -merely to enumerate all the individuals with whom it has been attempted -to identify the Iron Mask: even women have not escaped. We shall cite -rapidly the theories which have found most credence amongst the public, -or those which have been defended in the most serious works, in order to -arrive finally at the identification--as will be seen, it is one of -those proposed long ago--which is beyond doubt the true one. - -The hypothesis which, after that of a brother of Louis XIV., has most -powerfully excited public opinion, is that which made the mysterious -unknown Louis, Comte de Vermandois, admiral of France, and son of the -charming Louise de la Valliere. This was indeed the belief of Father -Griffet, chaplain of the Bastille, and even of the officers of the -staff. But the conjecture is disproved in a single line: "The Comte de -Vermandois died at Courtrai, on November 18, 1683." A precisely similar -fact refutes the theory identifying the Iron Mask with the Duke of -Monmouth, the natural son of Charles II. and Lucy Walters. Monmouth -perished on the scaffold in 1683. Lagrange-Chancel throws much ardour -and talent into a defence of the theory which made the Iron Mask Francis -of Vendome, Duke de Beaufort, who, under the Fronde, was called "King of -the Markets." The Duke de Beaufort died at the siege of Candia, June 25, -1669. - -To Lagrange-Chancel succeeds the Chevalier de Taules. "I have discovered -the Man in the Mask," he cries, "and it is my duty to impart my -discovery to Europe and posterity!" This discovery brings forward one -Avedick, an Armenian patriarch of Constantinople and Jerusalem, -kidnapped in the East at the instigation of the Jesuits, and transported -to France. Vergennes, on entering the ministry for foreign affairs, set -investigations on foot. They confirmed the statement that Avedick had -actually been arrested in the circumstances indicated, but after 1706; -and so he could not be identified with the Iron Mask. - -Such were the theories of the eighteenth century. We come now to those -of our own time. Since mystery and sinister machinations were involved, -the Jesuits could not be long left out of the business. We have just -seen them at their tricks with the Armenian patriarch. People dreamt of -an innocent youth thrown into a dungeon at their instigation for having -written a couple of verses against them. But even this fancy was -completely cast into the shade in a work published in 1885 under the -pseudonym of "Ubalde," the author of which was unquestionably M. Anatole -Loquin. This is his conclusion: "The more I reflect, the more I believe -I recognize in the Man in the Iron Mask, without any elaborate theory, -without prejudice on my part, no other than J. B. Poquelin de Moliere." -The Jesuits have got their revenge for _Tartufe_! - -Let us come now to the conjectures which have almost hit the truth and -have been defended by genuine scholars. - -Superintendent Fouquet is the solution of the bibliophile Jacob (Paul -Lacroix). M. Lair has shown that Fouquet died at Pignerol, of a sort of -apoplexy, on March 23, 1680, at the very moment when there was an idea -at court of sending him to the waters at Bourbon, as a first step -towards his final liberation. - -Francois Ravaisson, the learned and charming keeper of the Arsenal -library, whose work in classifying the archives of the Bastille we have -had the honour to continue, believed for a moment that the celebrated -prisoner might have been the young Count de Keroualze who had fought at -Candia under the orders of Admiral de Beaufort. Ravaisson put forth his -theory with much hesitation, and as, in the sequel, he was himself led -to abandon it, we need not dwell any longer upon it. - -M. Loiseleur, in the course of his brilliant controversy with Marius -Topin, suggested "an obscure spy arrested by Catinat in 1681," and his -opponent refuted him in the most piquant manner by discovering Catinat -in the very prisoner he was said to have arrested! - -General Jung published a large volume in support of the claims of a -certain Oldendorf, a native of Lorraine, a spy and poisoner, arrested on -March 29, 1673, in a trap laid for him at one of the passages of the -Somme. The theory was refuted by M. Loiseleur. As M. Lair pointed out, -General Jung did not even succeed in proving that his nominee entered -Pignerol, an essential condition to his being the Man in the Mask. - -Baron Carutti urged the claims of a mad Jacobin, a prisoner at Pignerol -whose name remains unknown; but this Jacobin died at Pignerol towards -the close of 1693.' - -The recent work of M. Emile Burgaud, written in collaboration with -Commandant Bazeries, made a great sensation. He fixes on General Vivien -Labbe de Bulonde, whom Louvois arrested for having shown dereliction of -a general's duty before Coni. M. Geoffroy de Grandmaison published in -the _Univers_ of January 9, 1895, two receipts signed by General de -Bulonde, one in 1699, when the masked man was in rigorous isolation at -the Bastille, the other in 1705, when he had been dead for two years. - -We come at last to the hypothesis which is the most probable of -all--after the true hypothesis, of course. Eustache Dauger, whom M. Lair -identifies with the masked prisoner, was a valet, who had been put into -jail at Pignerol on July 28, 1669. But it must be noted that the masked -prisoner was kept guarded in rigorous secrecy in the early days of his -detention, as long as he was at Pignerol and the Isles of -Sainte-Marguerite. Now, when Dauger went to Pignerol, his case seemed of -such slight importance that Saint-Mars thought of making him into a -servant for the other prisoners, and in fact, in 1675, Louvois gave him -as a valet to Fouquet, who for some time past had seen the rigour of his -confinement sensibly mitigated, receiving visits, walking freely in the -courts and purlieus of the fortress, Dauger accompanying him. Further, -we know that the masked man was transferred direct from Pignerol to the -Isles of Sainte-Marguerite, whilst Dauger was transferred in 1681 to -Exiles, whence he only went to the Isles in 1687. - -We now come to the correct solution. - - -3. MATTIOLI. - -To Baron Heiss, once captain in the Alsace regiment, and one of the most -distinguished bibliophiles of his time, belongs the honour of being the -first, in a letter dated from Phalsbourg, June 28, 1770, and published -by the _Journal encyclopedique_, to identify the masked prisoner with -Count Mattioli, secretary of state to the Duke of Mantua. After him, -Dutens, in 1783, in his _Intercepted Correspondence_; Baron de -Chambrier, in 1795, in a Memoir presented to the Academy of Berlin; -Roux-Fazillac, member of the Legislative Assembly and the Convention, in -a remarkable work printed in 1801; then successively, Reth, Delort, -Ellis, Carlo Botta, Armand Baschet, Marius Topin, Paul de Saint-Victor, -and M. Gallien, in a series of publications more or less important, -endeavoured to prove that the Man in the Mask was the Duke of Mantua's -secretary of state. The scholars most intimate with the history of Louis -XIV.'s government, Depping, Cheruel, Camille Rousset, have not hesitated -to pronounce in favour of the same view; while against them, -singlehanded like his D'Artagnan, Alexandre Dumas resisted the efforts -of twenty scholars, and the _Vicomte de Bragelonne_--giving a new lease -of life to the legend about the brother of Louis XIV., put in -circulation by Voltaire, and reinforced by the Revolution--drove back -into their dust among the archives the documents which students had -exhumed. - -We have no longer to deal with so formidable an adversary, and we hope -that the following pages will not leave the shadow of a doubt. - -We know how, under the influence of Louvois, the able and insinuating -policy directed first by Mazarin, then by Lionne, gave way to a military -diplomacy, blunt and aggressive. Louis XIV. was master of Pignerol, -acquired in 1632. He was induced by Louvois to cast covetous glances at -Casal. In possession of these two places, the French armies could not -but dominate Upper Italy, and hold the court of Turin directly at their -mercy. The throne of Mantua was then occupied by a young duke, Charles -IV. of Gonzago, frivolous, happy-go-lucky, dissipating his wealth at -Venice in fetes and pleasures. In 1677 he had pledged to the Jews the -crown revenues for several years. Charles IV. was also Marquis of -Montferrat, of which Casal was the capital. Noting with watchful eye the -frivolity and financial straits of the young prince, the court of -Versailles conceived the bold scheme of buying Casal for hard cash. - -At this date, one of the principal personages in Mantua was Count -Hercules Antony Mattioli. He was born at Bologna on December 1, 1640, of -a distinguished family. A brilliant student, he had barely passed his -twentieth year when he was elected a professor at the University of -Bologna. Afterwards he established himself at Mantua, where Charles -III., whose confidence he had won, made him his secretary of state. -Charles IV., continuing the favour of his father, not only maintained -Mattioli in his office as minister of state, but appointed him an -honorary senator, a dignity which was enhanced by the title of Count. - -Louis XIV. was employing at the capital of the Venetian republic a -keen-witted and enterprising ambassador, the Abbe d'Estrades. He saw -through the ambitious and intriguing nature of Mattioli, and, towards -the end of 1677, succeeded in winning over his support for the designs -of the French court on Casal. - -On January 12, 1678, Louis XIV. with his own hand wrote expressing his -thanks to Mattioli, who by-and-by came to Paris. On December 8, the -contract was signed, the Duke of Mantua receiving in exchange for Casal -100,000 crowns. In a private audience, Louis XIV. presented Mattioli -with a costly diamond and paid him the sum of a hundred double louis. - -Scarcely two months after Mattioli's journey to France, the courts of -Vienna, Madrid, Turin, and the Venetian Republic were simultaneously -informed of all that had taken place. In order to reap a double harvest -of gold, Mattioli had cynically betrayed both his master Charles IV. and -the King of France. Like a thunderbolt there came to Versailles the news -of the arrest of Baron d'Asfeld, the envoy appointed by Louis XIV. to -exchange ratifications with Mattioli. The governor of Milan had caused -him to be seized and handed over to the Spaniards. The rage of Louis -XIV. and of Louvois, who had urged the opening of negotiations, taken -an active part in them, and begun preparations for the occupation of -Casal, may well be imagined. The Abbe d'Estrades, not less irritated, -conceived a scheme of the most daring kind, proposing to Versailles -nothing less than the abduction of the Mantuan minister. But Louis XIV. -was determined to have no scandal. Catinat was charged with carrying out -the scheme in person. The Abbe d'Estrades, in his dealings with -Mattioli, feigned ignorance of the double game the Count was playing. He -led him to believe, on the contrary, that the balance of the sums -promised at Versailles was about to be paid. A meeting was fixed for May -2, 1679. On that day d'Estrades and Mattioli got into a carriage, the -passing of which was awaited by Catinat accompanied by some dozen men. -At two o'clock in the afternoon, Mattioli was in the fortress of -Pignerol, in the hands of jailer Saint-Mars. When we remember the rank -held by the Italian minister, we are confronted with one of the most -audacious violations of international law of which history has preserved -a record. - -Early in the year 1694, Mattioli was transferred to the Isles of -Sainte-Marguerite; we have seen that he entered the Bastille on -September 18, 1698, and died there on November 19, 1703. - -The details that we possess of the imprisonment of Mattioli at Pignerol -and afterwards at the Isles of Sainte-Marguerite show that he was at the -outset treated with the consideration due to his rank and to the -position he occupied at the time of his arrest. Eventually the respect -which the prisoner had at first inspired gradually diminished: as years -went on the attentions shown him grew less and less until the day when, -at the Bastille, he was given a room in common with persons of the -basest class. On the other hand, the rigour of his confinement, so far -as the secrecy in which he was kept was concerned, was more and more -relaxed; what it was material to conceal was the circumstances under -which Mattioli had been arrested, and with the lapse of time this secret -continually diminished in importance. As to the mask of black velvet -which Mattioli had among his possessions when he was arrested, and which -he put on, without a doubt, only for the occasion, this in reality -constituted a relief to his captivity, for it permitted the prisoner to -leave his room, while the other state prisoners were rigorously mewed up -in theirs. - - * * * * * - -It remains to prove that the masked prisoner was really Mattioli. - -1. In the despatch sent by Louis XIV. to the Abbe d'Estrades five days -before the arrest, the king approves the scheme of his ambassador and -authorizes him to secure Mattioli, "since you believe you can get him -carried off without the affair giving rise to any scandal." The prisoner -is to be conducted to Pignerol, where "instructions are being sent to -receive him and keep him there without anybody having knowledge of it." -The king's orders close with these words: "You must see to it that no -one knows what becomes of this man." The capture effected, Catinat wrote -on his part to Louvois: "It came off without any violence, and no one -knows the name of the knave, not even the officers who helped to arrest -him." Finally, we have a very curious pamphlet entitled _La Prudenza -triomfante di Casale_, written in 1682, that is, little more than two -years after the event, and--this slight detail is of capital -importance--thirty years before there was any talk of the Man in the -Mask. In this we read: "The secretary (Mattioli) was surrounded by ten -or twelve horsemen, who seized him, disguised him, _masked_ him, and -conducted him to Pignerol"--a fact, moreover, confirmed by a tradition -which in the eighteenth century was still rife in the district, where -scholars succeeded in culling it. - -Is there any need to insist on the strength of the proofs afforded by -these three documents, taken in connection one with another? - -2. We know, from du Junca's register, that the masked man was shut up at -Pignerol under the charge of Saint-Mars. In 1681, Saint-Mars gave up the -governorship of Pignerol for that of Exiles. We can determine with -absolute precision the number of prisoners Saint-Mars had then in his -keeping. It was exactly five. A dispatch from Louvois, dated June 9, is -very clear. In the first paragraph, he orders "the two prisoners in the -lower tower" to be removed; in the second, he adds: "The rest of the -prisoners in your charge." Here there is a clear indication of the -"rest": what follows settles the number: "The Sieur du Chamoy has orders -to pay two crowns a day for the board of these _three_ prisoners." This -account, as clear as arithmetic can make it, is further confirmed by the -letter addressed by Saint-Mars to the Abbe d'Estrades on June 25, 1681, -when he was setting out for Exiles: "I received yesterday the warrant -appointing me governor of Exiles: I am to keep charge of two jailbirds I -have here, who have no other name than 'the gentlemen of the lower -tower'; Mattioli will remain here with two other prisoners." - -The prisoners, then, were five in number, and the masked man is to be -found, of necessity, among them. Now we know who these five were: (1) a -certain La Riviere, who died at the end of December, 1686; (2) a -Jacobin, out of his mind, who died at the end of 1693; (3) a certain -Dubreuil, who died at the Isles of Sainte-Marguerite about 1697. There -remain Dauger and Mattioli. The Man in the Mask is, without possible -dispute, the one or the other. We have explained above the reasons which -lead us to discard Dauger. The mysterious prisoner, then, was Mattioli. -The proof is mathematically exact. - -[Illustration: - - Burial certificate of the masked prisoner (November 20, 1703), - reproduced from the facsimile in the sixth edition of _The Man in - the Iron Mask_, by Marius Topin, 1883. The original, in the city - archives of Paris, was destroyed in the conflagration of 1871. -] - -3. Opposite this page will be found a facsimile reproduction of the -death certificate of the masked prisoner as inscribed on the registers -of the church of St. Paul. It is the very name of the Duke of Mantua's -former secretary that is traced there: "Marchioly." It must be -remembered that "Marchioly" would be pronounced in Italian "Markioly," -and that Saint-Mars, governor of the Bastille, who furnished the -information on which the certificate was drawn up, almost always wrote -in his correspondence--a characteristic detail--not "Mattioli," but -"Martioly": that is the very name on the register, less distorted than -the name of the major of the Bastille, who was called "Rosarges," and -not "Rosage," as given on the register; and the name of the surgeon, who -was called "Reilhe," and not "Reglhe." - -It has been shown above how, as time went on, the rigorous seclusion to -which the masked prisoner had been condemned was relaxed. What it had -been thought necessary to conceal was the manner in which Mattioli had -been captured, and with time that secret itself had lost its importance. -As the Duke of Mantua had declared himself very well pleased with the -arrest of the minister by whom he, no less than Louis XIV., had been -deceived, there was nothing to prevent the name from being inscribed on -a register of death, where, moreover, no one would ever have thought of -looking for it. - -Let us add that, in consequence of error or carelessness on the part of -the officer who supplied the information for the register, or perhaps on -the part of the parson or beadle who wrote it, the age is stated -incorrectly, "forty-five years or thereabouts," while Mattioli was -sixty-three when he died. However, the register was filled up without -the least care, as a formality of no importance. - -4. The Duke de Choiseul pressed Louis XV. to reveal to him the clue to -the enigma. The king escaped with an evasion. One day, however, he said -to him: "If you knew all about it, you would see that it has very little -interest;" and some time after, when Madame de Pompadour, at de -Choiseul's instigation, pressed the king on the subject, he told her -that the prisoner was "the minister of an Italian prince." - -In the _Memoirs of the Private Life of Marie Antoinette_ by her -principal lady in waiting, Madame de Campan, we read that the queen -tormented Louis XVI., who did not know the secret, to have a search made -among the papers of the various ministries. "I was with the queen," says -Madame de Campan, "when the king, having finished his researches, told -her that he had found nothing in the secret papers which had any bearing -on the existence of this prisoner; that he had spoken on the subject to -M. de Maurepas, whose age brought him nearer the time when the whole -story must have been known to the ministers (Maurepas had been minister -of the king's household as a very young man, in the early years of the -eighteenth century, having the department of the _lettres de cachet_), -and that M. de Maurepas had assured him that the prisoner was simply a -man of a very dangerous character through his intriguing spirit, and a -subject of the Duke of Mantua. He was lured to the frontier, arrested, -and kept a prisoner, at first at Pignerol, then at the Bastille." - -These two pieces of evidence are of such weight that they alone would -be sufficient to fix the truth. When they were written, there was no -talk of Mattioli, of whose very name Madame de Campan was ignorant. -Supposing that Madame de Campan had amused herself by inventing a -fable--an absurd and improbable supposition, for what reason could she -have had for so doing?--it is impossible to admit that her imagination -could have hit upon fancies so absolutely in accord with facts.[41] - -And so the problem is solved. The legend, which had reared itself even -as high as the throne of France, topples down. The satisfaction of the -historian springs from his reflection that all serious historical works -for more than a century, resting on far-reaching researches and -eschewing all preoccupations foreign to science--such, for example, as -the desire of attaining a result different from the solutions proposed -by one's predecessors--have arrived at the same conclusion, which proves -to be the correct solution. Heiss, Baron de Chambrier, Reth, -Roux-Fazillac, Delort, Carlo Botta, Armand Baschet, Marius Topin, Paul -de Saint-Victor, Camille Rousset, Cheruel, Depping, have not hesitated -to place under the famous mask of black velvet the features of -Mattioli. But at each new effort made by science, legend throws itself -once more into the fray, gaining new activity from the passions produced -by the Revolution. - -The truth, in history, sometimes suggests to our mind's eye those white -or yellow flowers which float on the water among broad flat leaves; a -breeze springs up, a wave rises and submerges them, they disappear; but -only for a moment: then they come to the surface again. - - - - -CHAPTER V. - -MEN OF LETTERS IN THE BASTILLE. - - -Speaking of men of letters in France under the _ancien regime_, Michelet -calls them "the martyrs of thought"; he adds: "The world thinks, France -speaks. And that is precisely why the Bastille of France, the Bastille -of Paris--I would rather say, the prison-house of thought--was, among -all bastilles, execrable, infamous, and accursed." In the course of the -article devoted to the Bastille in the _Grande Encyclopedie_, M. Fernand -Bournon writes: "After Louis XIV. and throughout the eighteenth century, -the Bastille was especially employed to repress, though it could not -stifle, that generous and majestic movement (the glory of the human -spirit) towards ideas of emancipation and enfranchisement; it was the -epoch when philosophers, publicists, pamphleteers, the very booksellers, -were imprisoned there in large numbers." And to substantiate this -eloquent apostrophe, M. Bournon cites the names of Voltaire, La -Beaumelle, the Abbe Morellet, Marmontel, and Linguet, imprisoned in the -Bastille; and of Diderot and the Marquis de Mirabeau placed in the -chateau of Vincennes. - -Let us recall the story of these poor victims in turn, and trace the -history of their martyrdom. - - -VOLTAIRE. - -The most illustrious and the earliest in date of the writers mentioned -by M. Bournon is Voltaire. He was sent to the Bastille on two different -occasions. His first imprisonment began on May 17, 1717. At that date -the poet was only twenty-two years of age and of no reputation; he did -not even bear the name of Voltaire, which he only took after his -discharge from the Bastille on April 14, 1718. The cause of his -detention was not "the generous and majestic movement towards ideas of -enfranchisement which is the glory of the human spirit," but some -scurrilities which, to speak plainly, brought him what he deserved: -coarse verses against the Regent and his daughter, and public utterances -coarser still. Many authors state that Voltaire was imprisoned for -writing the _J'ai vu_, a satire against the government of Louis XIV., -each stanza of which ended with the line:-- - - J'ai vu ces maux, et je n'ai pas vingt ans.[42] - -This is a mistake. Voltaire was imprisoned for having written the _Puero -regnante_, some verses on the Regent and his daughter, the Duchess of -Berry, which it would be impossible to translate. To these he added -observations whose reproduction would be equally impossible. At the -Bastille Voltaire underwent examinations in the usual way, in the course -of which he lied with impudence; after that he was allowed considerable -liberty. "It was at the Bastille," wrote Condorcet, "that the young poet -made the first draft of his poem _La Ligue_, corrected his tragedy of -_OEdipe_, and composed some very lively lines on the ill-luck of being -there." - -The following are the most respectable lines of this production:-- - - So one fine faultless morning in the spring, - When Whitsun splendour brighten'd everything, - A strange commotion startled me from sleep. - - * * * * * - - At last I reach'd my chamber in the keep. - A clownish turnkey, with an unctuous smile, - Of my new lodging 'gan to praise the style: - "What ease, what charms, what comforts here are yours! - For never Phoebus in his daily course - Will blind you here with his too brilliant rays; - Within these ten-foot walls you'll spend your days - In cool sequester'd blithefulness always." - Then bidding me admire my cloistral cell-- - The triple doors, the triple locks as well, - The bolts, the bars, the gratings all around-- - "'Tis but," says he, "to keep you safe and sound!" - - * * * * * - - Behold me, then, lodged in this woful place, - Cribb'd, cabin'd, and confined in narrow space; - Sleepless by night, and starving half the day; - No joys, no friend, no mistress--wellaway![43] - -When Voltaire was set at liberty, the Regent, whom, as we have just -said, he had reviled, made him a very handsome offer of his protection. -The poet's reply is well known: "My lord, I thank your royal highness -for being so good as to continue to charge yourself with my board, but -I beseech you no longer to charge yourself with my lodging." The young -writer thus obtained from the Regent a pension of 400 crowns, which -later on the latter augmented to 2000 livres. - -Voltaire was sent to the Bastille a second time in April, 1726. For this -new detention there was no justification whatever. He had had a violent -quarrel, one evening at the Opera, with the Chevalier de Rohan-Chabot. -On another occasion, at the Comedie Francaise, the poet and the nobleman -had a warm altercation in the box of Mdlle. Lecouvreur. Rohan raised his -stick, Voltaire put his hand on his sword, and the actress fainted. Some -days later "the gallant chevalier, assisted by half a dozen ruffians, -behind whom he courageously posted himself," gave our poet a thrashing -in broad daylight. When relating the adventure later, the Chevalier said -pleasantly: "I commanded the squad." From that moment Voltaire sought -his revenge. "The police reports reveal curious details of the loose, -erratic, and feverish life he lived between the insult and his arrest," -writes the careful biographer of Voltaire, Desnoiresterres. From one of -these police reports we see that the young writer established relations -with soldiers of the guard: several notorious bullies were constantly -about him. A relative who attempted to calm him found him more irritated -and violent in his language than ever. It appears certain that he was -meditating some act of violence, which indeed would not have been -without justification. But the Cardinal de Rohan contrived that he -should be arrested on the night of April 17, 1726, and placed in the -Bastille. - -Speaking of this new imprisonment Marshal de Villars writes: "The -public, disposed to find fault all round, came to the conclusion on this -occasion that everybody was in the wrong: Voltaire for having offended -the Chevalier de Rohan, the latter for having dared to commit a capital -offence in causing a citizen to be beaten, the government for not having -punished a notorious crime, and for having sent the injured party to the -Bastille to pacify the injurer." Nevertheless, we read in the report of -Herault, the lieutenant of police: "The Sieur de Voltaire was found -armed with pocket pistols, and his family, when informed of the matter, -unanimously and universally applauded the wisdom of an order which saves -this young man the ill effects of some new piece of folly and the worthy -people who compose his family the vexation of sharing his shame." - -Voltaire remained at the Bastille for _twelve days_: he was permitted to -have a servant of his own choice to wait on him, who was boarded at the -king's expense; as for himself, he took his meals whenever he pleased at -the governor's table, going out of the Bastille, as the governor's -residence stood outside the prison. Relatives and friends came to see -him; his friend Thieriot dined with him; he was given pens, paper, -books, whatever he desired in order to divert himself. "Using and -abusing these opportunities," writes Desnoiresterres, "Voltaire believed -that he could give audience to all Paris. He wrote to those of his -friends who had not yet shown a sense of their duty, exhorting them to -give him proof they were alive." "I have been accustomed to all -misfortunes," he wrote to Thieriot, "but not yet to that of being -utterly abandoned by you. Madame de Bernieres, Madame du Deffand, the -Chevalier des Alleurs really ought to come and see me. They only have to -ask permission of M. Herault or M. de Maurepas." At the time of the -poet's entrance to the Bastille, the lieutenant of police had written to -the governor: "The Sieur de Voltaire is of a _genius_ that requires -humouring. His Serene Highness has approved of my writing to tell you -that the king's intention is that you should secure for him mild -treatment and the internal liberty of the Bastille, so far as these do -not jeopardize the security of his detention." The warrant setting him -at liberty was signed on April 26. - - -LA BEAUMELLE. - -In M. Bournon's list La Beaumelle comes second. The circumstances under -which he was put into the Bastille were as follows. After having fallen -out at Berlin with Voltaire, whom he had compared to a monkey, La -Beaumelle returned to Paris, whence he had been exiled. There he got -printed a new edition of Voltaire's _Age of Louis XIV._, unknown to the -author, and interpolated therein odes insulting to the house of Orleans. -"La Beaumelle," exclaimed Voltaire, "is the first who dared to print -another man's work in his lifetime. This miserable Erostrates of the -_Age of Louis XIV._ has discovered the secret of changing into an -infamous libel, for fifteen ducats, a work undertaken for the glory of -the nation." - -La Beaumelle became an inmate of the Bastille in April, 1753, and -remained there for six months. Writing on May 18, 1753, to M. Roques, -Voltaire said that "there was scarcely any country where he would not -inevitably have been punished sooner or later, and I know from a certain -source that there are two courts where they would have inflicted a -chastisement more signal than that which he is undergoing here." - -It was not long before La Beaumelle issued his edition of _Notes towards -the History of Madame de Maintenon and that of the past century_, with -nine volumes of correspondence. He had fabricated letters which he -attributed to Madame de Saint-Geran and Madame de Frontenac, and -published a correspondence of Madame de Maintenon which M. Geffroy, in a -work recognized as authoritative, regards as full of barefaced -falsehoods and foul and scurrilous inventions. He had inserted in his -work the following phrase: "The court of Vienna has been long accused of -having poisoners always in its pay." - -It must be observed that La Beaumelle's publication owed its great vogue -to special circumstances. The author's reputation abroad, the very title -of the book, lent it great importance; and France, then engaged in the -Seven Years' War, found it necessary to keep in Austria's good graces. -La Beaumelle was conveyed to the Bastille a second time. The lieutenant -of police, Berryer, put him through the usual examination. La Beaumelle -was a man of the world, so witty that in the course of their quarrels he -drove Voltaire himself to despair. He showed himself such in his -examination. "La Beaumelle," said Berryer to him, "this is wit you are -giving me when what I ask of you is plain sense." On his expressing a -wish for a companion, he was placed with the Abbe d'Estrades. The -officers of the chateau had all his manuscripts brought from his house, -so that he might continue his literary work. He had at the Bastille a -library of 600 volumes, ranged on shelves which the governor ordered to -be made for him. He there finished a translation of the _Annals_ of -Tacitus and the _Odes_ of Horace. He had permission to write to his -relatives and friends, and to receive visits from them; he had the -liberty of walking in the castle garden, of breeding birds in his room, -and of having brought from outside all the luxuries to which he was -partial. The principal secretary of the lieutenant of police, Duval, -reports the following incident: "Danry (the famous Latude) and Allegre -(his companion in confinement and ere long in escape) found means to -open a correspondence with all the prisoners in the Bastille. They -lifted a stone in a closet of the chapel, and put their letters -underneath it. La Beaumelle pretended to be a woman in his letters to -Allegre, and as he was a man of parts and Allegre was of keen -sensibility and an excellent writer, the latter fell madly in love with -La Beaumelle, to such a degree that, though they mutually agreed to -burn their letters, Allegre preserved those of his fancied mistress, -which he had not the heart to give to the flames; with the result that, -the letters being discovered at an inspection of his room, he was put in -the cells for some time. The prisoner amused himself also by composing -verses which he recited at the top of his voice. This gave much concern -to the officers of the garrison, and Chevalier, the major, wrote to the -lieutenant of police on the matter: "The Sieur de la Beaumelle seems to -have gone clean out of his mind; he seems to be a maniac; he amuses -himself by declaiming verses in his room for a part of the day: for the -rest of the time he is quiet." - -This second detention lasted from August, 1756, till August, 1757. - - -THE ABBE MORELLET. - -We come to the Abbe Morellet, a man of fine and fascinating mind, one of -the best of the Encyclopaedists, who died in 1819 a member of the -Institute and the object of general esteem. He was arrested on June 11, -1760, for having had printed and distributed, without privilege or -permission, a pamphlet entitled: _Preface to the Philosophers' Comedy; -or, the Vision of Charles Palissot_.[44] These are the terms in which, -later on, Morellet himself judged his pamphlet: "I must here make my -confession. In this work, I went far beyond the limits of a literary -pleasantry regarding the Sieur Palissot, and to-day I am not without -remorse for my fault." And further, as J. J. Rousseau, in whose favour -the pamphlet had been in part composed, had to acknowledge, the Abbe -"very impudently" insulted a young and pretty woman, Madame de Robecq, -who was dying of decline, spitting blood, and did actually die a few -days later. - -The arrest of Morellet was demanded by Malesherbes, then censor of the -press, one of the most generous and liberal spirits of the time, the -inspirer of the famous remonstrances of the Court of Taxation against -_lettres de cachet_--the man who, as M. H. Monin testifies, "being -elected censor of the press, protected philosophers and men of letters, -and by his personal efforts facilitated the publication of the -_Encyclopaedia_." Speaking of the _Preface to the Comedy_, Malesherbes -writes to Gabriel de Sartine, lieutenant-general of police: "It is an -outrageous pamphlet, not only against Palissot, but against respectable -persons whose very condition should shelter them against such insults. I -beg you, sir, to be good enough to put a stop to this scandal. I believe -it to be a matter of public importance that the punishment should be -very severe, and that this punishment should not stop at the Bastille or -the For-l'Eveque,[45] because a very wide distinction must be drawn -between the delinquencies of men of letters tearing each other to -pieces and the insolence of those who attack persons of the highest -consideration in the State. I do not think that Bicetre would be too -severe for these last. If you have to ask M. de Saint-Florentin for the -royal authority for your proceedings, I hope you will be good enough to -inform him of the request I am making." - -It will be observed that, on Malesherbes' showing, the Bastille would -not suffice to punish the _Preface to the Comedy_, nor even the -For-l'Eveque; he asks for the most stringent of the prisons, Bicetre. -Before long, it is true, this excellent man returned to milder -sentiments. An imprisonment at Bicetre, he wrote, would be infamous. -Saint-Florentin and Sartine were not hard to convince. Morellet was -taken to the Bastille. "The warrant for his arrest," wrote one of his -agents to Malesherbes, "was executed this morning by Inspector D'Hemery -with all the amenities possible in so unpleasant a business. D'Hemery -knows the Abbe Morellet, and has spoken of him to M. de Sartine in the -most favourable terms." - -When he entered the Bastille the Abbe calculated that his imprisonment -would last six months, and after acknowledging that he at that time -viewed his detention without great distress, he adds: "I am bound to -say, to lower the too high opinion that may be formed of me and my -courage, that I was marvellously sustained by a thought which rendered -my little virtue more easy. I saw some literary glory illumining the -walls of my prison; persecuted, I must be better known. The men of -letters whom I had avenged, and the philosophy for which I was a -martyr, would lay the foundation of my reputation. The men of the world, -who love satire, would receive me better than ever. A career was opening -before me, and I should be able to pursue it at greater advantage. These -six months at the Bastille would be an excellent recommendation, and -would infallibly make my fortune." - -The Abbe remained at the Bastille, not six months, but six weeks, "which -slipped away," he observes "--I chuckle still as I think of them--very -pleasantly for me." He spent his time in reading romances, and, with -admirable humour, in writing a _Treatise on the Liberty of the Press_. -Afterwards the good Abbe informs us that the hopes which he had indulged -were not deceived. On issuing from the Bastille he was a made man. -Little known two months before, he now met everywhere with the reception -he desired. The doors of the salons of Madame de Boufflers, Madame -Necker, the Baron d'Holbach, flew open before him; women pitied him and -admired him, and men followed their example. Why have we not to-day a -Bastille to facilitate the career of writers of talent! - - -MARMONTEL. - -To Marmontel his stay at the royal prison appeared as pleasant as the -Abbe Morellet had found his. He had amused himself by reciting at Madame -Geoffrin's a mordant satire in which the Duke d'Aumont, first groom of -the stole to the king, was cruelly hit. The duke expostulated; -Marmontel wrote to him declaring that he was not the author of the -satire; but the nobleman stood his ground. - -"I am helpless," said the Count de Saint-Florentin, who countersigned -the _lettre de cachet_, to Marmontel; "the Duke d'Aumont accuses you, -and is determined to have you punished. It is a satisfaction he demands -in recompense for his services and the services of his ancestors. The -king has been pleased to grant him his wish. So you will go and find M. -de Sartine; I am addressing to him the king's order; you will tell him -that it was from my hand you received it." - -"I went to find M. de Sartine," writes Marmontel, "and I found with him -the police officer who was to accompany me. M. de Sartine was intending -that he should go to the Bastille in a separate carriage; but I myself -declined this obliging offer, and we arrived at the Bastille, my -introducer and myself, in the same hack.... The governor, M. d'Abadie, -asked me if I wished my servant to be left with me.... They made a -cursory inspection of my packets and books, and then sent me up to a -large room furnished with two beds, two tables, a low cupboard, and -three cane chairs. It was cold, but a jailer made us a good fire and -brought me wood in abundance. At the same time they gave me pens, ink, -and paper, on condition of my accounting for the use I made of them and -the number of sheets they allowed me. - -"The jailer came back to ask if I was satisfied with my bed. After -examining it I replied that the mattresses were bad and the coverlets -dirty. In a minute all was changed. They sent to ask me what was my -dinner hour. I replied, 'The same as everybody's.' The Bastille had a -library: the governor sent me the catalogue, giving me free choice among -the books. I merely thanked him for myself, but my servant asked for the -romances of Prevost, and they were brought to him." - -Let us go on with Marmontel's story. "For my part," he says, "I had the -means of escape from ennui. Having been for a long time impatient of the -contempt shown by men of letters for Lucan's poem, which they had not -read, and only knew in the barbarous fustian of Brebeuf's version, I had -resolved to translate it more becomingly and faithfully into prose; and -this work, which would occupy me without fatiguing my brain, was the -best possible employment for the solitary leisure of my prison. So I had -brought the _Pharsalia_ with me, and, to understand it the better, I had -been careful to bring with it the _Commentaries_ of Caesar. Behold me -then at the corner of a good fire, pondering the quarrel of Caesar and -Pompey, and forgetting my own with the Duke d'Aumont. And there was Bury -too (Marmontel's servant) as philosophical as myself, amusing himself by -making our beds placed at two opposite corners of my room, which was at -this moment lit up by the beams of a fine winter sun, in spite of the -bars of two strong iron gratings which permitted me a view of the Suburb -Saint-Antoine. - -"Two hours later, the noise of the bolts of the two doors which shut me -in startled me from my profound musings, and the two jailers, loaded -with a dinner I believed to be mine, came in and served it in silence. -One put down in front of the fire three little dishes covered with -plates of common earthenware; the other laid on that one of the two -tables which was clear a tablecloth rather coarse, indeed, but white. I -saw him place on the table a very fair set of things, a pewter spoon and -fork, good household bread, and a bottle of wine. Their duty done, the -jailers retired, and the two doors were shut again with the same noise -of locks and bolts. - -"Then Bury invited me to take my place, and served my soup. It was a -Friday. The soup, made without meat, was a _puree_ of white beans, with -the freshest butter, and a dish of the same beans was the first that -Bury served me with. I found all this excellent. The dish of cod he gave -me for second course was better still. It was served with a dash of -garlic, which gave it a delicacy of taste and odour which would have -flattered the taste of the daintiest Gascon. The wine was not -first-rate, but passable; no sweets: of course one must expect to be -deprived of something. On the whole, I thought that dinner in prison was -not half bad. - -"As I was rising from table, and Bury was about to sit down--for there -was enough for his dinner in what was left--lo and behold! in came my -two jailers again, with pyramids of dishes in their hands. At this -display of fine linen, fine china-ware, spoon and fork of silver, we -recognized our mistake; but we made not the ghost of a sign, and when -our jailers, having laid down their burden, had retired, 'Sir,' said -Bury, 'you have just eaten my dinner, you will quite agree to my having -my turn and eating yours.' 'That's fair,' I replied, and the walls of my -room were astonished, I fancy, at the sound of laughter. - -"This dinner was not vegetarian; here are the details: an excellent -soup, a juicy beef-steak, a boiled capon's leg streaming with gravy and -melting in one's mouth, a little dish of artichokes fried in pickle, a -dish of spinach, a very fine William pear, fresh-cut grapes, a bottle of -old burgundy, and best Mocha coffee; this was Bury's dinner, with the -exception of the coffee and the fruit, which he insisted on reserving -for me. - -"After dinner the governor came to see me, and asked me if I found the -fare sufficient, assuring me that I should be served from his table, -that he would take care to cut my portions himself, and that no one -should touch my food but himself. He suggested a fowl for my supper; I -thanked him and told him that what was left of the fruit from my dinner -would suffice. The reader has just seen what my ordinary fare was at the -Bastille, and from this he may infer with what mildness, or rather -reluctance, they brought themselves to visit on me the wrath of the Duke -d'Aumont. - -"Every day I had a visit from the governor. As he had some smack of -literature and even of Latin, he took some interest in following my -work, in fact, enjoyed it; but soon, tearing himself away from these -little dissipations, he said, 'Adieu, I am going to console men who are -more unfortunate than you.'" - -Such was the imprisonment of Marmontel. It lasted for eleven days. - - -LINGUET. - -Linguet, advocate and journalist, was arrested for a breach of the press -laws and for slander. He was a man of considerable ability, but little -character. Attorney-general Cruppi has devoted to the story of Linguet a -work as extensive as it is eloquent. He has a wealth of indulgence for -his hero; yet, despite the goodwill he shows for him and endeavours to -impart to the reader, his book reveals between the lines that Linguet -was worthy of little esteem, and that his professional brethren were -justified in removing his name from the roll of the advocates of Paris. - -Linguet's captivity lasted for two years. He has left a description of -it in his _Memoirs on the Bastille_, which made a great noise, and of -which the success has endured down to our own day. His book, like -everything which came from his pen, is written in a fluent style, with -spirit and brilliance; the facts cited are for the most part correct, -but the author, aiming at making a sensation, has cleverly presented -them in a light which distorts their real character. "There are means," -says Madame de Staal, "of so distributing light and shade on the facts -one is exhibiting, as to alter their appearance without altering the -groundwork." Take, for instance, the description that Linguet gives of -his belongings while in the Bastille: "Two worm-eaten mattresses, a cane -chair the seat of which was only held to it by strings, a folding table, -a jug for water, two earthenware pots, one of them for drinking, and two -stone slabs to make a fire on." A contemporary could say of Linguet's -_Memoirs_, "It is the longest lie that ever was printed." And yet, if we -take the facts themselves which are related by the clever journalist, -and disengage them from the deceitful mirage in which he has enwrapped -them, we do not see that his life in the Bastille was so wretched as he -endeavours to make us believe. He is forced to acknowledge that his food -was always most abundant, adding, it is true, that that was because they -wished to poison him! He owed his life, he is convinced, "only to the -obstinate tenacity of his constitution." He marked, nevertheless, on the -menu for the day, which was sent up every morning by the Bastille cook, -the dishes he fancied; and later on he had his room furnished after his -own heart. He still enjoyed, moreover, enough liberty to write during -his imprisonment a work entitled, _The Trials of Three Kings, Louis -XVI., Charles III., and George III._, which appeared in London in 1781. -Let us recall once more the famous saying of Linguet to the wig-maker of -the Bastille on the first day that he presented himself to trim the -prisoner's beard: "To whom have I the honour of speaking?" "I am, sir, -the barber to the Bastille." "Gad, then, why don't you raze it?" - -In June, 1792, some years after his liberation, Linguet was prosecuted a -second time for breach of the press laws. The revolutionary tribunal -condemned him to death. As he mounted the steps of the scaffold, the -ardent pamphleteer thought, mayhap, with bitterly ironical regret, of -that Bastille whose destruction he had so clamorously demanded. - - -DIDEROT. - -We have still to speak of Diderot and the Marquis de Mirabeau, who were -not incarcerated at the Bastille, but at Vincennes, not in the castle -keep, but in the chateau itself, which constituted a separate place of -imprisonment. They placed in the chateau only prisoners guilty of minor -offences, who were sentenced to a temporary detention, and to whom they -wished to show some consideration. This was, as we have just said, the -abode of Diderot and the Marquis de Mirabeau. Diderot was arrested on -July 24, 1749. His last book, _Letters on the Blind for the Use of those -Who Can See_, contained theories which appeared to have but little title -to the description of "moral." But in the course of his examination he -stoutly denied that he was its author, as also he denied the authorship -of the _Thoughts of a Philosopher_ he had published some years before. -The lieutenant of police gave instructions to the governor of Vincennes -that, short of being set at liberty, Diderot was to be granted all -possible comforts--allowed to walk in the garden and park; "that the -king's desire was, in consideration of the literary work on which he was -engaged (the _Encyclopaedia_), to permit him to communicate freely with -persons from without who might come for that purpose or on family -business." And so Diderot received a visit from his wife and walked with -her in the wood; Rousseau and D'Alembert spent their afternoons with -him, and, as in the "good old days" of Plato and Socrates, our -philosophers chatted of metaphysics and love, seated on the green grass -under the shade of mighty oaks. The booksellers and printers who had -undertaken the publication of the _Encyclopaedia_ were, as we have seen, -in constant communication with Diderot at Vincennes; he corrected in -prison the proofs of the publication, which the court looked on with no -favourable eye. And we know, too, that at night, with the secret -complicity of the governor, our philosopher cleared the park walls to -hurry to a fair lady at Paris, one Madame de Puysieux, whom he loved -with a passion by no means platonic; ere the sun was up, the jailers -found him safely back under lock and key. This irksome captivity lasted -little more than three months. - - -THE MARQUIS DE MIRABEAU. - -The imprisonment of Mirabeau lasted only ten days. The _lettre de -cachet_ had been obtained by the clique of financiers, who took fright -at the audacious conceptions of the _Theory of Taxation_. "I fancy I -deserved my punishment," wrote the Marquis, "like the ass in the fable, -for a clumsy and misplaced zeal." In regard to the arrest, Madame -d'Epinay sent word to Voltaire: "Never before was a man arrested as this -one was. The officer said to him, 'Sir, my orders do not state I am to -hurry you: to-morrow will do, if you haven't time to-day.' 'No, sir, one -cannot be too prompt in obeying the king's orders, I am quite ready.' -And off he went with a bag crammed with books and papers." At Vincennes -the Marquis had a servant with him. His wife came to see him. The king -spent for his support fifteen livres a day, more than twenty-five -shillings of our money. He was liberated on December 24, 1760. His -brother, Bailie Mirabeau, speaking of this detention, wrote to him of "a -week's imprisonment in which you were shown every possible -consideration." - - * * * * * - -We have exhausted M. Bournon's list of the writers who were victims of -arbitrary authority. Such are the "martyrs" for whom that excellent -historian, and Michelet and others, have shown the most affecting -compassion. The foregoing facts do not call for comment. Men of letters -were the spoilt children of the eighteenth century much more than of our -own, and never has an absolute government shown a toleration equal to -that of the monarchy under the _ancien regime_ towards writers whose -doctrines, as events have proved, tended directly to its destruction. - - - - -CHAPTER VI. - -LATUDE. - - -Few historical figures have taken a higher place in the popular -imagination than Masers de Latude. That celebrated prisoner seems to -have accumulated in his life of suffering all the wrongs that spring -from an arbitrary government. The novelists and playwrights of the -nineteenth century have made him a hero; the poets have draped his woes -in fine mourning robes, our greatest historians have burnt for him the -midnight oil; numerous editions of his _Memoirs_ have appeared in quick -succession down to our own days. Even by his contemporaries he was -regarded as a martyr, and posterity has not plucked the shining crown of -martyrdom from his head, hoary with the snows of long captivity. His -legend is the creature of his own unaided brain. When in 1790 he -dictated the story of his life, he made greater calls on his glowing -southern imagination than on his memory; but the documents relating to -his case in the archives of the Bastille have been preserved. At the -present time they are to be found dispersed among various libraries, at -the Arsenal, at Carnavalet, at St. Petersburg. Thanks to them it is -easy to establish the truth. - -On March 23, 1725, at Montagnac in Languedoc, a poor girl named -Jeanneton Aubrespy gave birth to a male child who was baptized three -days later under the name of Jean Henri, given him by his god-parents, -Jean Bouhour and Jeanne Boudet. Surname the poor little creature had -none, for he was the illegitimate child of a father unknown. Jeanneton, -who had just passed her thirtieth year, was of respectable middle-class -family, and lived near the Lom gate in a little house which seems to -have been her own. Several cousins of hers held commissions in the army. -But from the day when she became a mother, her family had no more to do -with her, and she fell into want. Happily she was a woman of stout -heart, and by her spinning and sewing she supported her boy, who shot up -into a lad of keen intelligence and considerable ambition. She succeeded -in getting him some sort of education, and we find Jean Henri at the age -of seventeen acting as assistant surgeon in the army of Languedoc. -Surgeons, it is true, made no great figure in the eighteenth century; -they combined the duties of barber and dentist as well as leech. But the -situation was good enough. "Assistant surgeons in the army," wrote -Saint-Marc the detective, "who really worked at their trade, made a good -deal of money." At this time, being reluctant to bear his mother's name, -the young man ingeniously transformed his double forename into Jean -Danry, under which he is designated in a passport for Alsace, given him -on March 25, 1743, by the general commanding the royal forces in -Languedoc. In the same year 1743, Danry accompanied the army of Marshal -de Noailles in its operations on the Maine and the Rhine, receiving from -the Marshal, towards the end of the season, a certificate testifying to -his good and faithful service throughout the campaign. - -Four years later we find Danry at Brussels, employed in the -field-hospital of the army in Flanders, at a salary of 500 livres a -month. He was present at the famous siege of Bergen-op-Zoom, the -impregnable fortress which the French so valiantly stormed under the -command of the Comte de Lowendal. But peace being concluded at -Aix-la-Chapelle, the armies were disbanded, and Danry went to Paris. He -had in his pocket a letter of recommendation to Descluzeaux, the surgeon -of Marshal de Noailles, and a certificate signed by Guignard de La -Garde, chief of the commissariat, testifying to the ability and good -conduct of "the aforesaid Jean Danry, assistant surgeon." These two -certificates formed the most substantial part of his fortune. - -Danry arrived in Paris about the end of the year 1748. On any afternoon -he might have been seen strolling about the Tuileries in a grey frock -and red waistcoat, carrying his twenty-three years with a good grace. Of -middle height and somewhat spare figure, wearing his brown hair in a -silk net, having keen eyes and an expression of much intelligence, he -would probably have been thought a handsome fellow but for the marks -which smallpox had indelibly stamped on his face. His accent had a -decided Gascon tang, and it is obvious, from the spelling of his -letters, not only that he could not boast of a literary education, but -that his speech was that of a man of the people. Yet, what with his -brisk temperament, his professional skill, and his favour with his -superiors, he was in a fair way to attain an honourable position, which -would have enabled him at length to support his mother, then living in -solitary friendlessness at Montagnac, centring on him, in her forlorn -condition, all her affection and her dearest hopes. - -Paris, with its gaiety and stir, dazzled the young man. Its brilliant -and luxurious life, its rustling silks and laces, set him dreaming. He -found the girls of Paris charming creatures, and opened his heart to -them without stint, and his purse too; and his heart was more opulent -than his purse. Ere long he had spent his modest savings and sunk into -want. He fell into bad company. His best friend, an apothecary's -assistant named Binguet, shared with him a mean garret in the Cul-de-sac -du Coq, in the house of one Charmeleux, who let furnished lodgings. Than -these two no greater rakes, wastrels, or thorough-paced rascals could -have been found in all Paris. Danry in particular very soon got a name -all over his neighbourhood for his riotous, threatening, and choleric -temper. Dying of hunger, threatened with being ejected neck-and-crop -from his lodging for nonpayment of rent, he was reduced at last to write -for money to his mother, who, poor thing, had barely enough for her own -modest wants. - -As yet we are a long way from the "handsome officer of engineers" who -lives in our remembrance: we see little likeness to the brilliant -picture which Danry drew later of those youthful years during which he -received, "by the care of his father the Marquis de La Tude, the -education of a gentleman destined to serve his country and his king." - -Having come now absolutely to the end of his resources, Danry took it -into his head that, at the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom, he had been stripped -by some soldiers of all his clothes but his shirt, and robbed of 678 -livres into the bargain. This story he worked up in a letter addressed -to Moreau de Sechelles, commissary of the army in Flanders, hoping to -get it corroborated by Guignard de La Garde, the commissary under whom -he had himself served. In this letter he demanded compensation for the -losses he had suffered while devoting himself under fire to the care of -the wounded. But we read, in the _Memoirs_ he wrote later, that so far -from having been stripped and robbed, he had actually purchased at -Bergen-op-Zoom a considerable quantity of goods of all kinds when they -were sold off cheap after the sack of the town. However that may be, his -experiment was a failure. But Danry was a man of resource, and not many -days had passed before he had hit on another means of raising the wind. - -[Illustration: - - Cover of the explosive box sent by Danry to the Marquise de - Pompadour. The words almost obliterated are: "Je vous prie, Madame, - d'ouvrir le paquet en particulie." Below is the record and the date - of Danry's examination, with his signature, and that of Berryer, - the lieutenant of police. -] - -At this time everybody was talking about the struggle between the -king's ministers and the Marquise de Pompadour, which had just ended in -a triumph for the lady. Maurepas was going into exile, but it was -generally believed that he was a man who would wreak vengeance on his -enemy, and the favourite herself openly declared that she went in fear -of poison. A light dawned on the young surgeon's mind as he heard such -gossip as this; he caught a sudden glimpse of himself--even he, the -ragged outcast--arrayed in cloth of gold and rolling in his carriage -along the Versailles road. - -This was his plan. On April 27, 1749, in a shop under the arcade of the -Palais-Royal, hard by the grand staircase, he bought of a small -tradesman six of those little bottle-shaped toys, once called Prince -Rupert's Drops, out of which children used to get so much harmless -amusement. They were globules of molten glass, which, on being thrown -into cold water, had taken the shape of pears, and which, if the -tapering end was suddenly snapped, crumbled with a loud report into -dust. Four of these crackers Danry placed in a cardboard box, binding -the thin ends together with a thread which he fixed in the lid. Over -these he sprinkled some toilet powder, and this he covered with a layer -of powdered vitriol and alum. The whole packet he then enclosed in a -double wrapper, writing on the inner one, "I beg you, madam, to open the -packet in private," and on the outer one, "To Madame the Marquise de -Pompadour, at court." - -At eight o'clock in the evening of the next day, Danry, having seen his -packet safely in the post, hurried off himself to Versailles. He had -hoped to gain admittance to the favourite herself, but being stopped by -Gourbillon, her principal valet, in a voice trembling with emotion he -related to him a frightful story. Happening to be at the Tuileries, he -said, he had observed two men seated in animated conversation, and on -going close to them heard them mouthing the most horrible threats -against Madame de Pompadour. When they rose he dogged their footsteps, -which led direct to the post office, where they consigned a packet to -the box. Who the men were, and what was the nature of the packet, were -natural questions to which Danry had no answer; all he could say was -that, devoted to the interests of the Marquise, he had instantly sped -off to reveal to her what he had seen. - -To understand the impression produced by the young man's information, it -is necessary to bear in mind the feverish excitement then prevailing at -court. Maurepas, the witty and sprightly minister who had won Louis -XV.'s special affection because of the charm with which he endowed mere -business for "the man who was always bored"--Maurepas had just been -exiled to Bourges. "Pontchartrain," the king sent word to him, "is too -near." The struggle between the minister and the favourite had been one -of extraordinary violence. Maurepas was for ever dashing off satirical -verses on the girl who had reached the steps of the throne, and -incessantly pursuing her with the cruel and insolent shafts of his wit; -his muse indeed did not shrink from the most brutal insults. Nor was the -Marquise a whit more tender towards her foe: she openly dubbed him liar -and knave, and assured everybody that he was trying to get her poisoned. -A surgeon was actually required to be in constant attendance upon her, -and she always had an antidote within reach. At table she was careful -never to be the first to partake of any dish, and in her box at the -theatre she would drink no lemonade but what had been prepared by her -surgeon. - -The packet which Danry had posted arrived at Versailles on April 29, and -Quesnay, the physician to the king and the Marquise, was requested to -open it. Having done so with infinite precaution, he recognized the -vitriol and alum and toilet powder, and declared at once that there was -not a pennyworth of danger in the whole contrivance. But since alum and -vitriol were substances capable of being turned to baneful uses, he -thought that possibly it was a case of a criminal design clumsily -executed. - -There is not a shadow of doubt that Louis XV. and his mistress were -seriously alarmed. D'Argenson himself, who had upheld Maurepas against -the favourite, had the greatest possible interest in seeing the affair -cleared up as soon as possible. The first move was altogether in favour -of the informer. D'Argenson wrote to Berryer that Danry was deserving of -a reward. - -No time was lost in instituting a search for the authors of the plot. -The lieutenant of police selected the most skilful and intelligent of -his officers, the detective Saint-Marc, who put himself in communication -with Danry. But he had not spent two days with the assistant surgeon -before he drew up a report demanding his arrest. "It is not unimportant -to note that Danry is a surgeon, and his best friend an apothecary. In -my opinion it is essential to apprehend both Danry and Binguet without -further delay, and without letting either know of the other's arrest, -and at the same time to search their rooms." - -Accordingly Danry was conveyed to the Bastille on May 1, 1749, and -Binguet was secured the same day. Saint-Marc had taken the precaution to -ask the assistant surgeon for a written account of his adventure. This -document he put into the hands of an expert, who compared the -handwriting with the address on the packet sent to Versailles. Danry was -lost. Suspicion was but too well confirmed by the results of a search in -his room. Being shut up in the Bastille, Danry knew nothing of all these -proceedings, and when, on May 2, the lieutenant-general of police came -to question him, he replied only with lies. - -Berryer, the lieutenant of police, was a man of much firmness, but -honourable and kindly disposed. "He inspired one's confidence," wrote -Danry himself, "by his urbanity and kindness." This excellent man was -vexed at the attitude taken up by the prisoner, and pointing out the -danger he was incurring, he besought him to tell the truth. But at a -second examination Danry only persisted in his lies. Then all at once he -changed his tactics and refused to answer the questions put to him. -"Danry, here we do justice to every one," said Berryer to him, to give -him courage. But entreaties had no better success than threats. Danry -maintained his obstinate silence; and D'Argenson wrote to Berryer: "The -thorough elucidation of this affair is too important for you not to -follow up any clue which may point towards a solution." - -By his falsehoods, and then by his silence, Danry had succeeded in -giving the appearance of a mysterious plot to what was really an -insignificant piece of knavery. - -Not till June 15 did he make up his mind to offer a statement very near -the truth, which was written down and sent at once to the king, who read -it over several times and kept it in his pocket the whole day--a -circumstance which indicates to what importance the affair had now -swelled. Suspicions were not dispelled by the declaration of June 15. -Danry had misrepresented the truth in his former examinations, and there -was reason to believe that he was equally misrepresenting it in the -third. Thus he owed his ruin to his silence and his self-contradictory -depositions. Six months later, on October 7, 1749, when he was at -Vincennes, Dr. Quesnay, who had shown much interest in the young -surgeon, was sent to find out from him the name of the individual who -had instigated the crime. On his return the doctor wrote to Berryer, -"My journey has been utterly useless. I only saw a blockhead, who -persisted nevertheless in adhering to his former declarations." Two -years more had passed away when the lieutenant of police wrote to -Quesnay:--"February 25, 1751. Danry would be very glad if you would pay -him a visit, and your compliance might perhaps induce him to lay bare -his secret soul, and make a frank confession to you of what up to the -present he has obstinately concealed from me." - -Quesnay at once repaired to the Bastille, bearing with him a conditional -promise of liberty. Working himself up into a frenzy, Danry swore that -"all his answers to the lieutenant of police had been strictly true." -When the doctor had taken his leave, Danry wrote to the minister: "M. -Quesnay, who has been several times to see me in my wretchedness, tells -me that your lordship is inclined to believe I had some accomplice in my -fault whom I will not reveal, and that it is for this reason your -lordship will not give me my liberty. I could wish, my lord, from the -bottom of my heart, that your belief were true, for it would be much to -my profit to put my guilt upon another, whether for having induced me to -commit my sin or for not having prevented me from committing it." - -It was the opinion of the ministers that Danry had been the instrument -of a plot against the life of the Marquise de Pompadour directed by some -person of high rank, and that at the critical moment he had either -taken fright, or else had made a clean breast of the matter at -Versailles in the hope of reaping some advantage from both sides. These -facts must be kept in mind if we are to understand the real cause of his -confinement. Kept, then, in the Bastille, he was subjected to several -examinations, the reports of which were regularly drawn up and signed by -the lieutenant of police. Under the _ancien regime_, this officer was, -as we have seen, a regular magistrate, indeed he has no other -designation in the documents of the period; he pronounced sentence and -awarded punishments in accordance with that body of customs which then, -as to-day in England, constituted the law. - -Binguet, the apothecary, had been set at liberty immediately after -Danry's declaration of June 15. In the Bastille, Danry was treated with -the utmost consideration, in accordance with the formal instructions of -Berryer. He was provided with books, tobacco, and a pipe; he was -permitted to play on the flute; and having declared that a solitary life -bored him, he was given two room mates. Every day he was visited by the -officers of the fortress, and on May 25 the governor came to tell him of -the magistrate's order: "That the utmost attention was to be shown him; -if he needed anything he was to be requested to say so, and was to be -allowed to want for nothing." No doubt the lieutenant of police hoped, -by dint of kindness, to persuade him to disclose the authors of the -unfortunate plot which was the figment of his imagination. - -Danry did not remain long in the prison of the Suburb Saint-Antoine; on -July 28 Saint-Marc transferred him to Vincennes, and we see from the -report drawn up by the detective with what astonishment the Marquis du -Chatelet, governor of the fortress, heard "that the court had resolved -to send him such a fellow." Vincennes, like the Bastille, was reserved -for prisoners of good position; our hero was sent there by special -favour, as he was told for his consolation by the surgeon who attended -him: "Only persons of noble birth or the highest distinction are sent to -Vincennes." Danry was indeed treated like a lord. The best apartment was -reserved for him, and he was able to enjoy the park, where he walked for -two hours every day. At the time of his admission to the Bastille, he -was suffering from some sort of indisposition which later on he ascribed -to his long confinement. At Vincennes he complained of the same illness, -with the same plea that his troubles had made him ill. He was attended -by a specialist as well as by the surgeon of the prison. - -Meantime the lieutenant came again to see him, reiterating assurances of -his protection, and advising him to write direct to Madame de Pompadour. -Here is what Danry wrote:-- - -"VINCENNES, _November 4, 1749_. - - "MADAM,--If wretchedness, goaded by famine, has driven me to commit - a fault against your dear person, it was with no design of doing - you any mischief. God is my witness. If the divine mercy would - assure you to-day, on my behalf, how my soul repents of its heinous - fault, and how for 188 days I have done nothing but weep at the - sight of my iron bars, you would have pity on me. Madam, for the - sake of God who is enlightening you, let your just wrath soften at - the spectacle of my repentance, my wretchedness, my tears. One day - God will recompense you for your humanity. You are all-powerful, - Madam; God has given you power with the greatest king on all the - earth, His well-beloved; he is merciful, he is not cruel, he is a - Christian. If the divine power moves your magnanimity to grant me - my freedom, I would rather die, or sustain my life on nothing but - roots, than jeopardize it a second time. I have staked all my hopes - on your Christian charity. Lend a sympathetic ear to my prayer, do - not abandon me to my unhappy fate. I hope in you, Madam, and God - will vouchsafe an abundant answer to my prayers that your dear - person may obtain your heart's desires. - - "I have the honour to be, with a repentance worthy of pardon, - Madam, your very humble and very obedient servant, - -"DANRY." - - - -A letter which it is a pleasure to quote, for it shows to great -advantage beside the letters written later by the prisoner. It was only -the truth that he had no evil design on the favourite's life; but soon -becoming more audacious, he wrote to Madame de Pompadour saying that if -he had addressed the box to her at Versailles, it was out of pure -devotion to her, to put her on her guard against the machinations of her -enemies, in short, to save her life. - -Danry's letter was duly forwarded to the Marquise, but remained without -effect. Losing patience, he resolved to win for himself the freedom -denied him: on June 15, 1750, he escaped. - - * * * * * - -In his _Memoirs_ Danry has related the story of this first escape in a -manner as lively as imaginative. He really eluded his jailers in the -simplest way in the world. Having descended to the garden at the usual -hour for his walk, he found there a black spaniel frisking about. The -dog happened to rear itself against the gate, and to push it with its -paws. The gate fell open. Danry passed out and ran straight ahead, -"till, towards four o'clock in the afternoon, he fell to the ground with -fatigue, in the neighbourhood of Saint-Denis." - -There he remained until nine o'clock in the evening. Then he struck into -the road to Paris, passing the night beside the aqueduct near the -Saint-Denis gate. At daybreak he entered the city. - -We know what importance was attached at court to the safe custody of the -prisoner: there was still hope that he would make up his mind to speak -of the grave conspiracy of which he held the secret. D'Argenson wrote at -once to Berryer: "Nothing is more important or more urgent than to set -on foot at once all conceivable means of recapturing the prisoner." -Accordingly all the police were engaged in the search; the description -of the prisoner was printed, a large number of copies being distributed -by Inspector Rulhiere among the mounted police. - -Danry took up his lodging with one Cocardon, at the sign of the Golden -Sun; but he did not venture to remain for more than two days in the same -inn. He expected his old chum Binguet to come to his assistance, but -Binguet was not going to have anything more to do with the Bastille. It -was a pretty girl, Annette Benoist, whom Danry had known when he was -lodging with Charmeleux, that devoted herself heart and soul to him. She -knew she herself was running the risk of imprisonment, and already -strangers of forbidding appearance had come asking at the Golden Sun who -she was. Little she cared; she found assistance among her companions: -the girls carried Danry's letters and undertook the search for a safe -lodging. Meanwhile, Danry went to pass the night under the aqueducts; in -the morning he shut himself in the lodging the girls had chosen for him, -and there he remained for two days without leaving the house, Annette -coming there to keep him company. Unluckily the young man had no money: -how was he to pay his score? "What was to be done, what was to become of -me?" he said later. "I was sure to be discovered if I showed myself; if -I fled I ran no less risk." He wrote to Dr. Quesnay, who had shown him -so much kindness at Vincennes; but the police got wind of the letter, -and Saint-Marc arrived and seized the fugitive in the inn where he lay -concealed. The unlucky wretch was haled back to the Bastille. Annette -was arrested at the Golden Sun at the moment when she was asking for -Danry's letters; she too was shut up in the Bastille. The warders and -sentinels who were on duty at Vincennes on the day of the escape had -been thrown into the cells. - -By his escape from Vincennes, Danry had doubled the gravity of his -offence. The regulations demanded that he should be sent down into the -cells reserved for insubordinate prisoners. "M. Berryer came again to -lighten my woes; outside the prison he demanded justice and mercy for -me, inside he sought to calm my grief, which seemed less poignant when -he assured me that he shared it." The lieutenant of police ordered the -prisoner to be fed as well as formerly, and to be allowed his books, -papers, knick-knacks, and the privilege of the two hours' walk he had -enjoyed at Vincennes. In return for these kindnesses, the assistant -surgeon sent to the magistrate "a remedy for the gout." He asked at the -same time to be allowed to breed little birds, whose chirping and lively -movements would divert him. The request was granted. But instead of -bearing his lot with patience, Danry grew more and more irritable every -day. He gave free rein to his violent temper, raised a hubbub, shrieked, -tore up and down his room, so that they came perforce to believe that he -was going mad. On the books of the Bastille library, which circulated -from room to room, he wrote ribald verses against the Marquise de -Pompadour. In this way he prolonged his sojourn in the cells. Gradually -his letters changed their tone. "It is a little hard to be left for -fourteen months in prison, a whole year of the time, ending to-day, in -one cell where I still am." - -Then Berryer put him back into a good room, about the end of the year -1751. At the same time he gave him, at the king's expense, a servant to -wait on him. - -As to Annette Benoist, she had been set at liberty after a fortnight's -detention. Danry's servant fell sick; as there was no desire to deprive -the prisoner of society, he was given a companion. This was a certain -Antoine Allegre, who had been there since May 29, 1750. The -circumstances which had led to his imprisonment were almost identical -with those to which Danry owed his confinement. Allegre was keeping a -school at Marseilles when he learnt that the enemies of the Marquise de -Pompadour were seeking to destroy her. He fabricated a story of a -conspiracy in which he involved Maurepas, the Archbishop of Albi, and -the Bishop of Lodeve; he sent a denunciation of this plot to Versailles, -and, to give it some semblance of truth, addressed to the favourite's -valet a letter in disguised handwriting, beginning with these words: "On -the word of a gentleman, there are 100,000 crowns for you if you poison -your mistress." He hoped by this means to obtain a good situation, or -the success of a business project he had in hand. - -Intelligent, with some education, and venturesome, Danry and Allegre -were just the men to get on well together, so much the better that the -schoolmaster dominated the comrade to whom he was so much superior. The -years that Danry spent in company with Allegre exercised so great an -influence on his whole life that the lieutenant of police, Lenoir, could -say one day: "Danry is the second volume of Allegre." The letters of the -latter, a large number of which have been preserved, bear witness to the -originality and energy of his mind: their style is fine and fluent, of -the purest French; the ideas expressed have distinction and are -sometimes remarkable without eccentricity. He worked untiringly, and was -at first annoyed at the presence of a companion: "Give me, I beg you, a -room to myself," he wrote to Berryer, "even without a fire: I like being -alone, I am sufficient for myself, because I can find things to do, and -seed to sow for the future." His temperament was naturally mystical, but -of that cold and acrid mysticism which we sometimes find in men of -science, and mathematicians in particular. For Allegre's principal -studies were mathematics, mechanics, and engineering. The lieutenant of -police procured for him works on fortification, architecture, mechanics, -hydraulics. The prisoner used them to compile essays on the most diverse -questions, which he sent to the lieutenant of police in the hope of -their procuring his liberation. Those essays which we possess show the -extent of his intelligence and his education. Danry followed his example -by-and-by, in this as in everything else, but clumsily. Allegre was -also very clever with his fingers, and could make, so the officials of -the chateau declared, whatever he pleased. - -Allegre was a dangerous man: the warders were afraid of him. Some time -after his entrance into the Bastille he fell ill, and a man was set to -look after him; the two men did not agree at all. Allegre sent complaint -after complaint to the lieutenant of police. An inquiry was made which -turned out not unfavourable to the keeper, and he was left with the -prisoner. One morning--September 8, 1751--the officers of the Bastille -heard cries and clamour in the "Well" tower. Hastily ascending, they -found Allegre in the act of stabbing his companion, who lay on the floor -held down by the throat, wallowing in the blood that streamed from a -gash in the stomach. If Allegre had not been in the Bastille, the -Parlement would have had him broken on the wheel in the Place de Greve: -the Bastille was his safety, though he could no longer hope for a speedy -liberation. - -Danry, in his turn, wore out the patience of his guardians. Major -Chevalier, who was kindness itself, wrote to the lieutenant of police: -"He is no better than Allegre, but though more turbulent and choleric, -he is much less to be feared in every respect." The physician of the -Bastille, Dr. Boyer, a member of the Academy, wrote likewise: "I have -good reason to distrust the man." The temper of Danry became embittered. -He began to revile the warders. One morning they were obliged to take -from him a knife and other sharp instruments he had concealed. He used -the paper they gave him to open communications with other prisoners and -with people outside. Paper was withheld: he then wrote with his blood on -a handkerchief; he was forbidden by the lieutenant of police to write to -him with his blood, so he wrote on tablets made of bread crumbs, which -he passed out secretly between two plates. - -The use of paper was then restored to him, which did not prevent him -from writing to Berryer: "My lord, I am writing to you with my blood on -linen, because the officers refuse me ink and paper; it is now more than -six times that I have asked in vain to speak to them. What are you -about, my lord? Do not drive me to extremities. At least, do not force -me to be my own executioner. Send a sentry to break my head for me; that -is the very least favour you can do me." Berryer, astonished at this -missive, remarked on it to the major, who replied: "I have not refused -paper to Danry." - -[Illustration: - - Beginning of a letter written with blood on linen by Danry (Latude) - while a prisoner at Vincennes, to Rougemont, the king's lieutenant. -] - -So the prisoner forced them more and more to the conclusion that he was -a madman. On October 13, 1753, he wrote to Dr. Quesnay to tell him that -he wished him well, but that being too poor to give him anything else, -he was making him a present of his body, which was on the point of -perishing, for him to make a skeleton of. To the paper on which he -wrote, Danry had sewn a little square of cloth, adding: "God has given -the garments of martyrs the virtue of healing all manner of diseases. It -is now fifty-seven months since I have been suffering an enforced -martyrdom. So there is no doubt that to-day the cloth of my coat will -work miracles; here is a bit for you." This letter was returned to the -lieutenant of police in December, and on it we find a marginal note in -Berryer's hand: "A letter worth keeping, as it reveals the prisoner's -mind." We know in what fashion madmen were wont to be treated in the -eighteenth century. - -But suddenly, to the great astonishment of the officers of the chateau, -our two friends amended their character and their conduct. No more -noises were heard in their room, and they answered politely anyone who -came to speak to them. But their behaviour was even more odd than ever. -Allegre used to walk up and down the room half naked, "to save his -toggery," he said, and he sent letter after letter to his brother and -the lieutenant of police, asking them to send him things, particularly -shirts and handkerchiefs. Danry followed suit. "This prisoner," wrote -Chevalier to the lieutenant of police, "is asking for linen. I shall not -make a requisition, because he has seven very good shirts, four of them -new; he has shirts on the brain." But why decline to humour a prisoner's -whim? So the commissary of the Bastille had two dozen expensive shirts -made--every one cost twenty livres, more than thirty-three shillings of -our money--and some handkerchiefs of the finest cambric. - -If the wardrobe-keeper of the Bastille had kept her eyes open, she would -have noticed that the serviettes and cloths which went into the room of -the two companions were of much smaller dimensions when they came out. -Our friends had established communication with their neighbours above -and below, begging twine and thread from them and giving tobacco in -exchange. They had succeeded in loosening the iron bars which prevented -climbing up the chimney; at night they used to mount to the platforms, -whence they conversed down the chimneys with prisoners in the other -towers. One of these hapless creatures believed himself to be a prophet -of God; he heard at night the sound of a voice descending upon his cold -hearth: he revealed the miracle to the officers, who only considered him -still more insane than before. On the terrace Allegre and Danry found -the tools left there in the evening by the masons and gardeners employed -at the Bastille. Thus they got possession of a mallet, an auger, two -sorts of pulleys, and some bits of iron taken from the gun-carriages. -All these they concealed in the hollow between the floor of their room -and the ceiling of the room below. - -Allegre and Danry escaped from the Bastille on the night of February 25, -1756. They climbed up the chimney till they reached the platform, and -descended by means of their famous rope ladder, fastened to a -gun-carriage. A wall separated the Bastille moat from that of the -Arsenal. By the aid of an iron bar they succeeded in working out a large -stone, and they escaped through the hole thus made. Their rope ladder -was a work of long patience and amazing skill. When in after days -Allegre went mad, Danry appropriated the whole credit of this -enterprise which his friend had conceived and directed. - -At the moment of leaving, Allegre had written on a scrap of paper, for -the officers of the Bastille, the following note, which is an excellent -indication of his character:-- - -"We have done no damage to the furniture of the governor, we have only -made use of a few rags of coverlets of no possible use; the others are -left just as they were. If some serviettes are missing, they will be -found at the bottom of the water in the great moat, whither we are -taking them to wipe our feet. - -"_Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam!_ - -"_Scito cor nostrum et cognosce semitas nostras._"[46] - -Our two companions had provided themselves with a portmanteau, and they -made haste to change their clothes as soon as they had cleared the -precincts of the fortress. A foreman of works whom Danry knew interested -himself in them, and conducted them to one Rouit, a tailor, who lodged -them for some little time. Rouit even lent Danry forty-eight livres, -which he promised to return as soon as he reached Brussels. At the end -of a month our two friends were across the frontier. - -It is very difficult to follow Danry's proceedings from the time when he -left Rouit to the moment of his reincarceration in the Bastille. He has -left, it is true, two accounts of his sojourn in Flanders and Holland; -but these accounts are themselves inconsistent, and both differ from -some original documents which remain to us. - -The two fugitives had considered it advisable not to set out together. -Allegre was the first to arrive at Brussels, whence he wrote an insolent -letter to Madame de Pompadour. This letter led to his discovery. On -reaching Brussels, Danry learnt that his friend had been arrested. He -lost no time in making for Holland, and at Amsterdam he took service -with one Paul Melenteau. From Rotterdam he had written to his mother, -and the poor creature, collecting her little savings, sent him 200 -livres by post. But Saint-Marc had already struck on the track of the -fugitive. "The burgomaster of Amsterdam readily and gladly granted the -request made by Saint-Marc on behalf of the king, through the -ambassador, for the arrest and extradition of Danry." Louis XV. confined -himself to claiming him as one of his subjects. Saint-Marc, disguised as -an Armenian merchant, discovered him in his retreat. Danry was arrested -in Amsterdam on June 1, 1756, conducted to a cell belonging to the town -hall, and thence brought back to France and consigned to the Bastille on -June 9. Word came from Holland that Saint-Marc was there regarded as a -sorcerer. - -By his second escape the unhappy man had succeeded in making his case -very serious. In the eighteenth century, escape from a state prison was -punishable with death. The English, great apostles of humanity as they -were, were no more lenient than the French; and everyone knows what -treatment was meted out by Frederick II. to Baron de Trenck. He was to -have remained in prison only one year; but after his second escape he -was chained up in a gloomy dungeon; at his feet was the grave in which -he was to be buried, and on it his name and a death's-head had been cut. - -The government of Louis XV. did not punish with such rigour as this. The -fugitive was simply put in the cells for a time. At the Bastille the -cells were damp and chilly dungeons. Danry has left in his _Memoirs_ an -account of the forty months spent in this dismal place,--an account -which makes one's hair stand on end; but it is packed full of -exaggeration. He says that he spent three years with irons on his hands -and feet: in November, 1756, Berryer offered to remove the irons from -either hands or feet at his choice, and we see from a marginal note by -Major Chevalier that he chose the feet. Danry adds that he lay all -through the winter on straw without any coverlet: he was actually so -well supplied with coverlets that he applied to Berryer for some others. -To believe him you would think that when the Seine was in flood the -water rose as high as his waist: as a fact, when the water threatened to -invade the cell, the prisoner was removed. Again, he says that he passed -there forty months in absolute darkness: the light of his prison was -certainly not very brilliant, but it was sufficient to enable him to -read and write, and we learn from letters he sent to the lieutenant of -police that he saw from his cell all that went on in the courtyard of -the Bastille. Finally, he tells us of a variety of diseases he -contracted at the time, and cites in this connection the opinion of an -oculist who came to attend him. But this very report was forged by Danry -himself, and the rest he invented to match. - -In this cell, where he professes to have been treated in so barbarous a -manner, Danry, however, proved difficult enough to deal with, as we -judge from the reports of Chevalier. "Danry has a thoroughly nasty -temper; he sends for us at eight o'clock in the morning, and asks us to -send warders to the market to buy him fish, saying that he never eats -eggs, artichokes, or spinach, and that he insists on eating fish; and -when we refuse, he flies into a furious passion." That was on fast days; -on ordinary days it was the same. "Danry swore like a trooper, that is, -in his usual way, and after the performance said to me: 'Major, when you -give me a fowl, at least let it be stuffed!'" He was not one of the -vulgar herd, he said, "one of those fellows you send to Bicetre." And he -demanded to be treated in a manner befitting his condition. - -It was just the same with regard to clothes. One is amazed at the sight -of the lists of things the lieutenant of police got made for him. To -give him satisfaction, the administration did not stick at the most -unreasonable expense, and it was by selling these clothes that Danry, at -his various escapes, procured a part of the money he was so much in -need of. He suffered from rheumatism, so they provided him with -dressing-gowns lined with rabbit-skin, vests lined with silk plush, -gloves and fur hats, and first-rate leather breeches. In his _Memoirs_ -Danry lumps all these as "half-rotten rags." Rochebrune, the commissary -charged with the prisoners' supplies, was quite unable to satisfy him. -"You instructed me," he wrote to the major, "to get a dressing-gown made -for the Sieur Danry, who asks for a calamanco with red stripes on a blue -ground. I have made inquiries for such stuff of a dozen tradesmen, who -have no such thing, and indeed would be precious careful not to have it, -for there is no sale for that kind of calamanco. I don't see why I -should satisfy the fantastic tastes of a prisoner who ought to be very -well pleased at having a dressing-gown that is warm and well-fitting." -On another occasion, the major writes: "This man Danry has never up to -the present consented to accept the breeches that M. de Rochebrune got -made for him, though they are excellent, lined with good leather, with -silk garters, and in the best style." And Danry had his own pretty way -of complaining. "I beg you," he wrote to the governor, "to have the -goodness to tell M. de Sartine in plain terms that the four -handkerchiefs he sent me are not fit to give to a galley-slave, and I -will not have them on any account; but that I request him kindly to give -me six print handkerchiefs, blue, and large, and two muslin cravats." He -adds, "If there is no money in the treasury, go and ask Madame de -Pompadour for some." - -One day Danry declared that something was wrong with his eyes. -Grandjean, the king's oculist, came more than once to see him, ordered -aromatic fumigations for him, gave him ointments and eye-salve; but it -was soon seen that all that was wrong was that Danry desired to get a -spy-glass, and to smuggle out, with the doctor's assistance, memoirs and -letters. - -On September 1, 1759, Danry was removed from the cells and placed in a -more airy chamber. He wrote at once to Bertin to thank him, and to tell -him that he was sending him two doves. "You delight in doing good, and I -shall have no less delight, my lord, if you favour me by accepting this -slight mark of my great gratitude. - -"Tamerlaine allowed himself to be disarmed by a basket of figs presented -to him by the inhabitants of a town he was proceeding to besiege. The -Marquise de Pompadour is a Christian lady; I beg you to allow me to send -her also a pair: perhaps she will allow her heart to be touched by these -two innocent pigeons. I append a copy of the letter which will accompany -them:-- - - "'MADAM,--Two pigeons used to come every day to pick grains out of - my straw; I kept them, and they gave me young ones. I venture to - take the liberty of presenting you with this pair as a mark of my - respect and affection. I beseech you in mercy to be good enough to - accept them, with as much pleasure as I have in offering them to - you. I have the honour to be, with the profoundest respect, Madam, - your very humble and obedient servant, - -"'DANRY, for eleven years at the Bastille.'" - -Why did not Danry always make so charming a use of the permission -accorded him to write to the minister, the lieutenant of police, Madame -de Pompadour, Dr. Quesnay, and his mother? He wrote incessantly, and we -have letters of his in hundreds, widely differing one from another. Some -are suppliant and pathetic: "My body is wasting away every day in tears -and blood, I am worn out." He writes to Madame de Pompadour:--"Madam,--I -have never wished you anything but well; be then sensible to the voice -of tears, of my innocence, and of a poor despairing mother of sixty-six -years. Madam, you are well aware of my martyrdom. I beg you in God's -name to grant me my precious liberty; I am spent, I am dying, my blood -is all on fire by reason of my groaning; twenty times in the night I am -obliged to moisten my mouth and nostrils to get my breath." Everyone -knows the famous letter beginning with the words, "I have been suffering -now for 100,000 hours." He writes to Quesnay: "I present myself to you -with a live coal upon my head, indicating my pressing necessity." The -images he uses are not always so happy: "Listen," he says to Berryer, -"to the voice of the just bowels with which you are arrayed"! - -In other letters the prisoner alters his tone; to plaints succeed cries -of rage and fury, "he steeps his pen in the gall with which his soul is -saturated." He no longer supplicates, he threatens. There is nothing to -praise in the style of these epistles: it is incorrect and vulgar, -though at times vigorous and coloured with vivid imagery. To the -lieutenant of police he writes: "When a man is to be punished in this -accursed prison, the air is full of it, the punishments fall quicker -than the thunderbolt; but when it is a case of succouring a man who is -unfortunate, I see nothing but crabs;" and he addresses to him these -lines of Voltaire:-- - - "Perish those villains born, whose hearts of steel - No touch of ruth for others' woes can feel." - -He predicts terrible retribution for the ministers, the magistrates, and -Madame de Pompadour. To her he writes: "You will see yourself one day -like that owl in the park of Versailles; all the birds cast water upon -him to choke him, to drown him; if the king chanced to die, before two -hours were past someone would set five or six persons at your heels, and -you would yourself pack to the Bastille." The accused by degrees becomes -transformed into the accuser; he writes to Sartine: "I am neither a dog -nor a criminal, but a man like yourself." And the lieutenant of police, -taking pity on him, writes on one of these letters sent to the minister -of Paris: "When Danry writes thus, it is not that he is mad, but frantic -from long imprisonment." The magistrate counsels the prisoner "to keep -out of his letters all bitterness, which can only do him harm." Bertin -corrected with his own hand the petitions Danry sent to the Marquise de -Pompadour; in the margin of one of them we read, "I should think I was -prejudicing him and his interests if I sent on to Madame de Pompadour a -letter in which he ventures to reproach her with having _abused his good -faith and confidence_." Having amended the letter, the lieutenant of -police himself carried it to Versailles. - -The years of captivity, far from humbling the prisoner and abasing his -pride, only made him the more arrogant; his audacity grew from day to -day, and he was not afraid of speaking to the lieutenants of police -themselves, who knew his history, about his fortune which had been -ruined, his brilliant career which had been cut short, his whole family -plunged into despair. At first the magistrate would shrug his shoulders; -insensibly he would be won over by these unwavering assertions, by this -accent of conviction; and he ends actually by believing in this high -birth, this fortune, this genius, in all which Danry had perhaps come to -believe himself. Then Danry takes a still higher tone: he claims not -only his freedom, but compensation, large sums of money, honours. But -one must not think that this sprang from a sordid sentiment unworthy of -him: "If I propose compensation, my lord, it is not for the sake of -getting money, it is only so that I may smooth away all the obstacles -which may delay the end of my long suffering." - -In return, he is very ready to give the lieutenant of police some good -advice--to indicate the means of advancement in his career, to show him -how to set about getting appointed secretary of state, to compose for -him the speech he is to make to the king at his first audience. He adds: -"This very time is extremely favourable to you; it is the auspicious -hour: profit by it. Before they take horse on the day of rejoicing for -the conclusion of peace, you ought to be a counsellor of state." - -He is very ready also to send to the king schemes conceived in his -prison for the welfare of the realm. Now it is a suggestion to give -sergeants and officers on the battlefield muskets instead of spontoons -and pikes, by which the French arms would be strengthened by 25,000 good -fusiliers. Now it is a suggestion for increasing postal facilities, -which would augment the resources of the Treasury by several millions -every year. He recommends the erection of public granaries in the -principal towns, and draws up plans of battle for giving unheard-of -strength to a column of men three deep. We might mention other and -better suggestions. These notions were drowned in a flood of words, an -unimaginable wealth of verbiage, with parallels drawn from the history -of all periods and every country. His manuscripts were illustrated with -pen and ink sketches. Danry copied and recopied them incessantly, sent -them to all and sundry in all sorts of forms, persuaded the sentinels -that these lofty conceptions intimately concerned the safety of the -state and would win him an immense fortune. Thus he induced these good -fellows to compromise their situation by carrying the papers secretly to -ministers, members of the Parlement, marshals of France; he threw them -from the windows of his room, and, wrapped in snowballs, from the top of -the towers. These memoirs are the work of a man whose open and active -mind, of incredible activity indeed, plans, constructs, invents without -cessation or repose. - -Among these bundles of papers we have discovered a very touching letter -from the prisoner's mother, Jeanneton Aubrespy, who wrote to her son -from Montagnac on June 14, 1759:-- - - "Do not do me the injustice of thinking that I have forgotten you, - my dear son, my loving son. Could I shut you out of my thoughts, - you whom I bear always in my heart? I have always had a great - longing to see you again, but to-day I long more than ever, I am - constantly concerned for you, I think of nothing but you, I am - wholly filled with you. Do not worry, my dear son; that is the only - favour I ask of you. Your misfortunes will come to an end, and - perhaps it is not far off. I hope that Madame de Pompadour will - pardon you; for that I am trying to win heaven and earth over to - your cause. The Lord is putting my submission and yours to a long - test, so as to make us better realize the worth of His favour. Do - not distress yourself, my son. I hope to have the happiness of - receiving you again, and of embracing you more tenderly than ever. - Adieu, my son, my dear son, my loving son, I love you, and I shall - love you dearly to the grave. I beg you to give me news of your - health. I am, and always shall be, your good mother, - -DAUBRESPI, _widow_." - - - -Is not this letter charming in its artless pathos? The son's reply is -equally touching; but on reading it again one feels that it was to pass -under the eyes of the lieutenant of police; on examining it closely, one -sees the sentiments grimacing between the lines. - -No one knew better than Danry how to play on the souls of others, to -awake in them, at his will, pity or tenderness, astonishment or -admiration. No one has surpassed him in the art, difficult in very -truth, of posing as a hero, a genius, and a martyr, a part that we shall -see him sustain for twenty years without faltering. - -In 1759 there entered upon the office of lieutenant of police a man who -was henceforth to occupy Danry's mind almost exclusively--Gabriel de -Sartine. He was a fine sceptic, of amiable character and pleasing -manners. He was loved by the people of Paris, who boasted of his -administrative abilities and his spirit of justice. He exerted himself -in his turn to render the years of captivity less cruel to Danry. "He -allowed me," writes the latter, "what no other State prisoner has ever -obtained, the privilege of walking along the top of the towers, in the -open air, to preserve my health." He cheered the prisoner with genial -words, and urged him to behave well and no longer to fill his letters -with insults. "Your fate," he told him, "is in your own hands." He -looked into Danry's scheme for the construction of public granaries, and -when he had read it said, "Really, there are excellent things, most -excellent things in it." He visited Danry in prison and promised to do -his utmost to obtain his liberation. He himself put into the hands of -Madame de Pompadour the _Grand Memoire_ which Danry had drawn up for -her. In this memorial the prisoner told the favourite that in return for -a service he had rendered her in sending her a "hieroglyphic symbol" to -put her on her guard against the machinations of her enemies, she had -caused him to suffer unjustly for twelve years. Moreover, he would now -only accept his freedom along with an indemnity of 60,000 livres. He -added: "Be on your guard! When your prisoners get out and publish your -cruelties abroad, they will make you hateful to heaven and the whole -earth!" It is not surprising that this _Grand Memoire_ had practically -no result. Sartine promised that he would renew his efforts on his -behalf. "If, unhappily, you should meet with some resistance to the -entreaties you are about to make for me," wrote Danry, "I take the -precaution of sending you a copy of the scheme I sent to the king." -(This was the memorial suggesting that muskets should be given to the -officers and sergeants.) "Now the king has been putting my scheme in -operation for five years or more, and he will continue to avail himself -of it every time we are at war." Sartine proceeded to Versailles, this -marvellous scheme in his pocket. He showed it to the ministers and -pleaded on behalf of this protege of his who, from the depths of his -dungeon, was doing his country service. But on his return he wrote to -the major of the Bastille a note in regard to Danry, in which we read: -"They have not made use, as he believes, of his military scheme." - -Danry had asked several times to be sent to the colonies. In 1763 the -government was largely occupied with the colonization of La Desirade. We -find a letter of June 23, 1763, in which Sartine proposes to send Danry -to La Desirade "with an introduction to the commanding officer." But -nothing came of these proposals. - - * * * * * - -All his life, Danry sought to compass his ends by the aid of women. He -was well aware of all the tenderness and devotion there is in these -light heads; he knew that sentiment is always stronger in them than -reason: "I was always looking out for women, and wished to find young -women, for their gentle and loving soul is more susceptible of pity; -misfortune moves them, stirs in them a more lively interest; their -impressionability is less quickly dulled, and so they are capable of -greater efforts." - -While taking his walk on the towers of the Bastille in the fresh morning -air, he tried by means of gestures and signals to open relations with -the people of the neighbourhood. "One day I noticed two young persons -working alone in a room, whose countenances struck me as pretty and -gentle. I was not deceived. One of them having glanced in my direction, -I wafted her with my hand a salutation which I endeavoured to make -respectful and becoming, whereupon she told her sister, who instantly -looked at me too. I then saluted them both in the same manner, and they -replied to me with an appearance of interest and kindliness. From that -moment we set up a sort of correspondence between us." The girls were -two good-looking laundresses named Lebrun, the daughters of a wigmaker. -And our rogue, the better to stimulate the little fools to enthusiastic -service in his behalf, knocked at the door of their young hearts, -willing enough to fly open. He spoke to them of youth, misfortune, -love--and also of his fortune, prodigious, he said, the half of which he -offered them. Glowing with ardour, the girls spared for him neither -time, nor trouble, nor what little money they had. - -The prisoner had put them in possession of several of his schemes, among -others the military one, with letters for certain writers and persons of -importance, and in addition a "terrible" indictment of Madame de -Pompadour for the king, in which "her birth and her shame, all her -thefts and cruelties were laid bare." He begged the girls to have -several copies made, which they were then to send to the addresses -indicated. Soon large black crosses daubed on a neighbouring wall -informed the prisoner that his instructions had been carried out. Danry -seems no longer to have doubted that his woes were coming to an end, -that the gates of the Bastille were about to fly open before him, and -that he would triumphantly leave the prison only to enter a palace of -fortune: _Parta victoria!_[47] he exclaims in a burst of happiness. - -And so we come to one of the most extraordinary episodes in this strange -life. - -In December, 1763, the Marquise of Pompadour was taken seriously ill. -"An officer of the Bastille came up to my room and said to me: 'Sir, -write four words to the Marquise de Pompadour, and you may be sure that -in less than a week you will have recovered your freedom.' I replied to -the major that prayers and tears only hardened the heart of that cruel -woman, and that I would not write to her. However, he came back next day -with the same story, and I replied in the same terms as on the previous -day. Scarcely had he gone than Daragon, my warder, came into my room and -said: 'Believe the major when he tells you that within a week you will -be free: if he tells you so, depend upon it he is sure of it.' Next day -but one the officer came to me for the third time: 'Why are you so -obstinate?' I thanked him--it was Chevalier, major of the Bastille--for -the third time, telling him that I would sooner die than write again to -that implacable shrew. - -"Six or eight days after, my two young ladies came and kissed their -hands to me, at the same time displaying a roll of paper on which were -written in large characters the words: 'Madame de Pompadour is dead!' -The Marquise de Pompadour died on April 19, 1764, and two months -afterwards, on June 19, M. de Sartine came to the Bastille and gave me -an audience; the first thing he said was that we would say no more about -the past, but that at the earliest moment he would go to Versailles and -demand of the minister the justice which was my due." And we find, in -truth, among the papers of the lieutenant of police, the following note, -dated June 18, 1764: "M. Duval (one of the lieutenant's secretaries)--to -propose at the first inspection that Danry be liberated and exiled to -his own part of the country." - -Returning to his room, Danry reflected on these developments; for the -lieutenant of police to show so much anxiety for his liberation was -evidently a sign that he was afraid of him, and that his memorials had -reached their destination and achieved their end. But he would be a -great ass to be satisfied with a mere liberation: "100,000 livres" would -scarcely suffice to throw oblivion over the injustices with which he had -been overwhelmed. - -He revolved these thoughts in his head for several days. To accept -freedom at the hands of his persecutors would be to pardon the past, a -mistake he would never fall into. The door opened, the major entered, -bearing in his hand a note written by de Sartine: "You will tell County -Number 4 that I am working for his effectual liberation." The officer -went out; Danry immediately sat down at his table and wrote to the -lieutenant of police a letter replete with threats, insults, and -obscenity. The original is lost, but we have an abstract made by Danry -himself. He concluded with leaving to Sartine a choice: "he was either a -mere lunatic, or else had allowed himself to be corrupted like a villain -by the gold of the Marquis de Marigny, the Marquise de Pompadour's -brother." - -"When Sartine received my letter, he wrote an answer which the major -brought and read to me, in which these were his very words: that I was -wrong to impute to him the length of my imprisonment, that if he had had -his way I should long ago have been set free; and he ended by telling me -that there was Bedlam for the mad. On which I said to the major: 'We -shall see in a few days whether he will have the power to put me in -Bedlam.' He did not deprive me of my walk on the towers; nine days -after, he put me in the cells on bread and water." But Danry was not -easily put out. No doubt they were only meaning to put his assurance to -the test. He went down to his cell singing, and for several days -continued to manifest the most confident gaiety. - -From that moment the prisoner made himself insufferable to his -guardians. It was yells and violence from morning to night. He filled -the whole Bastille with bursts of his "voice of thunder." Major -Chevalier wrote to Sartine: "This prisoner would wear out the patience -of the saintliest monk"; again: "He is full of gall and bitterness, he -is poison pure and simple"; once more: "This prisoner is raving mad." - -The lieutenant of police suggested to Saint-Florentin, the minister, to -transfer Danry to the keep of Vincennes. He was conducted there on the -night of September 15, 1764. We are now entering on a new phase of his -life. We shall find him still more wretched than in the past, but -constantly swelling his demands and pretensions, and with reason, for he -is now, mark you, a nobleman! He had learnt from a sentinel of the -Bastille of the death of Henri Vissec de la Tude, lieutenant-colonel of -a dragoon regiment, who had died at Sedan on January 31, 1761. From that -day he determined that he was the son of that officer. And what were his -reasons? Vissec de la Tude was from his own part of the country, he was -a nobleman and rich, and he was dead. These arguments Danry considered -excellent. He was, however, in complete ignorance of all that concerned -his father and his new family; he did not know even the name "Vissec de -la Tude," of which he made "Masers de la Tude"; Masers was the name of -an estate belonging to Baron de Fontes, a relation of Henri de Vissec. -The latter was not a marquis, as Danry believed, but simply a chevalier; -he died leaving six sons, whilst Danry represents him as dying without -issue. It goes without saying that all that our hero relates about his -father in his _Memoirs_ is pure invention. The Chevalier de la Tude -never knew of the existence of the son of Jeanneton Aubrespy, and when -in later years Danry asked the children to recognize him as their -natural brother, his pretensions were rejected. Nevertheless our -gentleman will henceforth sign his letters and memoirs "Danry, or rather -Henri Masers d'Aubrespy," then "de Masers d'Aubrespy," then "de Masers -de la Tude." When Danry had once got an idea in his head, he never let -it go. He repeated it unceasingly until he had forced it upon the -conviction of all about him--pertinacity which cannot fail to excite our -admiration. In the patent of Danry's pension of 400 livres granted by -Louis XVI. in 1784, the king calls the son of poor Jeanneton "Vicomte -Masers de la Tude." - -As may well be imagined, the Vicomte de la Tude could not accept his -liberty on the same terms as Danry. The latter would have been satisfied -with 60,000 livres: the viscount demands 150,000 and the cross of St. -Louis to boot. So he writes to the lieutenant of police. Sartine was too -sensible a man to be long obdurate to the prisoner on account of these -extravagances. "I was transferred to the keep of Vincennes on the night -of September 15, 1764. About nine hours after, the late M. de Guyonnet, -king's lieutenant, came and saw me in the presence of the major and the -three warders, and said: 'M. de Sartine has instructed me to inform you, -on his behalf, that provided you behave yourself quietly for a short -time, he will set you free. You have written him a very violent letter, -and you must apologize for it.'" Danry adds: "When all is said and done, -M. de Sartine did treat me well." He granted him for two hours every day -"the extraordinary promenade of the moats." "When a lieutenant of -police," says Danry, "granted this privilege to a prisoner, it was with -the object of promptly setting him free." On November 23, 1765, Danry -was walking thus, in company with a sentinel, outside the keep. The fog -was dense. Turning suddenly towards his keeper, Danry said, "What do you -think of this weather?" "It's very bad." "Well, it's just the weather to -escape in." He took five paces and was out of sight. "I escaped from -Vincennes," writes Danry, "without trickery; an ox would have managed it -as well." But in the speech he delivered later in the National Assembly, -the matter took a new complexion. "Think," he cried, "of the unfortunate -Latude, in his third escape, pursued by twenty soldiers, and yet -stopping and disarming under their very eyes the sentinel who had taken -aim at him!" - - * * * * * - -When Latude was at large, he found himself without resources, as at his -first escape. "I escaped with my feet in slippers and not a sou in my -pocket; I hadn't a thing to bless myself with." He took refuge with his -young friends, the Misses Lebrun. - -In their keeping he found a part of his papers, plans and projects, -memorials and dissertations. He sent "a basketful" of these to Marshal -de Noailles, begging him to continue to honour him with his protection, -and imparting to him "four great discoveries he had just made; first, -the true cause of the tides; secondly, the true cause of mountains, but -for which the globe would be brought to a standstill and become -speedily vitrified; thirdly, the cause of the ceaseless turning of the -globe; fourthly, the cause of the saltness of sea-water." He wrote also -to the Duke de Choiseul, minister of war, in order to obtain a reward -for his military scheme; he wrote making overtures of peace to Sartine: -in return for an advance of 10,000 crowns of the 150,000 livres due to -him, he would overlook the past: "I was resolved," he says, "to stake -all on one cast." In reply, he received a letter naming a house where he -would find 1200 livres obtained for him by Dr. Quesnay. He proceeded to -the address indicated--and was there captured. - -He was at once taken back to Vincennes. He declares that he was about to -be set at liberty at the moment of his escape: and now a new detention -was commencing. We shall not relate in detail the life he was now to -lead. Materially he continued to be well treated, but his mind became -affected, his rages became more and more violent, reaching at last -paroxysms of fury. Here are some extracts from letters and memorials -sent to Sartine: "By all the devils, this is coming it too strong. It is -true, sir, that I'd defy the blackest devils in all hell to teach you -anything in the way of cruelty; and that's but poor praise for you." He -writes on another occasion: "The crime of every one of us is to have -seen through your villainies: we are to perish, are we? how delighted -you would be if some one told you that we had all strangled ourselves in -our cells!" Danry reminds the lieutenant of police of the tortures of -Enguerrand de Marigni, adding: "Remember that more than a thousand -wretches have been broken in the Place de Greve who had not committed -the hundredth part of your crimes."... "Not a single person would be -astonished to see you flayed alive, your skin tanned, and your carcase -thrown into the gutters for the dogs to eat."... "But Monsieur laughs -at everything, Monsieur fears neither God, nor king, nor devil, Monsieur -swills down his crimes like buttermilk!" - -In prison Latude wrote memoirs which he filled with calumnies on the -ministers and the court. These memoirs are composed in the most dramatic -style, with an inimitable accent of sincerity. It was known that the -prisoner found a thousand means of sending them outside the walls, and -it was feared that they might be circulated among the populace, whose -minds--the year is 1775--were beginning to ferment. Latude had just been -flung into a cell in consequence of a fresh outbreak against his -jailers. "On March 19, 1775, the king's lieutenant entered, accompanied -by the major and three warders, and said to me: 'I have obtained leave -to let you out of the cell, but on one condition: that you hand over -your papers.' - -"'Hand over my papers! I tell you, sir, I'd rather be done to death in -this cell than show the white feather so!' - -"'Your trunk is upstairs in your room: I've only to say the word and the -seals would be broken and your papers taken out.' - -"I replied: 'Sir, justice has formalities to which you are bound to -conform, and you are not allowed to commit such outrages.' - -"He took five or six steps out of the cell, and as I did not call him -back, he came back himself and said: 'Just hand them to me for ten days -to examine them, and I give you my word of honour that at the end of -that time I will have them returned to your room.' - -"I replied: 'I will not let you have them for two hours even.' - -"'All right,' he said; 'as you won't entrust them to me, you have only -to stay where you are.'" - -Latude relates in his _Memoirs_ with great indignation the story of a -flute he had made, on which he used to play, his sole diversion during -the long hours of solitude; his jailers had the barbarity to take it -from him. The governor of the fortress, out of compassion, offered to -restore it. "But it will only be on condition that you play by day only, -and not at night." At this stipulation, writes Latude in his _Reveries_, -"I could not refrain from bantering him, saying, 'Why, don't you know, -sir, that forbidding a thing is just the way to make me eager for it?'" - -And so at Vincennes as at Paris they came to consider Danry as a madman. -Among the books given him for his amusement there were some dealing with -sorcery. These he read and re-read, and from that time onward he saw in -all the incidents of his life nothing but the perpetual intervention of -devils evoked by the witch Madame de Pompadour and her brother the -magician, the Marquis de Marigny. - -Sartine came again to see the prisoner on November 8, 1772. Danry begged -him to send a police officer to make a copy of a memorial he had drawn -up for his own justification; to send also an advocate to assist him -with his advice, and a doctor, to examine the state of his health. The -police officer arrived on the 24th. On the 29th, he wrote to the -lieutenant of police: "I have the honour to report that in pursuance of -your orders I proceeded to the chateau of Vincennes on the 24th curt., -to hear from Danry something which, he asserts, concerns the minister: -it is impossible to hear anything which concerns him less. He began by -saying that to write all he had to tell me I should have to remain for -three weeks with him. He was bound to tell me the story of 180 -sorceries, and I was to copy the story, according to him, from a heap of -papers he drew from a bag, the writing of which is undecipherable." - -We know from Danry himself what passed at the visit of the advocate. He -entered the prisoner's room about noon. Danry handed him two memorials -he had drawn up and explained their purport. "Instantly he cut me short, -saying, 'Sir, I have no belief whatever in witchcraft.' I did not give -in, but said, 'Sir, I cannot show you the devil in bodily shape, but I -am very certain I can convince you, by the contents of this memorial, -that the late Marquise de Pompadour was a witch, and that the Marquis de -Marigny, her brother, is at this very time still having dealings with -the devil.' - -"The advocate had read but a few pages when he stopped dead, put the -manuscript on the table, and said, as though he had been wakened out of -a deep sleep, 'Would you not like to get out of prison?' I replied: -'There's no doubt of that.' 'And do you intend to remain in Paris, or to -go to your home?' 'When I am free, I shall go home.' 'But have you any -means?' Upon this I took his hand and said: 'My dear sir, I beg you not -to take offence at what I am going to say.' 'Speak on,' he said, 'say -whatever you like, I shall not be offended.' 'Well then, I see very -clearly that the devil has already got hold of you.'" - -In the same year, Malesherbes made his celebrated inspection of the -prisons. "This virtuous minister came to see me at the beginning of -August, 1775, and listened to me with the most lively interest." The -historian who has the completest knowledge of everything relating to the -Bastille, Francois Ravaisson, believed that Malesherbes left the -wretched man in prison out of regard for his colleague Maurepas. "One -would have thought that Maurepas' first act on resuming office would -have been to release his old accomplice." This conjecture is destroyed -by a letter from Malesherbes to the governor of Vincennes: "I am busy, -sir, with the examination of the papers relating to your various -prisoners. Danry, Thorin, and Marechal are quite mad, according to the -particulars furnished to me, and the two first gave indubitable marks -of madness in my presence." - -In consequence, Danry was transferred to Charenton on September 27, -1775, "on account of mental derangement, in virtue of a royal order of -the 23rd of the said month, countersigned by Lamoignon. The king will -pay for his keep." On entering his new abode, Latude took the precaution -to change his name a third time, and signed the register "Danger." - -In passing from the fortress of Vincennes to the hospital of Charenton, -Danry thought it was as well to rise still higher in dignity. So we see -him henceforth styling himself "engineer, geographer, and royal -pensioner at Charenton." - -His situation was sensibly changed for the better. He speaks of the -kindnesses shown him by the Fathers of La Charite.[48] He had companions -whose society pleased him. Halls were set apart for billiards, -backgammon, and cards. He had company at his meals and in his walks. He -met Allegre, his old fellow-prisoner, whom he came upon among the -dangerous lunatics in the dungeons; Allegre had been removed in 1763 -from the Bastille, where he was shattering and destroying everything. -His latest fancy was that he was God. As to Danry, he had taken so -kindly to his role as nobleman that to see his aristocratic and -well-to-do air, to hear his conversation, full of reminiscences of his -family and his early life, no one could have doubted that he actually -was the brilliant engineer officer he set up for, who had fallen in the -prime of life a victim to the intrigues of the favourite. He hobnobbed -with the aristocratic section of society at Charenton and struck up an -intimacy with one of his associates, the Chevalier de Moyria, son of a -lieutenant-colonel, and a knight of Saint-Louis. - -Meanwhile the Parlement, which sent a commission every year to inspect -the Charenton asylum--a commission before which Danry appeared on two -separate occasions--did not decide that he ought to be set at liberty. -But one fine day in September, 1776, the prior of the Fathers, who took -a quite exceptional interest in the lot of his pensioner, meeting him in -the garden, said to him abruptly: "We are expecting a visit from the -lieutenant of police; get ready a short and taking address to say to -him." The lieutenant of police, Lenoir, saw Danry, and listened to him -attentively, and as the prior's account of him was entirely favourable, -the magistrate promised him his liberty. "Then Father Prudentius, my -confessor, who was behind me, drew me by the arm to get me away, fearing -lest, by some imprudent word, I might undo the good that had been -decided on"--a charming incident, much to the honour of Father -Prudentius. - -But on consideration it appeared dangerous to fling so suddenly upon -society a man who would be at a loss how to live, having neither -relatives nor fortune, having no longer the means of gaining a -livelihood, and a man, moreover, whom there was only too much reason to -mistrust. Lenoir asked the prisoner if, once set at liberty, he would -find the wherewithal to assure his existence; if he had any property; if -he could give the names of any persons willing to go bail for him. - -What did this mean--_if_ he had any property, _if_ he could find -sureties? He, Masers de Latude! Why, his whole family, when the Marquise -de Pompadour had him put in the Bastille, was occupying a brilliant -position! Why, his mother, of whose death he had had the agony to hear, -had left a house and considerable estates! Latude took his pen, and -without hesitation wrote to M. Caillet, royal notary at Montagnac: "My -dear friend, I would bet ten to one you believe me dead; see how -mistaken you are!... You have but to say the word and before the -carnival is over we shall eat a capital leveret together." And he speaks -to his friend the notary of the fortune left by his mother, and of his -family, who all of them cannot fail to be interested in him. Latude -himself was not greatly astonished at receiving no reply to this -epistle: but it must have passed under the eyes of the lieutenant of -police, and what more did he want? - -Latude's new friend, the Chevalier de Moyria, had already been for some -time at liberty. The prisoner hastened to send him a copy of his letter -to the notary. "The reply is a long time coming, M. Caillet is dead, -doubtless." What is to become of him? These twenty-eight years of -captivity have endangered his fortune, have made him lose his friends; -how is he to find the remnant of his scattered family? Happily there -remains to him a friendship, a friendship still recent, but already -strong, in which he places his whole confidence. "Chevalier, it would -only need your intervention to deliver me, by inducing your good mother -to write to M. Lenoir." The Chevalier de Moyria sent an amiable reply. -Danry wrote another and more urgent letter, with such success that not -only the Chevalier's mother, but also an old friend of the Moyria -family, Mercier de Saint-Vigor, a colonel, and controller-general of the -queen's household, intervened, and made applications at Versailles. "On -June 5, 1777, King Louis XVI. restored to me my freedom; I have in my -pocket the warrant under his own hand!" - - * * * * * - -On leaving Charenton, Danry signed an undertaking to depart immediately -for Languedoc, an undertaking which he did not trouble to fulfil. Paris -was the only city in France where a man of his stamp could thrive. He -was now fifty-two years old, but was still youthful in appearance, full -of go and vigour; his hair, as abundant as it had been in youth, had not -become white. He soon found means of borrowing some money, and then we -see him opening a campaign, exerting himself to get in touch with the -ministers, gaining the protection of the Prince de Beauvau, distributing -memorials in which he claimed a reward for great services rendered, and -launched out into invectives against his oppressors, Sartine in -particular. Minister Amelot sent for him, and in tones of severity -notified him that he was to leave the city at once. Latude did not wait -for the command to be repeated. He had reached Saint-Bris, about a -hundred miles from the capital, when he was suddenly arrested by the -police officer Marais. Brought back to Paris, he was locked up in the -Chatelet on July 16, 1777, and on August 1 conducted to Bicetre. The -first use he had made of his liberty was to introduce himself to a lady -of quality and extort money from her by menaces. The officer found a -considerable sum in his possession. - -Bicetre was not a state prison like the Bastille and Vincennes, or an -asylum like Charenton; it was the thieves' prison. On entering, Danry -took the precaution of changing his name a fourth time, calling himself -Jedor. He is, moreover, careful in his _Memoirs_ to give us the reason -of this fresh metamorphosis: "I would not sully my father's name by -inscribing it on the register of this infamous place." From this day -there begins for him a truly wretched existence; huddled with criminals, -put on bread and water, his lodging is a cell. But his long martyrdom is -nearing its end: the hour of his apotheosis is at hand! - -Louis XVI. had now been on the throne for several years, and France had -become the most impressionable country in the world. Tears flowed at the -slightest provocation. Was it the sentimental literature, which Rousseau -made fashionable, that produced this moving result, or contrariwise, was -the literature successful because it hit the taste of the day? At all -events, the time was ripe for Latude. His recent unlucky experience was -not to dishearten him. On the contrary, it is with a greater energy, a -more poignant emotion, and cries still more heartrending, that he -resumes the story of his interminable sufferings. The victim of cruel -oppressors, of cowardly foes who have their own reasons for smothering -his voice, he will not bend his head under his abominable treatment; he -will remain proud, self-assured, erect before those who load him with -irons! - -On the birth of the Dauphin, Louis XVI. resolved to admit his wretched -prisoners to a share of his joy and to pronounce a great number of -pardons. A special commission, composed of eight counsellors of the -Chatelet and presided over by Cardinal de Rohan, sat at Bicetre. Danry -appeared before it on May 17, 1782. His new judges, as he testifies, -heard his story with interest. But the decision of the commission was -not favourable to him. He was not so much surprised at this as might be -supposed: "The impure breath of vice," he wrote to the Marquis de -Conflans, "has never tainted my heart, but there are magistrates who -would let off guilty men with free pardons rather than expose themselves -to the merited reproach of having committed injustice of the most -revolting kind in keeping innocence for thirty-three years in irons." - -Giving rein to the marvellous activity of his brain, he composed at -Bicetre new schemes, memorials, and accounts of his misfortunes. To the -Marquis de Conflans he sends a scheme for a hydraulic press, "the -homage of an unfortunate nobleman who has grown old in irons"; he -induces the turnkeys to carry memorials to all who may possibly interest -themselves in him. The first to take compassion on him was a priest, the -Abbe Legal, of the parish of St. Roch, and curate of Bicetre. He visited -him, consoled him, gave him money, showed him attentions. Cardinal de -Rohan also took much interest in him, and sent him some assistance -through his secretary. We are coming at last to Madame Legros. This -wonderful story is so well known that we shall tell it briefly. A -drunken turnkey chanced to lose one of Latude's memorials at a corner of -the Rue des Fosses-Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois: it was picked up and -opened by a woman, a haberdasher in a small way. Her heart burned within -her as she read of these horrible sufferings, depicted in strokes of -fire. She inspired her husband with her own emotion; henceforth it was -to be the aim in life of these worthy people to effect the unhappy man's -deliverance, and Madame Legros devoted herself to the self-imposed task -with indefatigable ardour, courage, and devotion. "A grand sight," cries -Michelet, "to see this poor, ill-clad woman going from door to door, -paying court to footmen to win entrance into mansions, to plead her -cause before the great, to implore their support!" In many houses she -was well received. President de Gourgues, President de Lamoignon, -Cardinal de Rohan, aided her with their influence. Sartine himself took -steps on behalf of the unhappy man. Two advocates of the Parlement of -Paris, Lacroix and Comeyras, devoted themselves to his cause. Copies -were made of the prisoner's memorials and distributed in every -drawing-room; they penetrated even into the boudoir of the queen. All -hearts were stirred by the accents of this harrowing voice. - -The Marquis de Villette, who had become celebrated through the -hospitality he showed to Voltaire when dying, conceived a passionate -enthusiasm for Danry. He sent his steward to Bicetre to offer him a -pension of 600 livres on the sole condition of the prisoner's leaving -his case entirely in the Marquis's hands. Latude received this singular -proposal with becoming dignity. "For two years a poor woman has been -devoting herself to my cause. I should be an ungrateful wretch if I did -not leave my fate in her hands." He knew that this pension would not -escape him, and it was not for 600 livres that he would have consented -to rob his story of the touching and romantic features it was -increasingly assuming. - -Further, the French Academy actually intervenes! D'Alembert is all fire -and flame. From this time a stream of visitors of the highest -distinction flows through the squalid prison. At length the king himself -is led to look into the affair. He has the documentary evidence brought -to him and examines it carefully. With what anxiety everyone awaits his -decision! But Louis XVI., now acquainted with the case, replies that -Latude will be released--_never_! At this decree, to all appearance -irrevocable, all the prisoner's friends lose heart, except Madame -Legros. The queen and Madame Necker are on her side. In 1783, Breteuil, -the queen's man, comes into power; on March 24, 1784, the release is -signed! The Vicomte de Latude receives a pension of 400 livres, but is -exiled to his own part of the country. New importunities, new -applications; at last they succeed: Latude is free to live in Paris! - -This is the grandest period in the life of a great man! Latude is soon -in occupation of a modest but decent and well-ordered suite of rooms on -the fourth floor. He lives with his two benefactors, M. and Madame -Legros, petted, spoilt in a thousand ways. The Duchess of Beauvau has -obtained for Madame Legros from Calonne, out of funds intended for the -support of distressed gentlefolk, a pension of 600 livres: the Duchess -of Kingston[49] grants a pension of the same amount. In addition to the -royal pension, Latude receives 500 livres a year from President Dupaty -and 300 from the Duke d'Ayen. Moreover, a public subscription is opened, -and the list is filled with the greatest names in France. An agreeable -competency is assured to the Legros couple and their adopted son. At its -sitting on March 24, the French Academy solemnly awarded the Montyon -prize to the valiant little haberdasher. "The Dame Legros came to -receive the medal amid the acclamations of the whole assembly." - -The name of Latude is on everyone's lips; he wins admiration and pity on -all sides. Ladies of the highest society are not above mounting to the -fourth story, accompanied by their daughters, to bring the poor man "aid -in money, with their tears." The hero has left a complacent description -of the throng: duchesses, marchionesses, grandees of Spain, wearers of -the cross of St. Louis, presidents of the Parlement, all these met at -his house. Sometimes there were six or eight persons in his room. -Everyone listened to his story and lavished on him marks of the most -affectionate compassion, and no one failed before going away "to leave a -mark of his sensibility." The wives of Marshals de Luxembourg and de -Beauvau, the Duchess de la Rochefoucauld, the Countess de Guimont, were -among the most zealous. "Indeed," says our hero, "it would be extremely -difficult for me to tell which of these countesses, marchionesses, -duchesses, and princesses had the most humane, the most compassionate -heart." - -Thus Latude became one of the lions of Paris: strangers flocked to his -lodging, hostesses ran off with him. At table, when he spoke, all voices -were hushed with an air of deference and respect; in the drawing-room -you would find him seated in a gilt chair near the fireplace where great -logs were blazing, and surrounded by a thick cluster of bright, silky, -rustling robes. The Chevalier de Pougens, son of the Prince de Conti, -pressed him to come and stay at his house; Latude graciously consented. -The American ambassador, the illustrious Jefferson, invited him to -dinner. - -Latude has himself described this enchanted life: "Since I left prison, -the greatest lords of France have done me the honour of inviting me to -eat with them, but I have not found a single house--except that of the -Comte d'Angevillier, where you could meet men of wit and learning in -scores, and receive all sorts of civilities on the part of the countess; -and that of M. Guillemot, keeper of the royal palaces, one of the most -charming families to be found in Paris--where you are more at your ease -than with the Marquis de Villette. - -"When a man has felt, as I have felt, the rage of hunger, he always -begins by speaking of his food. The Marquis de Villette possesses a cook -who is a match for the most skilful in his art: in a word, his table is -first-rate. At the tables of the dukes and peers and marshals of France -there is eternal ceremony, and everyone speaks like a book, whereas at -that of the Marquis de Villette, men of wit and learning always form the -majority of the company. All the first-class musicians have a cover set -at his table, and on at least three days of the week he gives a little -concert." - -On August 26, 1788, died one of the benefactresses of Latude, the -Duchess of Kingston, who did not fail to mention her protege in her -will. We see him dutifully assisting at the sale of the lady's furniture -and effects. He even bought a few things, giving a _louis d' or_ in -payment. Next day, the sale being continued, the auctioneer handed the -coin back to Latude: it was bad. Bad! What! did they take the Vicomte de -Latude for a sharper? The coin bad! Who, he would like to know, had the -insolence to make "an accusation so derogatory to his honour and his -reputation?" Latude raised his voice, and the auctioneer threatened to -bundle him out of the room. The insolent dog! "Bundle out rogues, not -gentlemen!" But the auctioneer sent for the police, who put "the Sieur -de Latude ignominiously outside." He went off calmly, and the same day -summoned the auctioneer before the Chatelet tribunal, "in order to get a -reparation as authoritative as the defamation had been public." - -In the following year (1789) Latude made a journey into England. He had -taken steps to sue Sartine, Lenoir, and the heirs of Madame de Pompadour -in the courts in order to obtain the damages due to him. In England, he -drew up a memorandum for Sartine, in which he informed the late -lieutenant of police of the conditions on which he would withdraw his -actions. "M. de Sartine, you will give me, as compensation for all the -harm and damage you have made me suffer unjustly, the sum of 900,000 -livres; M. Lenoir, 600,000 livres; the heirs of the late Marquise de -Pompadour and Marquis de Menars, 100,000 crowns; in all, 1,800,000 -livres;" that is to say, about L160,000 in English money of to-day. - -[Illustration: LATUDE. - -_From the Painting by Vestier (Hotel Carnavalet)._] - -The Revolution broke out. If the epoch of Louis XVI., with its mildness -and fellow-feeling, had been favourable to our hero, the Revolution -seems to have been ordained on purpose for him. The people rose against -the tyranny of kings: the towers of the Bastille were overthrown. -Latude, the victim of kings, the victim of the Bastille and arbitrary -warrants, was about to appear in all his glory. - -He hastened to throw into the gutter his powdered peruque and viscount's -frock; listen to the revolutionist, fierce, inflexible, indomitable, -_uncompromising_: "Frenchmen, I have won the right to tell you the -truth, and if you are free, you cannot but love to hear it. - -"For thirty-five years I meditated in dungeons on the audacity and -insolence of despots; with loud cries I was calling down vengeance, when -France in indignation rose up as one man in one sublime movement and -levelled despotism with the dust. The will to be free is what makes a -nation free; and you have proved it. But to preserve freedom a nation -must make itself worthy of it, and that is what remains for you to do!" - -In the Salon of 1789 there were two portraits of Latude with the famous -ropeladder. Below one of these portraits, by Vestier, a member of the -Royal Academy, these lines were engraved:-- - - Instruit par ses malheurs et sa captivite - A vaincre des tyrans les efforts et la rage, - Il apprit aux Francais comment le vrai courage - Peut conquerir la liberte.[50] - -In 1787 the Marquis de Beaupoil-Saint-Aulaire had written, inspired by -Latude himself, the story of the martyr's captivity. Of this book two -editions appeared in the same year. In 1789 Latude published the -narrative of his escape from the Bastille, as well as his _Grand -Memoire_ to the Marquise de Pompadour; finally, in 1790 appeared -_Despotism Unmasked, or the Memoirs of Henri Masers de Latude_, edited -by the advocate Thiery. The book was dedicated to La Fayette. On the -first page we see a portrait of the hero, his face proud and energetic, -one hand on the ropeladder, the other extended towards the Bastille -which workmen are in the act of demolishing. "I swear," says the author -at the commencement, "that I will not relate one fact which is not -true." The work is a tissue of calumnies and lies; and what makes a most -painful impression on the reader is to see this man disowning his -mother, forgetting the privations she endured out of love for her son, -and ascribing the credit of what little the poor thing could do for her -child to a Marquis de la Tude, knight of St. Louis, and -lieutenant-colonel of the Orleans Dragoons! - -But the book vibrates with an incomparable accent of sincerity and of -that profound emotion which Latude knew so well how to infuse into all -those with whom he had to do. In 1793, twenty editions had been -exhausted, the work had been translated into several languages; the -journals had no praise strong enough for the boldness and genius of the -author; the _Mercure de France_ proclaimed that henceforth it was a -parent's duty to teach his children to read in this sublime work; a copy -was sent to all the departments, accompanied by a model of the Bastille -by the architect Palloy. With good reason could Latude exclaim in the -National Assembly: "I have not a little contributed to the Revolution -and to its consolidation." - -Latude was not the man to neglect opportunities so favourable. To begin -with, he sought to get his pension augmented, and presented to the -Constituent Assembly a petition backed by representative Bouche. But -Camus, "rugged Camus," president of the committee appointed to -investigate the matter, decided on rejection; and at the sitting of -March 13, 1791, deputy Voidel delivered a very spirited speech; his view -was that the nation had unhappy folk to succour more worthy of their -concern than a man whose life had begun with roguery and villainy. The -Assembly sided with him; not only was Latude's pension not increased, -but on consideration, the pension granted by Louis XVI. was altogether -withdrawn. - -Horror and infamy! "What madness has seized on the minds of the -representatives of the most generous nation in the world!... To slay a -hapless wretch the mere sight of whom awakens pity and warms into life -the most sluggish sensibility ... for death is not so terrible as the -loss of honour!" The valiant Latude will not abide the stroke of such an -insult. Ere long he has brought Voidel to retract; in the heart of the -Assembly he gains an influential supporter in the Marshal de Broglie. -The Constituent Assembly is replaced by the Legislative, and Latude -returns to the charge. He is admitted to the bar of the House on January -26, 1792; the matter is re-committed and gone into a second time on -February 25. We should like to be able to quote at length the speech -which Latude himself composed for his advocate; here is a portion of the -peroration:-- - -"That a man, without any outside assistance, should have been able to -escape three times, once from the Bastille and twice from Vincennes, -yes, gentlemen, I venture to say he could not have succeeded except by a -miracle, or else that Latude has more than extraordinary genius. Cast -your eyes on this ladder of rope and wood, and on all the other -instruments which Latude constructed with a mere knife, which you see -here in the centre of this chamber. I resolved to bring before your own -eyes this interesting object, which will for ever win admiration from -men of intelligence. Not a single stranger comes to Paris without going -to see this masterpiece of intelligence and genius, as well as his -generous deliverer, Madame Legros. We have resolved to give you, -gentlemen, the pleasure of seeing this celebrated woman, who -unremittingly for forty months set despotism at defiance, and vanquished -it by dint of virtue. Behold her there at the bar with M. de Latude, -behold that incomparable woman, for ever to be the glory and the -ornament of her sex!" - -It is not surprising that the Legislative Assembly was deeply moved by -this eloquent harangue and this exhibition of the lady, as touching as -unexpected. It unanimously voted Latude a pension of 2000 livres, -without prejudice to the pension of 400 livres previously awarded. -Henceforth Latude will be able to say: "The whole nation adopted me!" - -However, the little mishap in the Constituent Assembly was to be the -only check that Latude suffered in the course of his glorious martyr's -career. Presented to the Society of "Friends of the Constitution," he -was elected a member by acclamation, and the Society sent a deputation -of twelve members to carry the civic crown to Madame Legros. The leader -of the deputation said, in a voice broken by emotion, "This day is the -grandest day of my life." A deputation from the principal theatres of -Paris offered Latude free admission to all performances, "so that he -might go often and forget the days of his mourning." He was surrounded -by the highest marks of consideration; pleaders begged him to support -their cases before the tribunals with the moral authority bestowed on -him by his virtue. He took advantage of this to bring definitively -before the courts his claims against the heirs of the Marquise de -Pompadour. Citizen Mony argued the case for the first time before the -court of the sixth arrondissement on July 16, 1793; on September 11 the -case came again before the magistrates: Citizens Chaumette, Laurent, and -Legrand had been designated by the Commune of Paris as counsel for the -defence, and the whole Commune was present at the hearing. Latude -obtained 60,000 livres, 10,000 of which were paid him in cash. - -And now his life became more tranquil. Madame Legros continued to lavish -her care on him. The 50,000 livres remaining due to him from the heirs -of the Marquise were paid in good farm lands situated in La Beauce, the -profits of which he regularly drew. - -Let us hasten to add that France did not find in Latude an ungrateful -child. The critical situation in which the nation was then struggling -pained him deeply. He sought the means of providing a remedy, and in -1799 brought out a "Scheme for the valuation of the eighty departments -of France to save the Republic in less than three months," and a "Memoir -on the means of re-establishing the public credit and order in the -finances of France." - -When the estates of Madame de Pompadour were sequestrated, the farms -Latude had received were taken from him; but he induced the Directory to -restore them. He was less fortunate in his requisition for a licence for -a theatre and a gaming-house. But he found consolation. The subsidies he -went on extorting from right and left, the proceeds of his farms, the -sale of his books, and the money brought in by the exhibition of his -ropeladder, which was exhibited by a showman in the different towns of -France and England, provided him with a very comfortable income. - -The Revolution became a thing of the past. Latude hailed the dawning -glory of Bonaparte, and when Bonaparte became Napoleon, Latude made his -bow to the emperor. We have a very curious letter in which he marks out -for Napoleon I. the line of conduct he should pursue to secure his own -welfare and the good of France. It begins as follows:-- - -"SIRE,--I have been five times buried alive, and am well acquainted with -misfortune. To have a heart more sympathetic than the common run of men -it is necessary to have suffered great ills.... At the time of the -Terror I had the delightful satisfaction of saving the lives of -twenty-two poor wretches.... To petition Fouquet d'Etinville on behalf -of the royalists was to persuade him that I was one myself. When I -braved death in order to save the lives of twenty-two citizens, judge, -great Emperor, if my heart can do ought but take great interest in you, -the saviour of my beloved country." - -We are given some details of the last years of Latude's life in the -_Memoirs_ of his friend, the Chevalier de Pougens, and in the _Memoirs_ -of the Duchess d'Abrantes. The Chevalier tells us that at the age of -seventy-five years he still enjoyed good health; he was "active and gay, -and appeared to enjoy to the full the delights of existence. Every day -he took long walks in Paris without experiencing the least fatigue. -People were amazed to find _no trace_ of the cruel sufferings he had -undergone in the cells during a captivity of thirty-five years." His -popularity suffered no diminution under the Empire. Junot awarded him a -pension from funds at his disposal. One day the general presented him -to his wife, along with Madame Legros, whose side Latude never left. -"When he arrived," says the Duchess d'Abrantes, "I went to greet him -with a respect and an emotion that must have been truly edifying. I took -him by the hand, conducted him to a chair, and put a cushion under his -feet; in fact, he might have been my grandfather, whom I could not have -treated better. At table I placed him on my right. But," adds the -Duchess, "my enchantment was of short duration. He talked of nothing but -his own adventures with appalling loquacity." - -At the age of eighty, a few months before his death, Latude wrote in the -most familiar terms to his protector, the Chevalier de Pougens, a member -of the Institute: "Now I assure you in the clearest possible words, that -if within ten days of the present time, the 11th Messidor, you have not -turned up in Paris (the Chevalier was staying at his country estate), I -shall start the next day and come to you with the hunger of a giant and -the thirst of a cabby, and when I have emptied your cellar and eaten you -out of house and home you will see me play the second act of the comedy -of _Jocrisse_[51]; you will see me run off with your plates, and dishes, -and tankards, and bottles--empty, you may be sure--and fling all your -furniture out of the window!" - -On July 20, 1804, Latude compiled one more circular, addressed to the -sovereigns of Europe: the kings of Prussia, Sweden, and Denmark, the -Archduke Charles, brother of the Emperor; and to the President of the -United States. To each of them he sent a copy of his _Memoirs_, -accompanied by the famous scheme for replacing with muskets the pikes -with which the sergeants were armed. He explained to each of the -sovereigns that as the country he ruled was profiting by this child of -his genius, it was only just that he should reap some benefit. - -Jean Henri, surnamed Danry, alias Danger, alias Jedor, alias Masers -d'Aubrespy, alias De Masers de Latude, died of pneumonia at Paris, on -January 1, 1805, aged eighty years. - - - - -CHAPTER VII. - -THE FOURTEENTH OF JULY. - - -In the remarkable book entitled _Paris during the Revolution_, M. -Adolphe Schmidt writes: "All the purely revolutionary events, the events -of the Fourteenth of July, of October 5 and 6, 1789, were the work of an -obscure minority of reckless and violent revolutionists. If they -succeeded, it was only because the great majority of the citizens -avoided the scene of operations or were mere passive spectators there, -attracted by curiosity, and giving in appearance an enhanced importance -to the movement." Further on he says: "After the fall of the -Gironde,[52] Dutard expressed himself in these terms: 'If, out of 50,000 -Moderates, you succeed in collecting a compact body of no more than -3000, I shall be much astonished; and if out of these 3000 there are to -be found only 500 who are agreed, and courageous enough to express their -opinion, I shall be still more astonished. And these, in truth, must -expect to be Septembrised.'[53] 'Twelve maniacs, with their blood well -up, at the head of the Sansculotte section,' writes Dutard in another -report, 'would put to flight the other forty-seven sections of Paris.' -Mercier, after the fall of the Gironde, thus expresses himself in regard -to the reign of Terror: 'Sixty brigands deluged France with blood: -500,000 men within our walls were witnesses of their atrocities, and -were not brave enough to oppose them.'" - -To enable the reader to understand the extraordinary and improbable -event which is the subject of this chapter, it would be necessary to -begin by explaining the circumstances and describing the material and -moral state of things in which it happened; and that, unhappily, would -occupy much space. Let us take the two principal facts, see what they -led to, and then come to the events of the Fourteenth of July. - -For its task of governing France, the royal power had in its hands no -administrative instrument, or, at any rate, administrative instruments -of a very rudimentary character. It ruled through tradition and -sentiment. The royal power had been created by the affection and -devotion of the nation, and in this devotion and affection lay its whole -strength. - -What, actually and practically, were the means of government in the -hands of the king? "Get rid of _lettres de cachet_," observed -Malesherbes, "and you deprive the king of all his authority, for the -_lettre de cachet_ is the only means he possesses of enforcing his will -in the kingdom." Now, for several years past, the royal power had -practically renounced _lettres de cachet_. On the other hand, during the -course of the eighteenth century, the sentiments of affection and -devotion of which we have spoken had become enfeebled, or at least had -changed their character. So it was that on the eve of the Revolution the -royal power, which stood in France for the entire administration, had, -if the expression may be allowed, melted into thin air. - -Below the royal power, the lords in the country, the upper ten in the -towns, constituted the second degree in the government. The same remarks -apply here also. And unhappily it is certain that, over the greater part -of France, the territorial lords had forgotten the duties which their -privileges and their station imposed. The old attachment of the -labouring classes to them had almost everywhere disappeared, and in many -particulars had given place to feelings of hostility. - -Thus on the eve of '89 the whole fabric of the state had no longer any -real existence: at the first shock it was bound to crumble into dust. -And as, behind the fragile outer wall, there was no solid structure--no -administrative machine, with its numerous, diverse, and nicely-balanced -parts, like that which in our time acts as a buffer against the shocks -of political crises,--the first blow aimed at the royal power was bound -to plunge the whole country into a state of disorganization and -disorder from which the tyranny of the Terror, brutal, blood-stained, -overwhelming as it was, alone could rescue it. - -Such is the first of the two facts we desire to make clear. We come now -to the second. Ever since the year 1780, France had been almost -continually in a state of famine. The rapidity and the abundance of the -international exchanges which in our days supply us constantly from the -remotest corners of the world with the necessaries of life, prevent our -knowing anything of those terrible crises which in former days swept -over the nations. "The dearth," writes Taine, "permanent, prolonged, -having already lasted ten years, and aggravated by the very outbreaks -which it provoked, went on adding fuel to all the passions of men till -they reached a blaze of madness." "The nearer we come to the Fourteenth -of July," says an eye witness, "the greater the famine becomes." "In -consequence of the bad harvest," writes Schmidt, "the price of bread had -been steadily rising from the opening of the year 1789. This state of -things was utilized by the agitators who aimed at driving the people -into excesses: these excesses in turn paralyzed trade. Business ceased, -and numbers of workers found themselves without bread." - -A few words should properly be said in regard to brigandage under the -_ancien regime_. The progress of manners and especially the development -of executive government have caused it utterly to disappear. The -reader's imagination will supply all we have not space to say. He will -recollect the lengths of daring to which a man like Cartouche[54] could -go, and recall what the forest of Bondy[55] was at the gates of Paris. - -So grew up towards the end of the _ancien regime_ what Taine has so -happily called a spontaneous anarchy. In the four months preceding the -capture of the Bastille, one can count more than three hundred riots in -France. At Nantes, on January 9, 1789, the town hall was invaded, and -the bakers' shops pillaged. All this took place to the cries of "Vive le -roi!" At Bray-sur-Seine, on May 1, peasants armed with knives and clubs -forced the farmers to lower the price of corn. At Rouen, on May 28, the -corn in the market place was plundered. In Picardy, a discharged -carabineer put himself at the head of an armed band which attacked the -villages and carried off the corn. On all sides houses were looted from -roof to cellar. At Aupt, M. de Montferrat, defending himself, was "cut -into little pieces." At La Seyne, the mob brought a coffin in front of -the house of one of the principal burgesses; he was told to prepare for -death, and they would do him the honour to bury him. He escaped, and his -house was sacked. We cull these facts haphazard from among hundreds of -others. - -The immediate neighbourhood of Paris was plunged in terror. The batches -of letters, still unpublished, preserved in the National Archives throw -the most vivid light on this point. Bands of armed vagabonds scoured the -country districts, pillaging the villages and plundering the crops. -These were the "Brigands," a term which constantly recurs in the -documents, and more and more frequently as we approach the 14th of July. -These armed bands numbered three, four, five hundred men. At Cosne, at -Orleans, at Rambouillet, it was the same story of raids on the corn. In -different localities of the environs of Paris, the people organized -themselves on a military basis. Armed burghers patrolled the streets -against the "brigands." From all sides the people rained on the king -demands for troops to protect them. Towns like Versailles, in dread of -an invasion by these ruffians, implored the king for protection: the -letters of the municipal council preserved in the National Archives are -in the highest degree instructive. - -At this moment there had collected in the outskirts of Paris those -troops whose presence was in the sequel so skilfully turned to account -by the orators of the Palais-Royal. True, the presence of the troops -made them uneasy. So far were the soldiers from having designs against -the Parisians that in the secret correspondence of Villedeuil we find -the court constantly urging that they should be reserved for the -safeguarding of the adjoining districts, which were every day exposed to -attack, and for the safe conduct of the convoys of corn coming up to -Versailles and Paris. Bands mustered around the capital. In the first -weeks of May, near Villejuif, a troop of from five to six hundred -ruffians met intending to storm Bicetre and march on Saint-Cloud. They -came from distances of thirty, forty, and fifty leagues, and the whole -mass surged around Paris and was swallowed up there as into a sewer. -During the last days of April the shopmen saw streaming through the -barriers "a terrific number of men, ill clad and of sinister aspect." By -the first days of May, it was noticed that the appearance of the mob had -altogether changed. There was now mingled with it "a number of strangers -from all the country parts, most of them in rags, and armed with huge -clubs, the mere aspect of them showing what was to be feared." In the -words of a contemporary, "one met such physiognomies as one never -remembered having seen in the light of day." To provide occupation for a -part of these ill-favoured unemployed, whose presence everybody felt to -be disquieting, workshops were constructed at Montmartre, where from -seventeen to eighteen thousand men were employed on improvised tasks at -twenty sous a day. - -Meanwhile the electors chosen to nominate deputies to the National -Assembly had been collecting. On April 22, 1789, Thiroux de Crosne, the -lieutenant of police, speaking of the tranquillity with which the -elections were being carried on, added: "But I constantly have my eye on -the bakers." - -On April 23, de Crosne referred to the irritation which was showing -itself among certain groups of workmen in the Suburb Saint-Antoine -against two manufacturers, Dominique Henriot, the saltpetre-maker, and -Reveillon, the manufacturer of wall-papers. Henriot was known, not only -for his intelligence, but for his kindliness; in years of distress he -had sacrificed a portion of his fortune for the support of the workmen; -as to Reveillon, he was at this date one of the most remarkable -representatives of Parisian industry. A simple workman to begin with, he -was in 1789 paying 200,000 livres a year in salaries to 300 workers; -shortly before, he had carried off the prize founded by Necker for the -encouragement of useful arts. Henriot and Reveillon were said to have -made offensive remarks against the workmen in the course of the recent -electoral assemblies. They both denied, however, having uttered the -remarks attributed to them, and there is every reason to believe that -their denials were genuine. - -During the night of April 27 and the next day, howling mobs attacked the -establishments of Henriot and Reveillon, which were thoroughly -plundered. Commissary Gueullette, in his report of May 3, notes that a -wild and systematic devastation was perpetrated. Only the walls were -left standing. What was not stolen was smashed into atoms. The -"brigands"--the expression used by the Commissary--threw a part of the -plant out of the windows into the street, where the mob made bonfires of -it. Part of the crowd were drunk; nevertheless they flung themselves -into the cellars, and the casks were stove in. When casks and bottles -were empty, the rioters attacked the flasks containing colouring -matter; this they absorbed in vast quantities, and reeled about with -fearful contortions, poisoned. When these cellars were entered next day, -they presented a horrible spectacle, for the wretches had come to -quarrelling and cutting each other's throats. "The people got on to the -roofs," writes Thiroux de Crosne, "whence they rained down upon the -troops a perfect hailstorm of tiles, stones, &c.; they even set rolling -down fragments of chimneys and bits of timber; and although they were -fired upon several times and some persons were killed, it was quite -impossible to master them." - -The riot was not quelled by the troops until 10 o'clock that night; more -than a hundred persons were left dead in the street. M. Alexandre Tuetey -has devoted some remarkable pages to Reveillon's affair; he has -carefully studied the interrogatories of rioters who were arrested. The -majority, he says, had been drunk all day. Reveillon, as is well known, -only found safety by taking refuge in the Bastille. He was the only -prisoner whom the Bastille received throughout the year 1789. - -In the night following these bacchanalian orgies, the agents of the -Marquis du Chatelet, colonel of the Gardes Francaises, having crept -along one of the moats, "saw a crowd of brigands" collected on the -further side of the Trone gate. Their leader was mounted on a table, -haranguing them. - -We come upon them again in the report of Commissary Vauglenne, quoted by -M. Alexandre Tuetey. "On April 29, Vauglenne took the depositions of -bakers, confectioners, and pork butchers of the Marais, who had been -robbed by veritable bands of highwaymen, who proceed by burglary and -violence; they may possibly be starving men, but they look and act -uncommonly like gentlemen of the road." - -Meanwhile, in the garden of the Palais-Royal, Camille Desmoulins was -haranguing groups of the unemployed and ravenous outcasts, who were -pressing round him with wide glaring eyes. Desmoulins vociferates: "The -beast is in the trap; now to finish him!... Never a richer prey has ever -been offered to conquerors! Forty thousand palaces, mansions, chateaux, -two-fifths of the wealth of France will be the prize of valour. Those -who have set up as our masters will be mastered in their turn, the -nation will be purged!" It is easy to understand that in Paris the alarm -had become as acute as in the country; everyone was in terror of the -"brigands." On June 25 it was decided to form a citizen militia for the -protection of property. "The notoriety of these disorders," we read in -the minutes of the electors, "and the excesses committed by several mobs -have decided the general assembly to re-establish without delay the -militia of Paris." But a certain time was necessary for the organization -of this civil guard. On June 30, the doors of the Abbaye, where some -Gardes Francaises had been locked up, some for desertion, others for -theft, were broken in by blows from hatchets and hammers. The prisoners -were led in triumph to the Palais-Royal, where they were feted in the -garden. The extent of the disorders was already so great that the -government, powerless to repress them, had perforce to grant a general -pardon. From that day there was no longer any need to capture the -Bastille, the _ancien regime_ was lost. - -The disturbances at the Palais-Royal, the rendezvous of idlers, light -women, and hot-headed fools, were becoming ever more violent. They began -to talk of setting fire to the place. If some honest citizen plucked up -courage to protest he was publicly whipped, thrown into the ponds, and -rolled in the mud. - -On July 11, Necker was dismissed from the ministry and replaced by -Breteuil. At this time Necker was very popular; Breteuil was not, though -he ought to have been, particularly in the eyes of supporters of a -revolutionary movement. Of all the ministers of the _ancien regime_, and -of all the men of his time, Breteuil was the one who had done most for -the suppression of _lettres de cachet_ and of state prisons. It was he -who had closed Vincennes and the Chatimoine tower of Caen, who had got -the demolition of the Bastille decided on, who had set Latude at -liberty, and how many other prisoners! who had drawn up and made -respected, even in the remotest parts of the kingdom, those admirable -circulars which will immortalize his name, by which he ordered the -immediate liberation of all prisoners whose detention was not absolutely -justified, and laid down such rigorous formalities for the future, that -the arbitrary character of _lettres de cachet_ may be said to have been -destroyed by them. Nevertheless the orators of the Palais-Royal -succeeded in persuading many people that the advent of Breteuil to the -ministry presaged a "St. Bartholomew of patriots." The agitation became -so vehement, the calumnies against the court and the government were -repeated with so much violence, that the court, in order to avoid the -slightest risk of the outbreak of a "St. Bartholomew," ordered all the -troops to be withdrawn and Paris to be left to itself. - -Meanwhile, Camille Desmoulins was continuing to thunder forth: "I have -just sounded the people. My rage against the despots was turned to -despair. I did not see the crowds, although keenly moved and dismayed, -strongly enough disposed to insurrection.... I was rather lifted on to -the table than mounted there myself. Scarcely was I there than I saw -myself surrounded by an immense throng. Here is my short address, which -I shall never forget: 'Citizens! there is not a moment to lose. I come -from Versailles; M. Necker is dismissed; this dismissal is the alarm -bell of a St. Bartholomew of patriots; this evening all the Swiss and -German battalions will march from the Champ de Mars to cut our throats. -Only one resource remains to us: we must fly to arms!'" - -The Parisians were in an abject state of fright, but it was not the -Swiss and German battalions which terrified them. The author of the -_Memorable Fortnight_, devoted heart and soul as he was to the -revolutionary movement, acknowledges that during the days from the 12th -to the 14th of July, all respectable people shut themselves up in their -houses. And while the troops and decent people were retiring, the dregs -were coming to the surface. During the night of July 12, the majority of -the toll gates, where the town dues were collected, were broken open, -plundered, and set on fire. "Brigands," armed with pikes and clubs, -scoured the streets, threatening the houses in which the trembling and -agitated citizens had shut themselves. Next day, July 13, the shops of -the bakers and wine merchants were rifled. "Girls snatched the earrings -from women who went by; if the ring resisted, the ear was torn in two." -"The house of the lieutenant of police was ransacked, and Thiroux de -Crosne had the utmost difficulty in escaping from the bands armed with -clubs and torches. Another troop, with murderous cries, arrived at the -Force, where prisoners for debt were confined: the prisoners were set -free. The Garde-Meuble was ransacked. One gang broke in with their axes -the door of the Lazarists, smashed the library, the cupboards, the -pictures, the windows, the physical laboratory, dived into the cellar, -stove in the wine-casks and got gloriously drunk. Twenty-four hours -afterwards some thirty dead and dying were found there, men and women, -one of the latter on the point of childbirth. In front of the house the -street was full of debris and of brigands, who held in their hands, some -eatables, others a pitcher, forcing wayfarers to drink and filling for -all and sundry. Wine flowed in torrents." Some had possessed themselves -of ecclesiastical robes, which they put on, and in this attire yelled -and gesticulated down the street. In the minute books of the electors we -read at this date: "On information given to the committee that the -brigands who had been dispersed showed some disposition to reassemble -for the purpose of attacking and pillaging the Royal Treasury and the -Bank, the committee ordered these two establishments to be guarded." On -the same day, they luckily succeeded in disarming more than a hundred -and fifty of these roisterers, who, drunk with wine and brandy, had -fallen asleep inside the Hotel de Ville. Meanwhile the outskirts of -Paris were no safer than the city itself, and from the top of the towers -of the Bastille they could see the conflagrations which were started in -various quarters. - -The organization of the citizen militia against these disorders was -becoming urgent. When evening came, the majority of the districts set -actively to work. Twelve hundred good citizens mustered in the Petit -Saint-Antoine district. It was a motley crew: tradesmen and artisans, -magistrates and doctors, writers and scholars, cheek by jowl with -navvies and carpenters. The future minister of Louis XVI., Champion de -Villeneuve, filled the post of secretary. The twelve hundred citizens, -as we read in the minutes, "compelled to unite by the too well founded -alarm inspired in all the citizens by the danger which seems to threaten -them each individually, and by the imminent necessity of taking prompt -measures to avert its effects, considering that a number of -individuals, terrified perhaps by the rumours which doubtless -evil-disposed persons have disseminated, are traversing, armed and in -disorder, all the streets of the capital, and that the ordinary town -guard either mingles with them or remains a passive spectator of the -disorder it cannot arrest; considering also that the prison of the Force -has been burst into and opened for the prisoners, and that it is -threatened to force open in the same way the prisons which confine -vagabonds, vagrants, and convicts ... in consequence, the assembled -citizens decide to organize themselves into a citizen militia. Every man -will carry while on duty whatever arms he can procure, save and except -pistols, which are forbidden as dangerous weapons.... There will always -be two patrols on duty at a time, and two others will remain at the -place fixed for headquarters." Most of the other districts imitated the -proceedings of the Petit-Saint-Antoine. They sent delegates to the Hotel -des Invalides to ask for arms. The delegates were received by Besenval, -who would have been glad to grant them what they requested; but he must -have proper instructions. He writes in his _Memoirs_ that the delegates -were in a great state of fright, saying that the "brigands" were -threatening to burn and pillage their houses. The author of the -_Memorable Fortnight_ dwells on the point that the militia of Paris was -formed in self-defence against the excesses of the brigands. Speaking of -the minute book of the Petit-Saint-Antoine district, an excellent -authority, M. Charavay, writes: "The burgesses of Paris, less alarmed -at the plans of the court than at the men to whom the name of _brigands_ -had already been given, organized themselves into a militia to resist -them: that was their only aim. The movement which on the next day swept -away the Bastille might perhaps have been repressed by the National -Guard if its organization had had greater stability." The fact could not -have been better put. - -The Hotel de Ville was attacked, and one of the electors, Legrand, only -cleared it of the hordes who were filling it with their infernal uproar -by ordering six barrels of powder to be brought up, and threatening to -blow the place up if they did not retire. - -During the night of July 13, the shops of the bakers and wine-sellers -were pillaged. The excellent Abbe Morellet, one of the Encyclopaedists, -who, as we have seen, was locked up in the Bastille under Louis XV., -writes: "I spent a great part of the night of the 13th at my windows, -watching the scum of the population armed with muskets, pikes, and -skewers, as they forced open the doors of the houses and got themselves -food and drink, money and arms." Mathieu Dumas also describes in his -_Souvenirs_ these ragged vagabonds, several almost naked, and with -horrible faces. During these two days and nights, writes Bailly, Paris -ran great risk of pillage, and was only saved by the National Guard. - -The proceedings of these bandits and the work of the National Guard are -described in a curious letter from an English doctor, named Rigby, to -his wife. "It was necessary not only to give arms to those one could -rely on, but to disarm those of whom little protection could be expected -and who might become a cause of disorder and harm. This required a good -deal of skill. Early in the afternoon we began to catch a glimpse here -and there among the swarms of people, where we saw signs of an -irritation which might soon develop into excesses, of a man of decent -appearance, carrying a musket with a soldierly air. These slowly but -surely increased in number; their intention was evidently to pacify and -at the same time to disarm the irregular bands. They had for the most -part accomplished their task before nightfall. Then the citizens who had -been officially armed occupied the streets almost exclusively: they were -divided into several sections, some mounting guard at certain points, -others patrolling the streets, all under the leadership of captains. -When night came, only very few of those who had armed themselves the -evening before could be seen. Some, however, had refused to give up -their arms, and during the night it was seen how well founded had been -the fears they had inspired, for they started to pillage. But it was too -late to do so with impunity. The looters were discovered and seized, and -we learnt next morning that several of these wretches, taken redhanded, -had been executed." Indeed, the repressive measures of the citizens were -not wanting in energy. Here and there brigands were strung up to the -lamp-posts, and then despatched, as they hung there, with musket shots. - -The author of the _Authentic History_, who left the best of the -contemporary accounts of the taking of the Bastille which we possess, -says rightly enough: "The riot began on the evening of July 12." There -was thus a combination of disorders and "brigandage" in which the -capture of the Bastille, though it stands out more prominently than the -other events, was only a part, and cannot be considered by itself. - -The morning of the Fourteenth dawned bright and sunny. A great part of -the population had remained up all night, and daylight found them still -harassed with anxiety and alarm. To have arms was the desire of all; the -citizens and supporters of order, so as to protect themselves; the -brigands, a part of whom had been disarmed, in order to procure or -recover the means of assault and pillage. There was a rush to the -Invalides, where the magazines of effective arms were. This was the -first violent action of the day. The mob carried off 28,000 muskets and -twenty-four cannon. And as it was known that other munitions of war were -deposited in the Bastille, the cry of "To the Invalides!" was succeeded -by the cry "To the Bastille!" - -We must carefully distinguish between the two elements of which the -throng flocking to the Bastille was composed. On the one hand, a horde -of nameless vagabonds, those whom the contemporary documents invariably -style the "brigands"; and, on the other hand, the respectable -citizens--these certainly formed the minority--who desired arms for the -equipment of the civil guard. The sole motive impelling this band to -the Bastille was the wish to procure arms. On this point all documents -of any value and all the historians who have studied the matter closely -are in agreement. There was no question of liberty or of tyranny, of -setting free the prisoners or of protesting against the royal authority. -The capture of the Bastille was effected amid cries of "Vive le roi!" -just as, for several months past in the provinces, the granaries had -been plundered. - -About 8 o'clock in the morning, the electors at the Hotel de Ville -received some inhabitants of the Suburb Saint-Antoine who came to -complain that the district was threatened by the cannon trained on it -from the towers of the Bastille. These cannon were used for firing -salutes on occasions of public rejoicing, and were so placed that they -could do no harm whatever to the adjacent districts. But the electors -sent some of their number to the Bastille, where the governor, de -Launey, received the deputation with the greatest affability, kept them -to lunch, and at their request withdrew the cannon from the embrasures. -To this deputation there succeeded another, which, however, was quite -unofficial, consisting of three persons, with the advocate Thuriot de la -Rosiere at the head. They were admitted as their predecessors had been. -Thuriot was the eloquent spokesman, "in the name of the nation and the -fatherland." He delivered an ultimatum to the governor and harangued the -garrison, consisting of 95 Invalides and 30 Swiss soldiers. Some -thousand men were thronging round the Bastille, vociferating wildly. The -garrison swore not to fire unless they were attacked. De Launey said -that without orders he could do no more than withdraw the cannon from -the embrasures, but he went so far as to block up these embrasures with -planks. Then Thuriot took his leave and returned to the Hotel de Ville, -the crowd meanwhile becoming more and more threatening. - -[Illustration: THE CAPTURE OF THE BASTILLE. - -_From an anonymous contemporary painting now in the Hotel Carnavalet._] - -"The entrance to the first courtyard, that of the barracks, was open," -says M. Fernand Bournon in his admirable account of the events of this -day; "but de Launey had ordered the garrison to retire within the -enclosure, and to raise the outer drawbridge by which the court of the -governor was reached, and which in the ordinary way used to be lowered -during the day. Two daring fellows dashed forward and scaled the roof of -the guard-house, one of them a soldier named Louis Tournay: the name of -the other is unknown. They shattered the chains of the drawbridge with -their axes, and it fell." - -It has been said in a recent work, in which defects of judgment and -criticism are scarcely masked by a cumbrous parade of erudition, that -Tournay and his companion performed their feat under the fire of the -garrison. At this moment the garrison did not fire a single shot, -contenting themselves with urging the besiegers to retire. "While M. de -Launey and his officers contented themselves with threats, these two -vigorous champions succeeded in breaking in the doors and in lowering -the outer drawbridge; then the horde of brigands advanced in a body and -dashed towards the second bridge, which they wished to capture, firing -at the troops as they ran. It was then for the first time that M. de -Launey, perceiving his error in allowing the operations at the first -bridge to be managed so quietly, ordered the soldiers to fire, which -caused a disorderly stampede on the part of the rabble, which was more -brutal than brave; and it is at this point that the calumnies against -the governor begin. Transposing the order of events, it has been -asserted that he had sent out a message of peace, that the people had -advanced in reliance on his word, and that many citizens were -massacred." This alleged treachery of de Launey, immediately hawked -about Paris, was one of the events of the day. It is contradicted not -only by all the accounts of the besieged, but by the besiegers -themselves, and is now rejected by all historians. - -A wine-seller named Cholat, aided by one Baron, nicknamed La Giroflee, -had brought into position a piece of ordnance in the long walk of the -arsenal. They fired, but the gun's recoil somewhat seriously wounded the -two artillerymen, and they were its only victims. As these means were -insufficient to overturn the Bastille, the besiegers set about devising -others. A pretty young girl named Mdlle. de Monsigny, daughter of the -captain of the company of Invalides at the Bastille, had been -encountered in the barrack yard. Some madmen imagined that she was -Mdlle. de Launey. They dragged her to the edge of the moat, and gave the -garrison to understand by their gestures that they were going to burn -her alive if the place was not surrendered. They had thrown the unhappy -child, who had fainted, upon a mattress, to which they had already set -light. M. de Monsigny saw the hideous spectacle from a window of the -towers, and, desperately rushing down to save his child, he was killed -by two shots. These were tricks in the siege of strongholds of which -Duguesclin would never have dreamed. A soldier named Aubin Bonnemere -courageously interposed and succeeded in saving the girl. - -A detachment of Gardes Francaises, coming up with two pieces of -artillery which the Hotel de Ville had allowed to be removed, gave a -more serious aspect to the siege. But the name of Gardes Francaises must -not give rise to misapprehension: the soldiers of the regular army under -the _ancien regime_ must not be compared with those of the present day. -The regiment of Gardes Francaises in particular had fallen into a -profound state of disorganization and degradation. The privates were -permitted to follow a trade in the city, by this means augmenting their -pay. It is certain that in the majority of cases the trade they followed -was that of the bully. "Almost all the soldiers in the Guards belong to -this class," we read in the _Encyclopedie methodique_, "and many men -indeed only enlist in the corps in order to live on the earnings of -these unfortunates." The numerous documents relating to the Gardes -Francaises preserved in the archives of the Bastille give the most -precise confirmation to this statement. We see, for example, that the -relatives of the engraver Nicolas de Larmessin requested a _lettre de -cachet_ ordering their son to be locked up in jail, where they would pay -for his keep, "because he had threatened to enlist in the Gardes -Francaises." - -From the fifteen cannon placed on the towers, not a single shot was -fired during the siege. Within the chateau, three guns loaded with grape -defended the inner drawbridge; the governor had only one of them fired, -and that only once. Not wishing to massacre the mob, de Launey -determined to blow up the Bastille and find his grave among the ruins. -The Invalides Ferrand and Bequart flung themselves upon him to prevent -him from carrying out his intention. "The Bastille was not captured by -main force," says Elie, whose testimony cannot be suspected of -partiality in favour of the defenders; "it surrendered before it was -attacked, on my giving my word of honour as a French officer that all -should escape unscathed if they submitted." - -We know how this promise was kept, in spite of the heroic efforts of -Elie and Hulin, to whom posterity owes enthusiastic homage. Is the mob -to be reproached for these atrocious crimes? It was a savage horde, the -scum of the population. De Launey, whose confidence and kindness had -never faltered, was massacred with every circumstance of horror. "The -Abbe Lefevre," says Dusaulx, "was an involuntary witness of his last -moments: 'I saw him fall,' he told me, 'without being able to help him; -he defended himself like a lion, and if only ten men had behaved as he -did at the Bastille, it would not have been taken.'" His murderers -slowly severed his head from his trunk with a penknife. The operation -was performed by a cook's apprentice named Desnot, "who knew, as he -afterwards proudly said, how to manage a joint." The deposition of this -brute should be read. It has been published by M. Guiffrey in the _Revue -historique_. To give himself courage, Desnot had gulped down brandy -mixed with gunpowder, and he added that what he had done was done in the -hope of obtaining a medal. - -"We learnt by-and-by," continues Dusaulx, "of the death of M. de -Losme-Salbray, which all good men deplored." De Losme had been the good -angel of the prisoners during his term of office as major of the -Bastille: there are touching details showing to what lengths he carried -his kindliness and delicacy of feeling. At the moment when the mob was -hacking at him, there happened to pass the Marquis de Pelleport, who had -been imprisoned in the Bastille for several years; he sprang forward to -save him: "Stop!" he cried, "you are killing the best of men." But he -fell badly wounded, as also did the Chevalier de Jean, who had joined -him in the attempt to rescue the unfortunate man from the hands of the -mob. The adjutant Miray, Person the lieutenant of the Invalides, and -Dumont, one of the Invalides, were massacred. Miray was led to the -Greve, where the mob had resolved to execute him. Struck with fists and -clubs, stabbed with knives, he crawled along in his death agony. He -expired, "done to death with pin-pricks," before arriving at the place -of execution. The Invalides Asselin and Bequart were hanged. It was -Bequart who had prevented de Launey from blowing up the Bastille. "He -was gashed with two sword-strokes," we read in the _Moniteur_, "and a -sabre cut had lopped off his wrist. They carried the hand in triumph -through the streets of the city--the very hand to which so many citizens -owed their safety." "After I had passed the arcade of the Hotel de -Ville," says Restif de la Bretonne, who has left so curious a page about -the 14th of July, "I came upon some cannibals: one--I saw him with my -own eyes--brought home to me the meaning of a horrible word heard so -often since: he was carrying at the end of a _taille-cime_[56] the -bleeding entrails of a victim of the mob's fury, and this horrible -top-knot caused no one to turn a hair. Farther on I met the captured -Invalides and Swiss: from young and pretty lips--I shudder at it -still--came screams of 'Hang them! Hang them!'" - -Further, they massacred Flesselles, the provost of the guilds, accused -of a treacherous action as imaginary as that of de Launey. They cut the -throat of Foulon, an old man of seventy-four years, who, as Taine tells -us, had spent during the preceding winter 60,000 francs in order to -provide the poor with work. They assassinated Berthier, one of the -distinguished men of the time. Foulon's head was cut off; they tore -Berthier's heart from his body to carry it in procession through -Paris--charming touch!--in a bouquet of white carnations. For the fun -was growing fast and furious. De Launey's head was borne on a pike to -the Palais Royal, then to the new bridge, where it was made to do -obeisance three times to the statue of Henri IV., with the words, -"Salute thy master!" At the Palais Royal, two of the conquerors had -merrily set themselves down at a dining-table in an entresol. As we -garnish our tables with flowers, so these men had placed on the table a -trunkless head and gory entrails; but as the crowd below cried out for -them, they shot them gaily out of the window. - -Those who had remained in front of the Bastille had dashed on in quest -of booty. As at the pillage of the warehouses of Reveillon and Henriot, -and of the convent of the Lazarists, the first impulse of the conquerors -was to bound forward to the cellar. "This rabble," writes the author of -the _Authentic History_, "were so blind drunk that they made in one body -for the quarters of the staff, breaking the furniture, doors, and -windows. All this time their comrades, taking the pillagers for some of -the garrison, were firing on them." - -No one gave a thought to the prisoners, but the keys were secured and -carried in triumph through Paris. The doors of the rooms in which the -prisoners were kept had to be broken in. The wretched men, terrified by -the uproar, were more dead than alive. These victims of arbitrary power -were exactly seven in number. Four were forgers, Bechade, Laroche, La -Correge, and Pujade; these individuals had forged bills of exchange, to -the loss of two Parisian bankers: while their case was being dealt with -in regular course at the Chatelet, they were lodged in the Bastille, -where they consulted every day with their counsel. Then there was the -young Comte de Solages, who was guilty of monstrous crimes meriting -death; he was kept in the Bastille out of regard for his family, who -defrayed his expenses. Finally there were two lunatics, Tavernier and de -Whyte. We know what immense progress has been made during the past -century in the methods of treating lunatics. In those days they locked -them up. Tavernier and de Whyte were before long transferred to -Charenton, where assuredly they were not so well treated as they had -been at the Bastille. - -Such were the seven martyrs who were led in triumphant procession -through the streets, amid the shouts of a deeply moved people. - -Of the besiegers, ninety-eight dead were counted, some of whom had met -their death through the assailants' firing on one another. Several had -been killed by falling into the moat. Of this total, only nineteen were -married, and only five had children. These are details of some interest. - -There was no thought of burying either the conquerors or the conquered. -At midnight on Wednesday the 15th, the presence of the corpses of the -officers of the Bastille, still lying in the Place de Greve, was -notified to the commissaries of the Chatelet. In his admirable work M. -Furnand Bournon has published the ghastly report that was drawn up on -that night. It is a fitting crown to the work of the great day: "We, the -undersigned commissaries, duly noted down the declaration of the said -Sieur Houdan, and having then gone down into the courtyard of the -Chatelet (whither the corpses had just been carried), we found there -seven corpses of the male sex, the first without a head, clothed in a -coat, vest, breeches, and black silk stockings, with a fine shirt, but -no shoes; the second also without a head, clothed in a vest of red -stuff, breeches of nankeen with regimental buttons, blue silk stockings -with a small black pattern worked in; the third also headless, clothed -in a shirt, breeches, and white cotton stockings; the fourth also -headless, clothed in a blood-stained shirt, breeches, and black -stockings; the fifth clad in a shirt, blue breeches, and white gaiters, -with brown hair, apparently about forty years old, and having part of -his forearm cut off and severe bruises on his throat; the sixth clothed -in breeches and white gaiters, with severe bruises on his throat; and -the seventh, clothed in a shirt, breeches, and black silk stockings, -disfigured beyond recognition." - -Meanwhile the majority of the victors, the first moments of intoxication -having passed, were hiding themselves like men who had committed a -crime. The disorder in the city was extreme. "The commissioners of the -districts," writes the Sicilian ambassador, "seeing the peril in which -the inhabitants were placed before this enormous number of armed men, -including brigands and men let out of prison on the previous days, -formed patrols of the National Guard. They proclaimed martial law, or -rather, they issued one solitary law declaring that whoever robbed or -set fire to a house would be hanged. Indeed, not a day passed without -five and even as many as ten persons suffering this penalty. To this -salutary expedient we owe our lives and the safety of our houses." - -More than one conqueror of the Bastille was hanged in this way, which -was a great pity, for two days later his glorious brow might have been -crowned with laurels and flowers! - -It has been said that the Bastille was captured by the people of Paris. -But the number of the besiegers amounted to no more than a thousand, -among whom, as Marat has already brought to our notice, there were many -provincials and foreigners. As to the Parisians, they had come in great -numbers, as they always do, to see what was going on. We have this too -on the testimony of Marat. "I was present at the taking of the -Bastille," writes the Chancellor de Pasquier also: "what has been called -the 'fight' was not serious, and of resistance there was absolutely -none. A few musket shots were fired to which there was no reply, and -four or five cannon shots. We know the results of this boasted victory, -which has brought a shower of compliments upon the heads of the -so-called conquerors: the truth is that this great fight did not give a -moment's uneasiness to the numerous spectators who had hurried up to see -the result. Among them there was many a pretty woman; they had left -their carriages at a distance in order to approach more easily. I was -leaning on the end of the barrier which closed in the garden skirting -Beaumarchais' garden in the direction of the Place de la Bastille. By my -side was Mdlle. Contat, of the Comedie Francaise: we stayed to the end, -and I gave her my arm to her carriage. As pretty as any woman could be, -Mdlle. Contat added to the graces of her person an intelligence of the -most brilliant order." - -By next day there was quite another story. The Bastille had been -"stormed" in a formidable and heroic assault lasting a quarter of an -hour. The guns of the assailants had made a breach in its walls. These, -it is true, were still standing intact; but that did not signify, the -guns had made a breach, unquestionably! The seven prisoners who had been -set free had been a disappointment, for the best will in the world could -not make them anything but scoundrels and lunatics; some one invented an -eighth, the celebrated Comte de Lorges, the white-headed hero and -martyr. This Comte de Lorges had no existence; but that fact also is -nothing to the purpose: he makes an admirable and touching story. There -was talk of instruments of torture that had been discovered: "an iron -corslet, invented to hold a man fast by all his joints, and fix him in -eternal immobility:" it was really a piece of knightly armour dating -from the middle ages, taken from the magazine of obsolete arms which was -kept at the Bastille. Some one discovered also a machine "not less -destructive, which was brought to the light of day, but no one could -guess its name or its special use"; it was a secret printing-press -seized in the house of one Francois Lenormand in 1786. Finally, while -digging in the bastion, some one came upon the bones of Protestants who -had once been buried there, the prejudices of the time not allowing -their remains to be laid in the consecrated ground of the cemetery: the -vision of secret executions in the deepest dungeons of the Bastille was -conjured up in the mind of the discoverers, and Mirabeau sent these -terrible words echoing through France: "The ministers were lacking in -foresight, they forgot to eat the bones!" - -The compilation of the roll of the conquerors of the Bastille was a -laborious work. A great number of those who had been in the thick of the -fray did not care to make themselves known: they did not know but that -their laurel-crowned heads might be stuck aloft! It is true that these -bashful heroes were speedily replaced by a host of fine fellows -who--from the moment when it was admitted that the conquerors were -heroes, deserving of honours, pensions, and medals--were fully persuaded -that they had sprung to the assault, and in the very first rank. The -final list contained 863 names. - -Victor Fournel in a charming book has sung the epic, at once ludicrous -and lachrymose, of the men of the 14th of July. The book, which ought to -be read, gives a host of delightful episodes it is impossible to -abridge. In the sequel these founders of liberty did not shine either -through the services they rendered to the Republic, or through their -fidelity to the immortal principles. The Hulins--Hulin, however, had -done nobly in trying to save de Launey--the Palloys, the Fourniers, the -Latudes, and how many others! were the most servile lackeys of the -Empire, and those of them who survived were the most assiduous servants -of the Restoration. Under the Empire, the conquerors of the Bastille -tried to secure the Legion of Honour for the whole crew. They went about -soliciting pensions even up to 1830, and at that date, after forty-three -years, there were still 401 conquerors living. In 1848 the conquerors -made another appearance. There was still mention of pensions for the -conquerors of the Bastille in the budget of 1874--let us save the -ladder, the ladder of Latude! - -This is the amusing side of their story. But there is a painful side -too: their rivalries with the Gardes Francaises, who charged them with -filching the glory from them, and with the "volunteers of the Bastille." -The heroes were acquainted with calumny and opprobrium. There were, too, -deadly dissensions among their own body. There were the true conquerors, -and others who, while they were true conquerors, were nevertheless not -true: there were always "traitors" among the conquerors, as well as -"patriots." On July 1, 1790, two of the conquerors were found beaten to -death near Beaumarchais' garden, in front of the theatre of their -exploits. Next day there was a violent quarrel between four conquerors -and some soldiers. In December two others were assassinated near the -Champs de Mars. Early in 1791 two were wounded, and a third was -discovered with his neck in a noose, in a ditch near the military -school. Such were the nocturnal doings on the barriers. - -It remains to explain this amazing veering round of opinion, this -legend, of all things the least likely, which transformed into great men -the "brigands" of April, June, and July, 1789. - -The first reason is explained in the following excellent passage from -_Rabagas_[57]:-- - - _Carle._--But how then do you distinguish a riot from a revolution? - - _Boubard._--A riot is when the mob is defeated ... they are all - curs. A revolution is when the mob is the stronger: they are all - heroes! - -During the night of July 14, the Duke de la Rochefoucauld woke Louis -XVI. to announce to him the capture of the Bastille. "It's a revolt -then," said the king. "Sire," replied the duke, "it is a revolution." - -The day on which the royal power, in its feebleness and irresolution, -abandoned Paris to the mob, was the day of its abdication. The Parisians -attempted to organize themselves into a citizen militia in order to -shoot down the brigands. The movement on the Bastille was a stroke of -genius on the part of the latter--instinctive, no doubt, but for all -that a stroke of genius. The people now recognized its masters, and with -its usual facility it hailed the new regime with adulation. "From that -moment," said a deputy, "there was an end of liberty, even in the -Assembly; France was dumb before thirty factionaries." - -What rendered the national enthusiasm for the conquerors more easy was -precisely all those legends to which credence was given, in all -sincerity, by the most intelligent people in France--the legends on the -horrors of the Bastille and the cruelties of arbitrary power. For fifty -years they had been disseminated throughout the kingdom, and had taken -firm root. The pamphlets of Linguet and Mirabeau, the recent stupendous -success of the _Memoirs of Latude_, had given these stories renewed -strength and vigour. Compelled to bow before the triumphant mob, people -preferred to regard themselves--so they silenced their conscience--as -hailing a deliverer. There was some sincerity in this movement of -opinion, too. The same districts which on July 13 took arms against the -brigands could exclaim, after the crisis had passed: "The districts -applaud the capture of a fortress which, regarded hitherto as the seat -of despotism, dishonoured the French name under a popular king." - -In his edition of the _Memoirs of Barras_, M. George Duruy has well -explained the transformation of opinion. "In the _Memoirs_, the capture -of the Bastille is merely the object of a brief and casual mention. -Barras only retained and transmits to us one single detail. He saw -leaving the dungeons the 'victims of arbitrary power, saved at last from -rack and torture and from living tombs.' Such a dearth of information is -the more likely to surprise us in that Barras was not only a spectator -of the event, but composed, in that same year 1789, an account of it -which has now been discovered. Now his narrative of 1789 is as -interesting as the passage in the _Memoirs_ is insignificant. The -impression left by these pages, written while the events were vividly -pictured in his mind, is, we are bound to say, that the famous capture -of the Bastille was after all only a horrible and sanguinary saturnalia. -There is no word of heroism in this first narrative: nothing about -'victims of arbitrary power' snatched from 'torture and living tombs'; -but on the other hand, veritable deeds of cannibalism perpetrated by the -victors. That is what Barras saw, and what he recorded on those pages -where, at that period of his life, he noted down day by day the events -of which he was a witness. Thirty years slip by. Barras has sat on the -benches of the 'Montagne.'[58] He has remained an inflexible -revolutionist. He gathers his notes together in view of _Memoirs_ he -intends to publish. At this time, the revolutionist version of the -capture of the Bastille is officially established. It is henceforth -accepted that the Bastille fell before an impulse of heroism on the part -of the people of Paris, and that its fall brought to light horrible -mysteries of iniquity. This legend, which has so profoundly distorted -the event, was contemporary with the event itself, a spontaneous fruit -of the popular imagination. And Barras, having to speak of the capture -in his _Memoirs_, discovers his old narrative among his papers, and -reads it, I imagine, with a sort of stupefaction. What! the capture of -the Bastille was no more than that!--and he resolutely casts it aside." - -In the provinces, the outbreak had a violent counterpart. "There -instantly arose," writes Victor Fournel, "a strange, extraordinary, -grotesque panic, which swept through the greater part of France like a -hurricane of madness, and which many of us have heard our grand-fathers -tell stories about under the name of the 'day of the brigands' or 'the -day of the fear.' It broke out everywhere in the second fortnight of -July, 1789. Suddenly, one knew not whence, an awful rumour burst upon -the town or village: the brigands are here, at our very gates: they are -advancing in troops of fifteen or twenty thousand, burning the standing -crops, ravaging everything! Dust-stained couriers appear, spreading the -terrible news. An unknown horseman goes through at the gallop, with -haggard cheeks and dishevelled hair: 'Up, to arms, they are here!' Some -natives rush up: it is only too true: they have seen them, the bandits -are no more than a league or two away! The alarm bell booms out, the -people fly to arms, line up in battle order, start off to reconnoitre. -In the end, nothing happens, but their terrors revive. The brigands have -only turned aside: every man must remain under arms." In the frontier -provinces, there were rumours of foreign enemies. The Bretons and -Normans shook in fear of an English descent: in Champagne and Lorraine -a German invasion was feared. - -Along with these scenes of panic must be placed the deeds of violence, -the assassinations, plunderings, burnings, which suddenly desolated the -whole of France. In a book which sheds a flood of light on these facts, -Gustave Bord gives a thrilling picture of them. The chateaux were -invaded, and the owner, if they could lay hands on him, was roasted on -the soles of his feet. At Versailles the mob threw themselves on the -hangman as he was about to execute a parricide, and the criminal was set -free: the state of terror in which the town was plunged is depicted in -the journals of the municipal assembly. On July 23, the governor of -Champagne sends word that the rising is general in his district. At -Rennes, at Nantes, at Saint-Malo, at Angers, at Caen, at Bordeaux, at -Strasburg, at Metz, the mob engaged in miniature captures of the -Bastille more or less accompanied with pillage and assassination. Armed -bands went about cutting down the woods, breaking down the dikes, -fishing in the ponds.[59] The disorganization was complete. - -Nothing could more clearly show the character of the government under -the _ancien regime:_ it was wholly dependent on traditions. Nowhere was -there a concrete organization to secure the maintenance of order and -the enforcement of the king's decrees. France was a federation of -innumerable republics, held together by a single bond, the sentiment of -loyalty every citizen felt towards the crown. One puff of wind sent the -crown flying, and then disorder and panic bewilderment dominated the -whole nation. The door was open to all excesses, and the means of -checking them miserably failed. Under the _ancien regime_, devotion to -the king was the whole government, the whole administration, the whole -life of the state. And thus arose the necessity for the domination of -the Terror, and the legislative work of Napoleon. - -THE END. - - - - -INDEX - - -Allegre, Latude's fellow prisoner, 154, 185-192, 217. - -Ameilhon, city librarian, 55. - -Argenson, D', 60, 72, 95, 175, 182. - -Arsenal library, 55, 56. - -Atrocities of the mob, 258-266. - -Avedick, Armenian patriarch, 133. - - -Barras, 272. - -Bastille, its situation, 47; - appearance, 48; - repute, 49, 50; - archives, 50-56; - origin, 57; - site, 58; - construction, 59, 60; - additions to, 61; - appearance in later days, 61, 62; - early uses, 63; - becomes state prison, 63, 64; - prisoners, 65; - its administration, 66; - gradual transformation, 67; - character of prisoners, 68, 69; - secretary, 70; - office of lieutenant of police, 71; - his duties, 71, 72; - becomes like modern prisons, 77, 78; - abolition of torture, 78; - duration of prisoners' detention, 80; - expenses, 81; - plans for altering, 81-83; - a _prison de luxe_, 85; - treatment of prisoners, 86; - the rooms, 87; - manner of prisoners' entrance, 88, 89; - cells, 92, 93; - tower rooms, 93, 94; - furniture, 95, 96; - examination of prisoners, 96, 97; - indemnified if innocent, 98, 99; - allowed companions, 100, 101; - prison fare, 102-107; - clothes, 107, 108; - books, 108, 109; - exercise, 109; - diversions, 109, 110; - funerals, 110, 111; - liberation, 111, 112; - the Iron Mask, 114-146; - men of letters, 147-165; - capture, 238-272. - -Berryer, 175, 176, 178, 184, 188, 189, 193. - -Besmaus, de, 70. - -Binguet, 171, 179. - -Bread riots, 242, 243. - -Breteuil, 78, 248. - -Brigands, 241, 245, 250. - -Burgaud, 135. - - -Campan, Madame de, 144, 145. - -Carutti's theory of Iron Mask, 134. - -Cellamare conspiracy, 72, 73. - -Character of French government and society, 239-241. - -Chevalier, major, 49, 51, 120, 121, 187, 189, 194. - -Citizen militia, 251-253. - -Clothes of prisoners, 107, 108. - -Crosne, de, lieutenant of police, 244-246. - - -D'Aubrespy, Jeanneton, 169, 201. - -Dauger suggested as Iron Mask, 135. - -Desmoulins, 247, 249. - -Diderot, 165. - -Diversions of prisoners, 109, 110. - -Du Junca's journal, 69, 89, 90, 114-116, 122. - -Dusaulx, 51. - - -Encyclopaedia, 80. - -Estrades, Abbe d', 138-142. - - -Food of prisoners, 102-107. - -Funerals, 110. - - -Games of prisoners, 101, 102. - -Gleichen, baron, 130. - -Griffet, Father, 120. - - -Heiss, Baron, first to suggest true solution of Iron Mask, 136. - -Henriot, 245. - -Houdon, sculptor, 82. - - -July 14th, 255-276. - -Jung's theory of Iron Mask, 134. - - -Kingston, Duchess of, 225, 227. - - -La Beaumelle, 152-155. - -Lagrange-Chancel, 132. - -La Reynie, 71. - -Latude, 168-237. - -Launay, Mdlle. de, _see_ Staal, Madame de. - -Launey, de, governor, 256, 258, 260. - -Lauzun, 91. - -Legros, Madame de, 223-226, 232, 233. - -Lenoir, lieutenant of police, 186. - -_Lettres de cachet_, 240. - -Lieutenancy of police created, 97. - -Linguet, 163-165. - -Loiseleur's theory of Iron Mask, 134. - -Loquin's theory of Iron Mask, 133. - -Losme, de, 261. - -Louis XIV. and Iron Mask, 137-140. - -Louis XV. and Iron Mask, 144. - -Louis XVI. and Iron Mask, 144. - -Louvois, 70, 141. - - -Maisonrouge, king's lieutenant, 73-76. - -Malesherbes, 78, 156, 216. - -Man in the Iron Mask, documents, 114-125; - legends, 125-136; - true solution, 136-146. - -Marmontel, 158-163. - -Mattioli, the Iron Mask, 136-146. - -Maurepas, 144, 173-175. - -Mirabeau, 166, 167. - -Morellet, 155-158, 253. - -Moyria, de, 218-220. - - -Necker, 248. - - -Palatine, Madame, 125. - -Palteau, M. de, 118, 119. - -Papon's theory of Iron Mask, 127. - -Parlement, 76, 77. - -Pensions to prisoners, 98, 99. - -Pompadour, Madame de, 173, 206. - -Pontchartrain, 69. - -Puget, king's lieutenant, 83. - - -Quesnay, Dr., 175, 177, 178. - - -Ravaisson, librarian, 54, 55, 134. - -Register of St. Paul's church, 117, 142, 143. - -Regnier's lines, 59. - -Renneville's meals, 103, 104. - -Reveillon, 245, 246. - -Ricarville, companion of the Iron Mask, 123, 124. - -Richelieu, Cardinal, 63-66. - -Richelieu, Duke de, 76, 129, 130. - -Rigby, Dr., 253, 254. - -Risings in the provinces, 273. - -Rochebrune, commissary, 195. - -Rohan, Cardinal de, 222. - - -Sade, Marquis de, 95. - -Saint-Mars, governor, 87, 115-119, 127, 142. - -Saint-Marc, detective, 169, 176, 180, 183, 192. - -Sartine, de, 49, 202, 203, 207, 210, 215. - -Sauve, Madame de, her dress, 108. - -Solages, de, 84. - -Staal, Madame de, 73-76, 94, 95, 102. - - -Taules, de, 132. - -Tavernier, 106. - -Theories on Iron Mask, 125-136. - -Thuriot de la Rosiere, 256. - -Tirmont, companion of Iron Mask, 123, 124. - - -Vieux-Maisons, Madame de, 128. - -Villette, Marquis de, 224. - -Vinache's library, 109. - -Vincennes, 165-167, 180. - -Voltaire, 99, 126, 128, 129, 148-152. - -LONDON: - -GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, LD. - -ST. JOHN'S HOUSE, CLERKENWELL, E.C. - - * * * * * - -Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber: - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[1] The castle of Tours, 147 miles south-west of Paris, which Louis XI. -made his favourite residence. See Scott's _Quentin Durward_.--T. - -[2] Jean Balue (1471-1491), chaplain to Louis XI. For traitorously -divulging the king's schemes to his enemy, the Duke of Burgundy, he was -for eleven years shut up in the castle of Loches, in an iron-bound -wooden cage.--T. - -[3] A French author (1624-1693) who was involved in the fall of Louis -XIV.'s dishonest finance minister, Fouquet, in 1661, and was imprisoned -for five years in the Bastille, amusing himself with reading the Fathers -of the Church and taming a spider. See Kitchin's _History of France_, -iii. 155-157.--T. - -[4] Antoine de Caumont, duc de Lauzun (1633-1723), a courtier of Louis -XIV., whose favours to the Duke made Louvois, the minister, his bitter -enemy. He was twice imprisoned in the Bastille, the second time at the -instance of Madame de Montespan. He commanded the French auxiliaries of -James II. in Ireland. See Macaulay's _History_, Chaps. IX., XII., -XV.--T. - -[5] A game played with a sort of box, in the top of which are cut holes -of equal size, and with metal discs or balls, the object being to pitch -the balls into the holes from a distance. A similar game may be seen at -any English country fair.--T. - -[6] The famous president of the Cour des Aides and Minister of the -Interior, renowned for his consistent support of the people against -oppression. He was banished in 1771 for remonstrating against the abuses -of law; but returning to Paris to oppose the execution of Louis XVI., he -was guillotined in 1794.--T. - -[7] Antonio del Giudice, prince de Cellamare (1657-1733), the Spanish -ambassador, was the instigator of a plot against the Regent in 1718. See -Kitchin, _ib._ iii. 474.--T. - -[8] The Hotel des Invalides, residence of pensioned soldiers, &c. still -a well-known building of Paris.--T. - -[9] A chateau, four miles east of Paris, notable as the place where St. -Louis, the royal lawgiver of France, dispensed justice. The _donjon_ -still exists, serving now as a soldier's barracks.--T. - -[10] One of the first prisons on the system of solitary confinement in -cells erected in Paris. It dates from 1850.--T. - -[11] The Abbe de Buquoy (1653-1740) owed his imprisonment originally to -having been found in company with dealers in contraband salt when the -_gabelle_, or salt-tax, compelled the French people to buy salt, whether -they wanted it or not, at a price _two thousand times_ its true value. -He was a man of very eccentric views, one of which was that woman was -man's chief evil, and that was why, when the patriarch Job was stripped -of children, flocks, herds, &c., his wife was left to him!--T. - -[12] The madhouse, eight miles east of Paris.--T. - -[13] A chateau originally outside Paris, now included in the city -itself, once used as a hospital and jail, now a hospital for aged and -indigent poor and for lunatics. The first experiments with the -guillotine were tried there.--T. - -[14] See _infra_, p. 83. - -[15] The title role in a comedy by Henri Mounier, entitled _Grandeur et -decadence de M. Joseph Prudhomme_ (1852). He is a writing-master, very -vain, given (like Mr. Micawber) to tall talk and long-winded periods. He -has become typical of "much cry and little wool." As an officer of the -National Guard he says, "This sabre constitutes the finest day in my -life! I accept it, and if ever I find myself at the head of your -phalanxes, I shall know how to use it in defence of our -institutions--and, if need arise, to fight for them!"--T. - -[16] In the early days of the Revolution, Paris was divided into -sections or wards, and as the _pike_ had played a great part in the -recent disturbances, one of the wards was known as the "Pike" -section.--T. - -[17] A disciple of the Marquis de Sade (see p. 35), a notorious -debauchee, whose book _Justine_ was a disgusting mixture of brutality -and obscenity.--T. - -[18] The pseudonym of Beffroy de Reigny (1757-1811), author of farces, -and of a _Precis historique de la prise de la Bastille_.--T. - -[19] The name given to the constitutional struggles of the nobles and -the Parlement of Paris against Mazarin and the royal power (1648-1654). -The name is derived from _fronde_, a sling. A wit of the Parlement, one -Bachaumont, "told the lawyers of that august body that they were like -schoolboys playing in the town ditches with their slings, who run away -directly the watchman appears, and begin again when his back is turned." -See Kitchin, iii. pp. 102-128.--T. - -[20] See _Monte-Cristo_.--T. - -[21] Delivered to the French Association for the Advancement of Science -in 1893. - -[22] The battle fought on August 10, 1557, in which Egmont with a -combined force of Spaniards, Flemish, and English (sent by Queen Mary) -routed Constable Montmorency and the finest chivalry of France. It was -in commemoration of this victory that Philip II. built the palace of the -Escurial, shaped like a gridiron because the battle was fought on St. -Lawrence's day.--T. - -[23] The following unpublished letter from Pontchartrain to Bernaville, -intimating his probable nomination as governor of the Bastille, shows -exactly what Louis XIV.'s government demanded of the head of the great -state prison:- - -"Versailles, September 28, 1707. - - "I have received your letter of yesterday. I can only repeat what I - have already written: to pay constant attention to what goes on in - the Bastille; to neglect none of the duties of a good governor; to - maintain order and discipline among the soldiers of the garrison, - seeing that they keep watch with all the necessary exactitude, and - that their wages are regularly paid; to take care that the - prisoners are well fed and treated with kindness, preventing them, - however, from having any communication with people outside and from - writing letters; finally, to be yourself especially prompt in - informing me of anything particular that may happen at the - Bastille. You will understand that in following such a line of - action you cannot but please the king, and perhaps induce him to - grant you the post of governor; on my part, you may count on my - neglecting no means of representing your services to His Majesty in - the proper light. - -"I am, &c., - -"PONTCHARTRAIN." - - - - - -[24] The appellation of the eldest brother of the reigning king.--T. - -[25] Under the _ancien regime_, there being no Minister of the Interior -(Home Secretary), each of the ministers (the War Minister, Minister for -Foreign Affairs, &c.) had a part of France under his charge. The -Minister of Paris was usually what we should call the Lord -Chamberlain.--T. - -[26] The court which up to the time of the Revolution was the seat of -justice, presided over by the Provost of Paris. It held its sittings in -the castle known as the Chatelet.--T. - -[27] A judicial, not a legislative body. It was constantly in antagonism -to the king.--T. - -[28] The famous Encyclopaedia edited by D'Alembert and Diderot. It -occupied twenty years of the life of the latter, and went through many -vicissitudes; its free criticism of existing institutions provoking the -enmity of the government. Voltaire was one of its largest -contributors.--T. - -[29] This raised Linguet's indignation. "The consideration of this -enormous expense has given to some ministers, among others to M. Necker, -a notion of reform; if this should come to anything, it would be very -disgraceful to spring from no other cause. 'Suppress the Bastille out of -economy!' said on this subject, a few days ago, one of the youngest and -most eloquent orators of England." - -[30] The Hotel Carnavalet, museum in Paris, where a large number of -documents and books are preserved relating to the history of the -city.--T. - -[31] It may be noted that the different escapes contributed to the -gradual tightening of the rules of the Bastille. After the escape of the -Comte de Bucquoy, such ornaments as the prisoners could attach cords to -were at once removed, and knives were taken from them; after the escape -of Allegre and Latude, bars of iron were placed in the chimneys, and so -forth. - -[32] The second of the four principal officers of the Bastille. The -officers were: (1) the governor; (2) the king's lieutenant; (3) the -major; (4) the adjutant. There was also a doctor, a surgeon, a -confessor, &c. The garrison consisted of Invalides.--T. - -[33] The most surprising instance is that of an Englishman, who returned -spontaneously from England to become a prisoner in the Bastille. "On -Thursday, May 22, 1693, at nightfall, M. de Jones, an Englishman, -returned from England, having come back to prison for reasons concerning -the king's service. He was located outside the chateau, in a little room -where M. de Besmaus keeps his library, above his office, and he is not -to appear for some days for his examination, and is to be taken great -care of."--Du Junca's Journal. - -[34] This was not the Lauzun already mentioned, but his nephew, Armand -Louis de Gontaut, duke de Biron (1747-1793), who was notorious -throughout Europe for his gallantries.--T. - -[35] An official of the royal council, whose function originally was to -examine and report on petitions to the king. He became a sort of -superior magistrate's clerk.--T. - -[36] "1751, March 2. I have received a letter from Dr. Duval (secretary -to the lieutenant of police), in which he tells me that M. Berryer -(lieutenant of police) is struck with the cost of the clothes supplied -to the prisoners for some time past; but, as you know, I only supply -things when ordered by M. Berryer, and I try to supply good clothes, so -that they may last and give the prisoners satisfaction."--Letter from -Rochebrune, commissary to the Bastille, to Major Chevalier. - -[37] These extracts are translated literally, in order to preserve the -clumsy constructions of the unlettered official.--T. - -[38] Step-sister of Louis XIV. The following extracts from her -correspondence show how, even in circles that might have been expected -to be well informed, the legend had already seized on people's -imaginations:-- - -"Marly, October 10, 1711. A man remained long years in the Bastille, and -has died there, masked. At his side he had two musketeers ready to kill -him if he took off his mask. He ate and slept masked. No doubt there was -some reason for this, for otherwise he was well treated and lodged, and -given everything he wished for. He went to communion masked; he was very -devout and read continually. No one has ever been able to learn who he -was." - -"Versailles, October 22, 1711. I have just learnt who the masked man -was, who died in the Bastille. His wearing a mask was not due to -cruelty. He was an English lord who had been mixed up in the affair of -the Duke of Berwick (natural son of James II.) against King William. He -died there so that the king might never know what became of him." - -[39] The insurgents who rose for the king against the Revolutionists in -Brittany: see Balzac's famous novel. The movement smouldered for a great -many years.--T. - -[40] The Gregorian calendar was abolished by the National Convention in -1793, who decreed that September 22, 1792, should be regarded as the -first day of a new era. The year was divided into twelve months, with -names derived from natural phenomena. Nivose (snowy) was the fourth of -these months. Thus, the period mentioned in the text includes from -December 21, 1800, to January 19, 1801.--T. - -[41] Since M. Funck-Brentano's book was published, his conclusions have -been corroborated by Vicomte Maurice Boutry in a study published in the -_Revue des Etudes historiques_ (1899, p. 172). The Vicomte furnishes an -additional proof. He says that the Duchess de Crequy, in the third book -of her _Souvenirs_, gives a _resume_ of a conversation on the Iron Mask -between Marshal de Noailles, the Duchess de Luynes, and others, and -adds: "The most considerable and best informed persons of my time always -thought that the famous story had no other foundation than the capture -and captivity of the Piedmontese Mattioli."--T. - -[42] "I have seen these ills, and I am not twenty yet." - -[43] These verses were, of course, in Latin.--T. - -[44] Palissot was a dramatist and critic who in his comedy _Les -Philosophes_ had bitterly attacked Rousseau, Diderot, and the -Encyclopaedists generally.--T. - -[45] The old prison of Paris. It was the debtors' prison, famous also -for the number of actors who were imprisoned there under the _ancien -regime_. It was demolished in 1780.--T. - -[46] "Not unto us, O Lord, but unto Thy name give glory! - -"Know our heart and search out our ways." - -[47] "The victory is won!"--T. - -[48] Charenton was under the direction of a religious order known as the -_Freres de la Charite_, who undertook the care of sick and weak-minded -poor.--T. - -[49] This was Elizabeth Chudleigh (1720-1788), the notorious beauty who -privately married the Hon. Augustus Hervey, afterwards Earl of Bristol, -separated from him after three years, and became the mistress of the -second Duke of Kingston, whom she bigamously married. After his death -she was tried by the House of Lords for bigamy, and fled to France to -escape punishment. Her gallantries and eccentricities were the talk of -Europe.--T. - -[50] Instructed by his misfortunes and his captivity how to vanquish the -efforts and the rage of tyrants, he taught the French how true courage -can win liberty. - -[51] Jocrisse is the stock French type of the booby, and as such is a -character in many comedies. He breaks a plate, for instance; his master -asks him how he managed to be so clumsy, and he instantly smashes -another, saying, "_Just like that!_" His master asks him to be sure and -wake him early in the morning; Jocrisse answers: "Right, sir, depend on -me; _but of course you'll ring_!"--T. - -[52] The Girondists (so called from Gironde, a district of Bordeaux) -were the more sober republican party in the Assembly, who were forced by -circumstances to join the Jacobins against Louis XVI. With their fall -from power in the early summer of 1792 the last hope of the monarchy -disappeared.--T. - -[53] Referring to the horrible massacres of September, 1792, when about -1400 victims perished.--T. - -[54] The French Dick Turpin. Of good education, he formed when quite a -youth a band of robbers, and became the terror of France. Like Turpin, -he is the subject of dramas and stories.--T. - -[55] A forest near Paris, on the line to Avricourt. It was a famous -haunt of brigands. There is a well-known story of a dog which attacked -and killed the murderer of its master there.--T. - -[56] Literally "cut-top": we have no equivalent in English.--T. - -[57] A five-act comedy by Victorien Sardou. - -[58] The nickname given to the Jacobins, the extreme revolutionists, who -sat on the highest seats on the left in the National Assembly.--T. - -[59] Which were the strict preserves of the aristocrats: to fish in them -was as great a crime as to shoot a landlord's rabbit was, a few years -ago, in England.--T. - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Legends of the Bastille, by Frantz Funck-Brentano - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEGENDS OF THE BASTILLE *** - -***** This file should be named 43231.txt or 43231.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/2/3/43231/ - -Produced by Chris Curnow, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily -keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. - - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: - - http://www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/43231.zip b/43231.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index ef2b751..0000000 --- a/43231.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/43231-8.txt b/old/43231-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 4a17d94..0000000 --- a/old/43231-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7704 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's Legends of the Bastille, by Frantz Funck-Brentano - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Legends of the Bastille - -Author: Frantz Funck-Brentano - -Translator: George Maidment - -Release Date: July 16, 2013 [EBook #43231] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEGENDS OF THE BASTILLE *** - - - - -Produced by Chris Curnow, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - DOWNEY & CO.'S - - _NEW PUBLICATIONS_. - - - =MEDICINE AND THE MIND.= Translated from the French of MAURICE DE - FLEURY by S. B. COLLINS, M.D. 16_s._ - - *** This work has been crowned by the French Academy. - - =OLD LONDON TAVERNS.= By EDWARD CALLOW. Illustrated. 6_s._ - - =THE GOOD QUEEN CHARLOTTE.= By PERCY FITZGERALD. With a Photogravure - reproduction of Gainsborough's Portrait and other Illustrations. - Demy 8vo. 10_s._ 6_d._ - - =THE LIFE OF JOHN MYTTON.= By NIMROD. An entirely new edition printed - from new type. With 20 Coloured Plates reproduced from Alken's - Drawings. 42_s._ net. - - =GOSSIP OF THE CENTURY.= By Mrs. PITT BYRNE. 4 vols. with numerous - Illustrations. 42_s._ - - =THE ACTOR AND HIS ART.= By STANLEY JONES. Crown 8vo. With Cover - designed by H. MITCHELL. 3_s._ 6_d._ - - - - - LEGENDS OF THE BASTILLE - -[Illustration: MODEL OF THE BASTILLE, CARVED IN ONE OF THE STONES OF THE -FORTRESS. - -_One of these models, made by the instructions of the architect Palloy, -was sent to the chief-town of every department in France._] - - - - - Legends of - the Bastille - - BY - FRANTZ FUNCK-BRENTANO - - _WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY VICTORIEN SARDOU_ - - AUTHORISED TRANSLATION BY - GEORGE MAIDMENT - - WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS - - LONDON - DOWNEY & CO. LIMITED - 1899 - - - - -BIBLIOGRAPHY - - - _Legendes et Archives de la Bastille._ Paris: Hachette et Cie., - 1898; second edition, 1899. Crowned by the French Academy. - - _Die Bastille in der Legende und nach historischen Documenten._ - German translation by Oscar Marschall von Bieberstein. Breslau: - Schottlaender, 1899. - - - - -TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE - - -In his own entertaining way, Mr. Andrew Lang has recently been taking -the scientific historian to task, and giving him a very admirable lesson -on "history as she ought to be wrote." But though the two professors to -whom he mainly addresses himself are Frenchmen, it would be doing an -injustice to France to infer that she is the _alma mater_ of the modern -dryasdust. The exact contrary is the case: France is rich in historical -writers like the Comte d'Haussonville, M. de Maulde la Clavière, M. -Gaston Boissier, to name only a few, who know how to be accurate without -being dull. - -M. Funck-Brentano, whom I have the honour of introducing here to the -English public, belongs to the same class. Of literary parentage and -connections--his uncle is Professor Lujo Brentano, whose work on the -English trade gilds is a standard--he entered in his twentieth year the -École des Chartes, the famous institution which trains men in the -methods of historical research. At the end of his three years' course, -he was appointed to succeed François Ravaisson in the work of -classifying the archives of the Bastille in the Arsenal Library,--a work -which occupied him for more than ten years. One fruit of it is to be -seen in the huge catalogue of more than one thousand pages, printed -under official auspices and awarded the Prix Le Dissez de Penanrum by -the Académie des Sciences morales et politiques. Another is the present -work, which has been crowned by the French Academy. Meanwhile M. -Funck-Brentano had been pursuing his studies at the Sorbonne and at -Nancy, and his French thesis for the doctorate in letters was a volume -on the origins of the Hundred Years' War, which obtained for him the -highest possible distinction for a work of erudition in France, the -Grand Prix Gobert. This volume he intends to follow up with two others, -completing a social rather than a military history of the war, and this -no doubt he regards as his _magnum opus_. He is known also as a lecturer -in Belgium and Alsace as well as in Paris, and being general secretary -of the Société des Etudes historiques and deputy professor of history at -the College of France as well as sub-librarian of the Arsenal Library, -he leads a busy life. - -Trained in the rigorous methods of the École des Chartes and inspired by -the examples of Fustel de Coulanges and M. Paul Meyer, M. Funck-Brentano -has developed a most interesting and conscientious method of his own. He -depends on original sources, and subjects these to the most searching -critical tests; but this is a matter of course: his individuality -appears in regard to the publication of the results of his researches. -When he has discoveries of importance to communicate, he gives them to -the world first in the form of articles or studies in reviews of -standing, thus preparing public opinion, and at the same time affording -opportunities for the search-light of criticism to play on his work. -Some of the chapters of this book thus appeared in the various _revues_, -and have subsequently gone through a severe process of pruning and -amending. It is now eleven years since the first appearance, in the -pages of the _Revue des deux Mondes_, of the study of Latude which, in a -much altered shape, now forms one of the most interesting portions of -this book. The coming autumn will see the publication in France of a -striking work by M. Funck-Brentano on the amazing poison-dramas at Louis -XIV.'s court, and of this book also the several sections have been -appearing at intervals for several years past. - -The present work, as I have already said, is the fruit of many years of -research. Its startling revelations, so well summarized in M. Victorien -Sardou's Introduction, have revolutionized public opinion in France, and -in particular the solution of the old problem of the identity of the Man -in the Iron Mask has been accepted as final by all competent critics. -The _Athenæum_, in reviewing the book in its French form the other day, -said that it must be taken cautiously as an ingenious bit of special -pleading, and that the Bastille appears in M. Funck-Brentano's pages in -altogether too roseate hues, suggesting further that no such results -could be obtained without prejudice from the same archives as those on -which Charpentier founded his _La Bastille dévoilée_ in 1789. This -criticism seems to me to ignore several important points. Charpentier's -book, written in the heat of the revolutionary struggle, is not a -history, but a political pamphlet, which, in the nature of the case, was -bound to represent the Bastille as a horror. Moreover, Charpentier could -only have depended superficially on the archives, which, as M. -Funck-Brentano shows, were thrown into utter disorder on the day of the -capture of the Bastille. The later writer, on the other hand, approached -the subject when the revolutionary ardours had quite burnt out, and with -the independent and dispassionate mind of a trained official. He spent -thirteen years in setting the rediscovered archives in order, after his -predecessor Ravaisson had already spent a considerable time at the same -work. He was able, further (as Charpentier certainly was not), to -complete and check the testimony of the archives by means of the memoirs -of prisoners--the Abbé Morellet, Marmontel, Renneville, Dumouriez, and a -host of others. In these circumstances it would be surprising if his -conclusions were not somewhat different from those of Charpentier a -hundred years ago. - -The gravamen of the _Athenæun's_ objection is that M. Funck-Brentano's -description of the treatment of prisoners in the Bastille applies only -to the favoured few, the implication being that M. Funck-Brentano has -shut his eyes to the cases of the larger number. But surely the reviewer -must have read the book too rapidly. M. Funck-Brentano shows, by means -of existing and accessible documents, that the fact of being sent to the -Bastille at all was itself, in the eighteenth century at least, a mark -of favour. Once at the Bastille, the prisoner, whoever he might be, was -treated without severity, unless he misbehaved. Prisoners of no social -importance, such as Renneville, Latude (a servant's love-child), -Tavernier (son of a house-porter), were fed and clothed and cared for -much better than they would have been outside the prison walls. A young -man named Estival de Texas, who was being exiled to Canada because he -was a disgrace to his family, wrote to the minister of Paris on June 22, -1726, from the roadstead of La Rochelle: "Your lordship is sending me to -a wild country, huddled with mean wretches, and condemned to a fare very -different from what your lordship granted me in the Bastille." Here was -a friendless outcast looking back regretfully on his prison fare! On -February 6, 1724, one of the king's ministers wrote to the lieutenant -of police: "I have read to the duke of Bourbon the letter you sent me -about the speeches of M. Quéhéon, and his royal highness has instructed -me to send you an order and a _lettre de cachet_ authorizing his removal -to the Bastille. But as he thinks that this is _an honour the fellow -little deserves_, he wishes you to postpone the execution of the warrant -for three days, in order to see if Quéhéon will not take the hint and -leave Paris as he was commanded." It is on such documents as these, -which are to be seen in hundreds at the Arsenal Library in Paris, that -M. Funck-Brentano has founded his conclusions. Anyone who attacks him on -his own ground is likely to come badly off. - -With M. Funck-Brentano's permission, I have omitted the greater part of -his footnotes, which are mainly references to documents inaccessible to -the English reader. On the other hand, I have ventured to supply a few -footnotes in explanation of such allusions as the Englishman not reading -French (and the translation is intended for no others) might not -understand. On the same principle I have attempted rhymed renderings of -two or three scraps of verse quoted from Regnier and Voltaire, to whom I -make my apologies. The proofs have had the advantage of revision by M. -Funck-Brentano, who is, however, in no way responsible for any -shortcomings. The Index appears in the English version alone. - -The portrait of Latude and the views of the Bastille are reproduced from -photographs of the originals specially taken by M. A. Bresson, of 40 Rue -de Passy, Paris. - -GEORGE MAIDMENT. - -_August, 1899._ - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - -INTRODUCTION 1 - - -CHAPTER I. - -THE ARCHIVES 47 - - -CHAPTER II. - -HISTORY OF THE BASTILLE 57 - - -CHAPTER III. - -LIFE IN THE BASTILLE 85 - - -CHAPTER IV. - -THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK 114 - - -CHAPTER V. - -MEN OF LETTERS IN THE BASTILLE 147 - - I. VOLTAIRE 148 - - II. LA BEAUMELLE 152 - -III. THE ABBÉ MORELLET 155 - - IV. MARMONTEL 158 - - V. LINGUET 163 - - VI. DIDEROT 165 - -VII. THE MARQUIS DE MIRABEAU 166 - - -CHAPTER VI. - -LATUDE 168 - - -CHAPTER VII. - -THE FOURTEENTH OF JULY 238 - -INDEX 277 - - - - -LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - -Model of the Bastille _Frontispiece_ - -Facsimile of Du Junca's note regarding the -entry of the Iron Mask _Facing page_ 115 - -Facsimile of Du Junca's note regarding the -death of the Iron Mask " 116 - -Facsimile of the Iron Mask's burial certificate " 142 - -Facsimile of the cover of Latude's explosive box " 173 - -Facsimile of Latude's writing with blood on linen " 188 - -Portrait of Latude " 229 - -The Capture of the Bastille " 257 - - - - -INTRODUCTION - - -At the great Exhibition of 1889 I visited, in company with some friends, -the reproduction of the Bastille, calculated to give all who saw it--and -the whole world must have seen it--an entirely false impression. - -You had barely cleared the doorway when you saw, in the gloom, an old -man enveloped in a long white beard, lying on the "sodden straw" of -tradition, rattling his chains and uttering doleful cries. And the guide -said to you, not without emotion, "You see here the unfortunate Latude, -who remained in this position, with both arms thus chained behind his -back, for thirty-five years!" - -This information I completed by adding in the same tone: "And it was in -this attitude that he so cleverly constructed the ladder, a hundred and -eighty feet long, which enabled him to escape." - -The company looked at me with surprise, the guide with a scowl, and I -slipped away. - -The same considerations that prompted my intervention have suggested to -M. Funck-Brentano this work on the Bastille, in which he has set the -facts in their true light, and confronted the legends which everyone -knows with the truth of which many are in ignorance. - -For in spite of all that has been written on the subject by Ravaisson, -in the introduction to his _Archives of the Bastille_, by Victor -Fournel, in his _Men of the Fourteenth of July_, and by other writers, -the popular idea of the internal administration of the Bastille in 1789 -holds by the description of Louis Blanc: "Iron cages, recalling -Plessis-les-Tours[1] and the tortures of Cardinal La Balue![2]--underground -dungeons, the loathsome haunts of toads, lizards, enormous rats, -spiders--the whole furniture consisting of one huge stone covered with a -little straw, where the prisoner breathed poison in the very air.... -Enveloped in the shades of mystery, kept in absolute ignorance of the -crime with which he was charged, and the kind of punishment awaiting -him, he ceased to belong to the earth!" - -If this Bastille of melodrama ever had any existence, the Bastille of -the eighteenth century bore the least possible resemblance to it. In -1789, these dungeons on the ground floor of the fortress, with windows -looking on the moats, were no longer reserved, as under Louis XV., for -prisoners condemned to death, dangerous madmen, or prisoners who had -been insolent, obstreperous, or violent; nor for warders guilty of -breaches of discipline. At the time of Necker's first ministry, the use -of these dungeons had been abolished altogether. - -The prisoner, put through an interrogation in the early days of his -detention, was never left in ignorance of the "delinquency" with which -he was charged, and had no reason to be concerned about the kind of -punishment awaiting him; for there had been neither torture nor -punishment of any kind at the Bastille for a hundred years. - -Instead of a dungeon or a cage of iron, every prisoner occupied a room -of fair size, its greatest defect being that it was rather poorly -lighted by a narrow window, secured by bars, some of them projecting -inwards. It was sufficiently furnished; and there was nothing to hinder -the prisoner from getting in more furniture from outside. Moreover, he -could procure whatever clothing and linen he desired, and if he had no -means to pay for them, money was supplied. Latude complained of -rheumatism, and furs were at once given him. He wanted a dressing-gown -of "red-striped calamanco"; the shops were ransacked to gratify him. A -certain Hugonnet complained that he had not received the shirts "with -embroidered ruffles" which he had asked for. A lady named Sauvé wanted a -dress of white silk spotted with green flowers. In all Paris there was -only a white dress with green stripes to be found, with which it was -hoped that she would be satisfied. - -Every room was provided with a fireplace or a stove. Firewood was -supplied, and light; the prisoner could have as many candles as he -pleased. Paper, pens, and ink were at his disposal; though he was -deprived of them temporarily if he made bad use of them, like Latude, -who scribbled all day long only to heap insults in his letters on the -governor and the lieutenant of police. He could borrow books from the -library, and was at liberty to have books sent in from outside. La -Beaumelle had six hundred volumes in his room. He might breed birds, -cats, and dogs--by no means being reduced to taming the legendary spider -of Pellisson,[3] which figures also in the story of Lauzun,[4] and, -indeed, of all prisoners in every age. Instruments of music were -allowed. Renneville played the fiddle, and Latude the flute. There were -concerts in the prisoners' rooms and in the apartments of the governor. - -Every prisoner could work at embroidery, at the turning lathe, or the -joiner's bench, at pleasure. All whose conduct was irreproachable were -allowed to come and go, to pay each other visits, to play at -backgammon, cards, or chess in their rooms; at skittles, bowls, or -_tonneau_[5] in the courtyard. La Rouërie asked for a billiard table for -himself and his friends, and he got it. - -The prisoners were permitted to walk on the platform of the fortress, -from which they could see the people passing up and down the Rue -Saint-Antoine and the vicinity, and watch the animated crowds on the -boulevard at the hours when fashionable people were accustomed to take -their drives. By the aid of telescopes and big letters written on boards -they were able to communicate with the people of the neighbourhood, and, -like Latude, to keep up a secret correspondence with the grisettes of -the district. Michelet, with too obvious a design, declares that under -Louis XVI. the regulations of the prison were more severe than under -Louis XV., and that this promenade on the platform was done away with. -There is not a word of truth in it. The promenade was forbidden only to -those prisoners who, like the Marquis de Sade, took advantage of it to -stir up riots among the passers-by; and from the accession of Louis -XVI. and the visitation of Malesherbes,[6] the rule of the prison grew -milder day by day. - -Certain of the prisoners were invited to dine with the governor, and to -walk in his gardens, in excellent company. Some were allowed to leave -the fortress, on condition of returning in the evening; others were even -allowed to remain out all night! - -Those who had servants could have them in attendance if the servants -were willing to share their captivity. Or they had room-mates, as was -the case with Latude and Allègre. - -In regard to food, the prisoners are unanimous in declaring that it was -abundant and good. "I had five dishes at dinner," says Dumouriez, "and -five at supper, without reckoning dessert." The Provost de Beaumont -declared that he had quitted the Bastille with regret, because there he -had been able to eat and drink to his heart's content. Poultier -d'Elmotte says: "M. de Launey had many a friendly chat with me, and -sent me what dishes I wished for." Baron Hennequin, a hypochondriac who -found fault with everything, confesses nevertheless that they gave him -more meat than he could eat. The Abbé de Buquoy affirms that he fared -sumptuously, and that it was the king's intention that the prisoners -should be well fed. The splenetic Linguet owns, in his pamphlet, that he -had three good meals a day, and that meat was supplied to him in such -quantities that his suspicions were aroused: "They meant to poison me!" -he says. But he omits to say that de Launey sent him every morning the -menu for the day, on which he marked down with his own hand the dishes -he fancied, "choosing always the most dainty, and in sufficient -quantities to have satisfied five or six epicures." - -In Louis XIV.'s time, Renneville drew up the following list of dishes -served to him: "Oysters, prawns, fowls, capons, mutton, veal, young -pigeons; forcemeat pies and patties; asparagus, cauliflower, green peas, -artichokes; salmon, soles, pike, trout, every kind of fish whether -fresh-water or salt; pastry, and fruits in their season." We find Latude -complaining that the fowls given him were not stuffed! M. -Funck-Brentano tells the amusing story of Marmontel's eating by mistake -the dinner intended for his servant, and finding it excellent. - -Mdlle. de Launay, afterwards Madame de Staal, who was imprisoned for -complicity in the Cellamare[7] plot, relates that on the first evening -of her sojourn in the Bastille, she and her maid were both terrified by -the strange and prolonged sound, beneath their feet, of a mysterious -machine, which conjured up visions of an instrument of torture. When -they came to inquire, they found that their room was over the kitchen, -and the terrible machine was the roasting-jack! - -The prisoners were not only allowed to receive visits from their -relations and friends, but to keep them to dinner or to make up a -rubber. Thus Madame de Staal held receptions in the afternoon, and in -the evening there was high play. "And this time," she says, "was the -happiest in my life." - -Bussy-Rabutin received the whole court, and all his friends--especially -those of the fair sex. M. de Bonrepos--an assumed name--was so -comfortable in the Bastille that when he was directed to retire to the -Invalides,[8] he could only be removed by force. - -"I there spent six weeks," says Morellet, "so pleasantly, that I chuckle -to this day when I think of them." And when he left, he exclaimed: "God -rest those jolly tyrants!" - -Voltaire remained there for twelve days, with a recommendation from the -lieutenant of police that he should be treated with all the -consideration "due to his genius." - -The objection may be raised that these cases are all of great lords or -men of letters, towards whom the government of those days was -exceptionally lenient. (How delightful to find writers put on the same -footing with peers!) But the objection is groundless. - -I have referred to Renneville and Latude, prisoners of very little -account. The one was a spy; the other a swindler. In the three-volume -narrative left us by Renneville, you hear of nothing but how he kept -open house and made merry with his companions. They gambled and smoked, -ate and drank, fuddled and fought, gossiped with their neighbours of -both sexes, and passed one another pastry and excellent wine through the -chimneys. How gladly the prisoners in our jails to-day would accommodate -themselves to such a life! Renneville, assuredly, was not treated with -the same consideration as Voltaire; but, frankly, would you have wished -it? - -As to Latude--who was supplied with dressing-gowns to suit his -fancy--the reader will see from M. Funck-Brentano's narrative that no -one but himself was to blame if he did not dwell at Vincennes[9] or in -the Bastille on the best of terms--or even leave his prison at the -shortest notice, by the front gate, and with a well-lined pocket. - -For that was one of the harsh measures of this horrible Bastille--to -send away the poor wretches, when their time was expired, with a few -hundred livres in their pockets, and to compensate such as were found to -be innocent! See what M. Funck-Brentano says of Subé, who, for a -detention of eighteen days, received 3000 livres (£240 to-day), or of -others, who, after an imprisonment of two years, were consoled with an -annual pension of 2400 francs of our reckoning. Voltaire spent twelve -days in the Bastille, and was assured of an annual pension of 1200 -livres for life. What is to be said now of our contemporary justice, -which, after some months of imprisonment on suspicion, dismisses the -poor fellow, arrested by mistake, with no other indemnity than the -friendly admonition: "Go! and take care we don't catch you again!" - -Some wag will be sure to say that I am making out the Bastille to have -been a palace of delight. We can spare him his little jest. A prison is -always a prison, however pleasant it may be; and the best of cheer is no -compensation for the loss of liberty. But there is a wide difference, it -will be granted, between the reality and the notion generally -held--between this "hotel for men of letters," as some one called it, -and the hideous black holes of our system of solitary confinement. I -once said that I should prefer three years in the Bastille to three -months at Mazas.[10] I do not retract. - - * * * * * - -Linguet and Latude, unquestionably, were the two men whose habit of -drawing the long bow has done most to propagate the fables about the -Bastille, the falsity of which is established by incontrovertible -documents. Party spirit has not failed to take seriously the interested -calumnies of Linguet, who used his spurious martyrdom to advertise -himself, and the lies of Latude, exploiting to good purpose a captivity -which he had made his career. - -Let us leave Linguet, who, after having so earnestly urged the -demolition of the Bastille, had reason to regret it at the Conciergerie -at the moment of mounting the revolutionary tumbril, and speak a little -of the other, this captive who was as ingenious in escaping from prison, -when locked up, as in hugging his chains when offered the means of -release. - -For the bulk of mankind, thirty-five years of captivity was the price -Latude paid for a mere practical joke: the sending to Madame de -Pompadour of a harmless powder that was taken for poison. The punishment -is regarded as terrific: I do not wonder at it. But if, instead of -relying on the gentleman's own fanfaronades, the reader will take the -trouble to look at the biography written by M. Funck-Brentano and amply -supported by documents, he will speedily see that if Latude remained in -prison for thirty-five years, it was entirely by his own choice; and -that his worst enemy, his most implacable persecutor, the author of all -his miseries was--himself. - -If, after the piece of trickery which led to his arrest, he had followed -the advice of the excellent Berryer, who counselled patience and -promised his speedy liberation, he might have got off with a few months -of restraint at Vincennes, where his confinement was so rigorous that he -had only to push the garden gate to be free! - -That was the first folly calculated to injure his cause, for the new -fault was more serious than the old. He was caught; he was locked in the -cells of the Bastille: but the kind-hearted Berryer soon removed him. -Instead of behaving himself quietly, however, our man begins to grow -restless, to harangue, to abuse everybody, and on the books lent him to -scribble insulting verses on the Pompadour. But they allow him an -apartment, then give him a servant, then a companion, Allègre. And then -comes the famous escape. One hardly knows which to wonder at the most: -the ingenuity of the two rogues, or the guileless management of this -prison which allows them to collect undisturbed a gimlet, a saw, a -compass, a pulley, fourteen hundred feet of rope, a rope ladder 180 feet -long, with 218 wooden rungs; to conceal all these between the floor and -the ceiling below, without anyone ever thinking to look there; and, -after having cut through a wall four and a half feet thick, to get clear -away without firing a shot! - -They were not the first to get across those old walls. Renneville -mentions several escapes, the most famous being that of the Abbé de -Buquoy.[11] But little importance seems to have been attached to them. - -With Allègre and Latude it was a different matter. The passers-by must -have seen, in the early morning, the ladder swinging from top to bottom -of the wall, and the escape was no longer a secret. The Bastille is -discredited. It is possible, then, to escape from it. The chagrined -police are on their mettle. There will be laughter at their expense. The -fugitives are both well known, too. They will take good care to spread -the story of their escape, with plenty of gibes against the governor, -the lieutenant of police, the ministry, the favourite, the king! This -scandal must be averted at any cost; the fugitives must be caught! - -And we cannot help pitying these two wretches who, after a flight so -admirably contrived, got arrested so stupidly: Allègre at Brussels, -through an abusive letter written to the Pompadour; Latude in Holland, -through a letter begging help from his mother. - -Latude is again under lock and key, and this time condemned to a -stricter confinement. And then the hubbub begins again: outcries, -demands, acts of violence, threats! He exasperates and daunts men who -had the best will in the world to help him. He is despatched to the -fortress of Vincennes, and promised his liberty if he will only keep -quiet. His liberation, on his own showing, was but a matter of days. He -is allowed to walk on the bank of the moat. He takes advantage of it to -escape again! - -Captured once more, he is once more lodged at Vincennes, and the whole -business begins over again. But they are good enough to consider him a -little mad, and after a stay at Charenton,[12] where he was very well -treated, he at last gets his dismissal, with the recommendation to -betake himself to his own part of the country quietly. Ah, that would -not be like Latude! He scampers over Paris, railing against De Sartine, -De Marigny; hawking his pamphlets; claiming 150,000 livres as -damages!--and, finally, extorting money from a charitable lady by -menaces! - -This is the last straw. Patience is exhausted, and he is clapped into -Bicêtre[13] as a dangerous lunatic. Imagine his fury and disgust! - -Let us be just. Suppose, in our own days, a swindler, sentenced to a few -months' imprisonment, insulting the police, the magistrates, the court, -the president; sentenced on this account to a longer term, escaping -once, twice, a third time; always caught, put in jail again, sentenced -to still longer terms: then when at last released, after having done his -time, scattering broadcast insulting libels against the chief of police, -the ministers, the parliament, and insisting on the President of the -Republic paying him damages to the tune of 150,000 francs; to crown it -all, getting money out of some good woman by working on her fears! You -will agree with me that such a swaggering blade would not have much -difficulty in putting together thirty-five years in jail! - -But these sentences would of course be public, and provide no soil for -the growth of those legends to which closed doors always give rise. Yet -in all that relates to the causes and the duration of the man's -imprisonment, his case would be precisely that of Latude--except that -for him there would be no furs, no promenading in the gardens, no -stuffed fowls for his lunch! - -Besides some fifty autograph letters from Latude, addressed from Bicêtre -to his good angel, Madame Legros, in which he shows himself in his true -character, an intriguing, vain, insolent, bragging, insupportable -humbug, I have one, written to M. de Sartine, which Latude published as -a pendant to the pamphlet with which he hoped to move Madame de -Pompadour to pity, and in which every phrase is an insult. This letter -was put up at public auction, and these first lines of it were -reproduced in the catalogue:-- - -"I am supporting with patience the loss of my best years and of my -fortune. I am enduring my rheumatism, the weakness of my arm, and a ring -of iron around my body for the rest of my life!" - -A journalist, one of those who learn their history from Louis Blanc, had -a vision of Latude for ever riveted by a ring of iron to a pillar in -some underground dungeon, and exclaimed with indignation: "A ring of -iron! How horrible!" - -And it was only a linen band! - -That fabulous iron collar is a type of the whole legend of the -unfortunate Latude! - - * * * * * - -Everything connected with the Bastille has assumed a fabulous character. - -What glorious days were those of the 13th and 14th of July, as the -popular imagination conjures them up in reliance on Michelet, who, in a -vivid, impassioned, picturesque, dramatic, admirable style, has -written, not the history, but the romance of the French Revolution! - -Look at his account of the 13th. He shows you all Paris in revolt -against Versailles, and with superb enthusiasm running to arms to try -issues with the royal army. It is fine as literature. Historically, it -is pure fiction. - -The Parisians were assuredly devoted to the "new ideas," that is, the -suppression of the abuses and the privileges specified in the memorials -of the States General; in a word, to the reforms longed for by the whole -of France. But they had no conception of gaining them without the -concurrence of the monarchy, to which they were sincerely attached. That -crowd of scared men running to the Hôtel de Ville to demand arms, who -are represented by the revolutionary writers as exasperated by the -dismissal of Necker and ready to undermine the throne for the sake of -that Genevan, were much less alarmed at what was hatching at Versailles -than at what was going on in Paris. If they wished for arms, it was for -their own security. The dissolution of the National Assembly, which was -regarded as certain, was setting all minds in a ferment, and -ill-designing people took advantage of the general uneasiness and -agitation to drive matters to the worst extremities, creating disorder -everywhere. The police had disappeared; the streets were in the hands of -the mob. Bands of ruffians--among them those ill-favoured rascals who -since the month of May had been flocking, as at a word of command, into -Paris from heaven knows where, and who had already been seen at work, -pillaging Réveillon's[14] establishment--roamed in every direction, -insulting women, stripping wayfarers, looting the shops, opening the -prisons, burning the barriers. On July 13 the electors of Paris resolved -on the formation of a citizen militia for the protection of the town, -and the scheme was adopted on the same day by every district, with -articles of constitution, quoted by M. Funck-Brentano, which specify the -intentions of the signatories. It was expressly in self-defence against -the "Brigands," as they were called, that the citizen militia was -formed: "To protect the citizens," ran the minutes of the -Petit-Saint-Antoine district, "against the dangers which threaten them -each individually." "In a word," says M. Victor Fournel, "the -dominating sentiment was fear. Up till the 14th of July, the Parisian -middle-classes showed far more concern at the manifold excesses -committed by the populace after Necker's dismissal than at the schemes -of the court." And M. Jacques Charavay, who was the first to publish the -text of the minutes in question, says not a word too much when he draws -from them this conclusion: "The movement which next day swept away the -Bastille might possibly have been stifled by the National Guard, if its -organization had had greater stability." - -All that was wanting to these good intentions was direction, a man at -the helm, and particularly the support of Besenval. But his conduct was -amazing! He left Versailles with 35,000 men and an order signed by the -king--obtained not without difficulty--authorizing him "to repel force -by force." Now let us see a summary of his military operations:-- - -On the 13th, towards four o'clock in the afternoon, a skirmish of the -German regiment on the Place Vendôme, where it came into collision with -the "demonstration"--as we should say to-day--which was displaying busts -of Necker and the Duke of Orleans, and dispersed it. - -At six o'clock, a march of the same horse soldiers to the -swinging-bridge of the Tuileries, where they had five or six chairs -thrown at their head; and the massacre, by M. de Lambesc, of the -legendary grey-beard who, an hour after, was describing his tragic end -at the Palais-Royal! - -At nine o'clock, a military promenade of the same regiment along the -boulevards. A volley from the Gardes Françaises slew two of their -number, and the regiment beat a retreat without returning fire, to the -great surprise of M. de Maleissye, officer of the Guards. For, by his -own confession, if the cavalry had charged, it would easily have routed -the Gardes Françaises "in the state of drunkenness in which they then -were." - -And Besenval, terrified at such a resistance, assembled all his troops, -shut himself up with them in the Champ de Mars, and did not move another -step! - -We ask ourselves, "Was he a fool? or was he a traitor?" He was a fool, -for he thought he had "three hundred thousand men" in front of him, took -every excited person for a rebel, and did not understand that out of -every hundred Parisians there were ninety who were relying on him to -bring the mutineers to reason. - -He had no confidence in his troops, he said. - -It was rather for them to have no confidence in him, and to lose heart -utterly at such a spectacle of cowardice. But he was slandering them. -One solitary regiment showed disloyalty. And if he had only given the -Swiss the word to march, their conduct on August 10 gives ample proof -that they could have been depended on. - -"And then," says he again, "I was fearful of letting loose civil war!" - -Indeed! And so a soldier going to suppress a revolt is not to run the -risk of fighting! - -Last reason of all: "I requested orders from Versailles--and did not get -them!" - -What, then, had he in his pocket? - -Finally, after having sent word to Flesselles and De Launey to maintain -their position till he arrived, and after having allowed the arms of the -Invalides to be looted under his eyes without a single effort to save -them, he waited till the Bastille was taken before making up his mind to -leave the Champ de Mars, and to return quietly to Versailles with his -35,000 men, who had not fired a shot! - -Ah! those were the days for rioting! - - * * * * * - -"On July 13," says Michelet, "Paris was defending herself." (Against -whom?) "On the 14th, she attacked! A voice wakened her and cried, 'On, -and take the Bastille!' And that day was the day of the entire People!" - -Admirable poetry; but every word a lie! - -Listen to Marat, who is not open to suspicion, and who saw things at -closer quarters. "The Bastille, badly defended, was captured by a -handful of soldiers and a gang of wretches for the most part Germans and -provincials. The Parisians, those everlasting star-gazers, came there -out of curiosity!" - -In reality, Michelet's "entire people" reduces itself to a bare thousand -assailants, of whom three hundred at most took part in the fight: Gardes -Françaises and deserters of all arms, lawyers' clerks, and citizens who -had lost their heads: fine fellows who thought themselves engaged in -meritorious work in rushing on these inoffensive walls; bandits -attracted by the riot which promised them theft and murder with -impunity. And a number of mere spectators--spectators above all! - -"I was present," says Chancellor Pasquier, "at the taking of the -Bastille. What is called the fight was not serious. The resistance was -absolutely nil. The truth is, that this grand fight did not cause an -instant's alarm to the spectators, who had flocked up to see the result. -Among them there were many ladies of the greatest elegance. In order to -get more easily to the front they had left their carriages at a -distance. By my side was Mdlle. Contat, of the Comédie Française. We -stayed to see the finish, and then I escorted her on my arm to her -carriage in the Place Royale." - -"The Bastille was not taken; truth must be told, it surrendered." It is -Michelet himself who makes this statement, and he adds: "what ruined it -was its own evil conscience!" - -It would be too simple to acknowledge that it was the incapacity of its -governor. - -There is no connoisseur in old prints but is acquainted with those -last-century views which represent the taking of the Bastille. The -platform of the fortress bristles with cannon all firing together, -"belching forth death,"--without the slightest attention on the part of -the assailants, for all the balls from this artillery, passing over -their heads, would only kill inoffensive wayfarers without so much as -scratching a single one of the besiegers! - -And the Bastille did not fire a single shot in self-defence! - -In the morning, at the request of Thuriot de la Rozière, De Launey had -readily consented to the withdrawal of the fifteen cannon of the -platform from their embrasures, and had blocked up the embrasures with -planks. Of the three guns which later on he ranged batterywise before -the entrance gate, not one was effective, and the discharge attributed -to one of them came from a piece of ordnance on the wall. - -He placed such absolute reliance on succour from Besenval that, on -evacuating the arsenal and getting the whole garrison together into the -Bastille--eighty-two Invalides and M. de Flue's thirty-two Swiss--he had -forgotten to increase his stock of provisions. Now, the Bastille had no -reserve of provisions. Every morning, like a good housewife, it received -the goods ordered the night before, brought by the different purveyors; -on this day, they were intercepted. So it happened that at three o'clock -in the afternoon the garrison was without its usual rations, and the -Invalides, who had been for a week past going in and out of all the inns -in the neighbourhood, and were disposed to open the doors to their good -friends of the suburbs, used the scantiness of their rations as a -pretext for mutiny, for refusing to fight, and for muddling the brains, -never very clear, of the unhappy De Launey. - -"On the day of my arrival," says De Flue, "I was able to take this man's -measure from the absolutely imbecile preparations which he made for the -defence of his position. I saw clearly that we should be very poorly led -in case of attack. He was so struck with terror at the idea of it that, -when night came on, he took the shadows of trees for enemies! Incapable, -irresolute, devoting all his attention to trifles and neglecting -important duties--such was the man." - -Abandoned by Besenval, instead of cowing his Invalides into obedience by -his energy, and maintaining his position to famishing point behind walls -over which the balls of the besiegers flew without killing more than -one man, De Launey lost his head, made a feint of firing the powder -magazine, capitulated, and opened his gates to men who, as Chateaubriand -says, "could never have cleared them if he had only kept them shut." - -If this poor creature had done his duty, and Besenval had done his, -things would have had quite a different complexion. That is not to say -that the Revolution would have been averted--far from it! The Revolution -was legitimate, desirable, and, under the generous impulse of a whole -nation, irresistible. But it would have followed another bent, and would -have triumphed at a slighter cost, with less ruin and less bloodshed. -The consequences of the 14th of July were disastrous. The mere words, -"The Bastille is taken!" were the signal for the most frightful -disorders throughout France. It seemed as though those old walls were -dragging down with them in their fall all authority, all respect, all -discipline; as though the floodgates were being opened to every kind of -excess. Peasants went about in bands, ravaging, pillaging, firing the -châteaux, the burghers' houses, and burning alive those who fell into -their hands. The soldiers mutinied, insulted their chiefs, and fell to -carousing with the malefactors whom they set free. There was not a town -or village where the mob did not put on menacing airs, where decent -people were not molested by the brawlers of the clubs and the -street-corners. Such violence led to a rapid reaction, and there were -numerous defections--of men who, on the very eve of the outbreak, among -the magistracy, the army, the clergy, the nobility, though sympathizing -with the new ideas, abruptly cut themselves loose from the movement, -like the good Duke de la Rochefoucauld, who exclaimed, "Liberty is not -entered by such a door as this!" Hovering between the desire and the -fear of granting the promised reforms, urged on one side to resistance, -on the other to submission, and more than ever destitute of all -political acumen and all will power, the king went to Paris, and, -bending before the revolt, approved of the assassination of his most -faithful servants--and took, on that fatal day, his first step towards -the scaffold! Henceforth, under the pressure of the populace, to whom -its first success had shown the measure of its strength, and who became -every day more exacting, more threatening, the Revolution was to go on -in its perverse course, stumbling at every step, until it came to the -orgy of '93, which, properly speaking, was only the systematizing of -brigandage. Malouet was right indeed: what we symbolize in our festival -of the 14th of July is not the rising sun, the dawn of Liberty; it is -the first lurid lightning flash of the Terror! - -Doctor Rigby, after having walked up and down the whole afternoon in the -Jardin Monceau without the least idea of what was going on in the Suburb -Saint-Antoine, returned in the evening to his house near the -Palais-Royal. He saw the mob reeling in drunkenness. Men and women were -laughing, crying, and embracing one another: "The Bastille is taken! At -last we are free!" And not the least enthusiastic were those very men of -the citizen militia who, ready yesterday to fight the insurrection, were -to-day hailing its triumph! The first sabre brandished by the first -national guard was in point of fact that of Joseph Prudhomme![15] - -All at once this delirious crowd shudders, parts asunder with cries of -horror! - -Down the Rue Saint-Honoré comes a yelling mob of wine-soaked -malefactors, bearing along, at the ends of two pikes, the still bleeding -heads of De Launey and De Flesselles! - -And the silly folk, so madly rejoiced by the fall of an imaginary -tyranny which has not even the wits to defend itself, go their several -ways, struck dumb with consternation. - -For here the Real is making its entrance! - - * * * * * - -Do not fancy that because the Bastille has opened its gates, the legends -which give it so cruel a name are going to vanish into thin air, like -the phantoms of an ancient château when light is let in. - -While Michelet's "entire Paris" is making short work of the Invalides -who surrendered the place; cutting in pieces the man who prevented its -blowing up; slaughtering Major de Losme, the friend and benefactor of -the prisoners; torturing the hapless De Launey, who, from the Bastille -to the Hôtel de Ville, stabbed, slashed, hacked with sabres and pikes -and bayonets, is finally decapitated by the aid of a short knife--an -episode which Michelet skilfully slurs over--while all the criminals of -the district, crowding along in the wake of the combatants, are rushing -to the official buildings, looting, smashing, throwing into the moats -furniture, books, official papers, archives, the remnants of which will -be collected with such difficulty--some good people are saying to -themselves: "But come now, there are some prisoners! Suppose we go and -set them free?" - -Here let us see what Louis Blanc has to say:-- - -"Meanwhile the doors of the cells" (he insists on the cells) "were burst -in with a mighty effort; the prisoners were free! Alas! for three of -them it was too late! The first, whose name was the Comte de Solages, a -victim for seven years of the incomprehensible vengeance of an -implacable father, found neither relatives who would consent to -acknowledge him, nor his property, which had become the prey of covetous -collateral heirs! The second was called Whyte. Of what crime was he -guilty, accused, of, at any rate, suspected? No one has ever known! The -man himself was questioned in vain. In the Bastille he had lost his -reason. The third, Tavernier, at the sight of his deliverers, fancied he -saw his executioners coming, and put himself on the defensive. Throwing -their arms round his neck they undeceived him; but next day he was met -roaming through the town, muttering wild and whirling words. He was -mad!" - -As many wilful errors as there are words! - -The Comte de Solages was an execrable libertine, confined at the request -of his family for "atrocious and notorious crimes." His relatives -nevertheless had the humanity to take him in after his deliverance, and -it was with them that he died in 1825. - -Whyte and Tavernier did not go mad in the Bastille. They were in the -Bastille because they were mad; and the second was, further, implicated -in an assassination. Finding shelter with a perruquier of the -neighbourhood, he set about smashing all his host's belongings, which -necessitated his banishment to Charenton, where Whyte soon rejoined him. -It was not worth the trouble of changing their quarters! - -Four other prisoners who were set free, Corrège, Béchade, Pujade, and -Laroche, were imprisoned for forgery. And so Louis Blanc is careful -silently to pass them over! - -Ten days before, another victim of tyranny had been groaning in -irons--the Marquis de Sade, who, from the height of the platform, used -to provoke the passers-by with the aid of a speaking trumpet. De Launey -was compelled to transfer him to Vincennes, thus depriving the victors -of the glory of liberating the future author of _Justine_. The Republic -took its revenge in making him later secretary of the "Pike" ward,[16] -an office for which he was marked out by his virtues! - -But of all these prisoners the most celebrated, the most popular, the -man whose misfortunes all Paris deplored, was the famous Comte de -Lorges, who, according to the biographical sketch devoted to him by the -unknown author of his deliverance, had been shut up for thirty-two -years. The story must be read in the pamphlet of Citizen Rousselet, -conqueror of the Bastille: "The tide of humanity penetrates into ways -narrowed by mistrust. An iron door opens: what does one see? Is this a -man? Good heavens! this old man loaded with irons! the splendour of his -brow, the whiteness of his beard hanging over his breast! What majesty! -the fire still flashing from his eyes seems to shed a gentle light in -this lugubrious abode!" - -Surprised at seeing so many armed men, he asks them if Louis XV. is -still alive. They set him free, they lead him to the Hôtel de Ville. - -For fifteen days all Paris went to visit the black dungeon in which this -unhappy wretch had been shut up for so many years without other light -than that which escaped "from his eyes"! A stone from that dungeon had a -place in the Curtius Museum. His portrait was published. A print -represents him at the moment when his chains were broken, seated on a -chair in his cell, a pitcher of water by his side! - -And this hapless greybeard--he was never seen! He never existed! - -In reality there were in the Bastille, on the 14th of July, only seven -prisoners--two madmen, a _Sadique_,[17] and four forgers. But about -their number and their right to imprisonment Michelet remains dumb: to -discuss that would spoil his epic! And he excels in making the most of -everything that can support his case, and in ignoring everything that -damages it. And so he contents himself with speaking of the two who had -"gone mad"!--a prevarication worthy of Louis Blanc, nay, unworthy even -of him! - -The conquerors were somewhat surprised at the small number of victims, -more surprised still to find them comfortably installed in rooms, some -of which were furnished with arm-chairs in Utrecht velvet! The author of -_The Bastille Unmasked_ exclaims: "What! No corpses! No skeletons! No -men in chains!" "The taking of the Bastille," said "Cousin Jacques,"[18] -"has opened the eyes of the public on the kind of captivity experienced -there." - -But in this he was greatly mistaken. Legends die hard! A Bastille -without cells, dungeons, cages of iron! Public opinion did not admit -that it could have been deceived on that point. - -"Several prisoners," says the _History of Remarkable Events_, "were set -at liberty; but some, and perhaps the greater number, had already died -of hunger, because men could not find their way about this monstrous -prison. Some of these prisoners confined within four walls received food -only through holes cut in the wall. A party of prisoners was found -starved to death, because their cells were not discovered till several -days had elapsed!" - -Another pamphlet on the underground cells discovered in the Bastille, -resuscitating an old fable which had already done duty for the Cardinal -de Richelieu, shows us a prisoner taken from his cell and led by the -governor into "a room which had nothing sinister in its appearance. It -was lit by more than fifty candles. Sweet-scented flowers filled it with -a delicious perfume. The tyrant chatted amicably with his prisoner.... -Then he gave the horrible signal: a bascule let into the floor opened, -and the wretched man disappeared, falling upon a wheel stuck with razors -and set in motion by invisible hands." And the author winds up with this -magnificent reflection:--"Such a punishment, so basely contrived, is not -even credible--and yet it was at Paris, in that beautiful and -flourishing city, that this took place!" - -Dorat-Cubières, who was one of the literary disgraces of the eighteenth -century, goes further! He saw, with his own eyes, one of those dens -where the captive, shut up with enough bread to last him a week, had -thereafter nothing else to subsist on but his own flesh. "In this den," -he says, "we came upon a horrible skeleton, the sight of which made me -shrink back with horror!" - -And the popular picture-mongers did not fail to propagate these -insanities. I have an engraving of the time nicely calculated to stir -sensitive hearts. Upon the steps of a gloomy cellar the conquerors are -dragging along a man whom his uniform shows to be one of the defenders -of the Bastille, and are pointing out to him an old man being carried -away, another being cut down from the ceiling where he is hanging by the -arms; yet others lying on a wheel furnished with iron teeth, chained to -it, twisted into horrible contortions by abominable machines; and in a -recess behind a grating appears the skeleton--which Dorat-Cubières never -saw! - -The non-existence of these dungeons and holes with skeletons was too -great a shock to settled beliefs. This Bastille _must_ contain concealed -below ground some unknown cells where its victims were moaning! And -naturally enough, when one bent down the ear, one heard their despairing -appeals! But after having pierced through vaults, sunk pits, dug, -sounded everywhere, there was no help for it but to give up these -fancies, though--an agreeable thing to have to say!--with regret. - -They fell back then on instruments of torture. For though the rack had -been abolished for a hundred years, how was it possible to conceive of -the Bastille without some slight instruments of torture? - -They had no difficulty in finding them--"chains," says Louis Blanc, -"which the hands of many innocent men had perhaps worn, machines of -which no one could guess the use: an old iron corslet which seemed to -have been invented to reduce man to everlasting immobility!" - -As a matter of fact, these chains belonged to two statuettes of -prisoners which stood on either side of the great clock in the -courtyard. The machines, the use of which no one could guess, were the -fragments of a clandestine printing-press that had been pulled to -pieces. And the iron corslet was a piece of fifteenth-century armour! - -Skeletons, too, were missing, though indeed some bones were found in the -apartment of the surgeon of the fortress; but the utmost bad faith could -not but be compelled to acknowledge that these were anatomical -specimens. Happily for the legend, a more serious discovery was made: -"two skeletons, chained to a cannon-ball," as the register of the -district of Saint-Louis la Culture declared. - -They both came to light in the rubbish dug out during the construction -of the bastion afterwards turned into a garden for the governor. "One," -says the report of Fourcroy, Vicq-d'Azyr, and Sabatier, instructed to -examine them, "was found turned head downwards on the steps of a steep -staircase, entirely covered with earth, and appears to be that of a -workman who had fallen by accident down this dark staircase, where he -was not seen by the men working at the embankment. The other, carefully -buried in a sort of ditch, had evidently been laid there a long time -previously, before there was any idea of filling up the bastion." - -As to the cannon-ball, it must have dated back to the Fronde.[19] - -But skeletons were necessary! They had found some: they might as well -profit by them! - -The demolisher of the Bastille, that charlatan Palloy, exhibited them to -the veneration of the faithful in a cellar by the light of a funereal -lamp, after which they were honoured with a magnificent funeral, with -drums, clergy, a procession of working men, between two lines of -National Guards, from the Bastille to the Church of St. Paul. And -finally, in the graveyard adjoining the church, they raised to them, -amid four poplars, a monument of which a contemporary print has -preserved the likeness. - -After such a ceremony, dispute if you dare the authenticity of the -relics! - - * * * * * - -The memory of the Man in the Iron Mask is so closely bound up with the -story of the Bastille that M. Funck-Brentano could not neglect this -great enigma about which for two hundred years so much ink has been -spilt. He strips off this famous mask--which, by the way, was of -velvet--and shows us the face which the world has been so anxious to -see: the face of Mattioli, the confidant of the Duke of Mantua and the -betrayer of both Louis XIV. and his own master. - -M. Funck-Brentano's demonstration is so convincing as to leave no room -for doubt. But one dare not hope that the good public will accept his -conclusions as final. To the public, mystery is ever more attractive -than the truth. There is a want of prestige about Mattioli; while about -a twin brother of Louis XIV.--ah, _there_ is something that appeals to -the imagination! - -And then there are the guides, the showmen, to reckon with--those -faithful guardians of legends, whose propaganda is more aggressive than -that of scholars. When you reflect that every day, at the Isles of -Saint-Marguerite, the masked man's cell is shown to visitors by a good -woman who retails all the traditional fables about the luxurious life of -the prisoner, his lace, his plate, and the attentions shown him by M. -de Saint-Mars, you will agree that a struggle with this daily discourse -would be hopeless. And you would not come off with a whole skin! - -I was visiting the Château d'If before the new buildings were erected. -The show-woman of the place, another worthy dame, pointed out to us the -ruined cells of the Abbé Faria and Edmond Dantès.[20] And the spectators -were musing on the story as they contemplated the ruins. - -"It seems to me," I said, "that these cells are rather near one another, -but surely Alexandre Dumas put them a little farther apart!" - -"Oh, well!" replied the good creature, withering me with a glance of -contempt, "if, when I'm relating gospel truth, the gentleman begins -quoting a novelist--!" - -To come nearer home. Follow, one of these days, a batch of Cook's -tourists at Versailles, shown round by an English cicerone. You will see -him point out the window from which Louis XVI. issued, on a flying -bridge, to reach his scaffold, erected in the marble court! The guide is -no fool. He knows well enough that the Place de la Concorde would not -appeal to the imagination of his countrymen; while it is quite natural -to them to draw a parallel in their minds between the scaffold of Louis -XVI. at Versailles and that of Charles I. at Whitehall. - -And the conclusion of the whole matter is this: that whatever may be -said or written, nothing will prevail against the popular beliefs that -the Bastille was "the hell of living men," and that it was taken by -storm. Legends are the history of the people, especially those which -flatter their instincts, prejudices, and passions. You will never -convince them of their falsity. - -M. Funck-Brentano must also expect to be treated as a "reactionary," for -such is, to many people, any one who does not unreservedly decry the -_ancien régime_. It had, assuredly, its vices and abuses, which the -Revolution swept away--to replace them by others, much more tolerable, -to be sure; but that is no reason for slandering the past and painting -it blacker than it really was. The fanatical supporters of the -Revolution have founded in its honour a sort of cult whose intolerance -is often irritating. To hear them you would fancy that before its birth -there was nothing but darkness, ignorance, iniquity, and wretchedness! -And so we are to give it wholehearted admiration, and palliate its -errors and its crimes; even gilding, as Chateaubriand said, the iron of -its guillotine. These idolaters of the Revolution are very injudicious. -By endeavouring to compel admiration for all that it effected, good and -ill without distinction, they provoke the very unreasonable inclination -to regard its whole achievement with abhorrence. It could well dispense -with such a surplusage of zeal, for it is strong enough to bear the -truth; and its work, after all, is great enough to need no justification -or glorification by means of legends. - -VICTORIEN SARDOU. - - - - -LEGENDS OF THE BASTILLE - - - - -CHAPTER I. - -THE ARCHIVES. - - -"The Bastille," wrote Sainte-Foix, "is a castle which, without being -strong, is one of the most formidable in Europe, and about it I shall -say nothing." "Silence is safer than speech on that subject," was the -saying in Paris. - -At the extremity of the Rue Saint-Antoine, as one entered the suburb, -appeared the eight lofty towers, sombre, massive, plunging their -moss-grown feet into pools of muddy water. Their walls were pierced at -intervals with narrow, iron-barred windows: they were crowned with -battlements. Situated not far from the Marais, the blithe and wealthy -quarter, and quite near to the Suburb Saint-Antoine, where industry -raised its perpetual hum, the Bastille, charged with gloom and silence, -formed an impressive contrast. - -The common impression it made is conveyed by Restif de la Bretonne in -his _Nights of Paris_: "It was a nightmare, that awesome Bastille, on -which, as I passed each evening along the Rue Saint-Gilles, I never -dared to turn my eyes." - -The towers had an air of mystery, harsh and melancholy, and the royal -government threw mystery like a cloud around them. At nightfall, when -the shutters were closed, a cab would cross the drawbridge, and from -time to time, in the blackness of night, funeral processions, vague -shadows which the light of a torch set flickering on the walls, would -make their silent exit. How many of those who had entered there had ever -been seen again? And if perchance one met a former prisoner, to the -first question he would reply that on leaving he had signed a promise to -reveal nothing of what he had seen. This former prisoner had, as a -matter of fact, never seen anything to speak of. Absolute silence was -imposed upon the warders. "There is no exchanging of confidences in this -place," writes Madame de Staal, "and the people you come across have all -such freezing physiognomies that you would think twice before asking the -most trifling question." "The first article of their code," says -Linguet, "is the impenetrable mystery which envelops all their -operations." - -We know how legends are formed. Sometimes you see them open out like -flowers brilliant under the sun's bright beams, you see them blossom -under the glorious radiance that lights up the life of heroes. The man -himself has long gone down into the tomb; the legend survives; it -streams across the ages, like a meteor leaving its trail of light; it -grows, broadens out, with ever-increasing lustre and glow: in this light -we see Themistocles, Leonidas, Alexander, Cæsar, Charlemagne, Napoleon. - -Or may be, on the contrary, the legend is born in some remote corner, -covered with shade and silence. There men have lived their lives, there -it has been their lot to suffer. Their moans have risen in solitude and -confinement, and the only ears that heard them were harder than their -stone walls. These moans, heard by no compassionate soul, the great -resounding soul of the people catches up, swelling them with all its -might. Soon, among the mass of the people, there passes a blast -irresistible in its strength, like the tempest that upheaves the -restless waves. Then is the sea loosed from its chains: the tumultuous -breakers dash upon the affrighted shore: the sea-walls are all swept -away! - -In a letter written by Chevalier, the major of the Bastille, to Sartine, -the chief of the police, he spoke of the common gossip on the Bastille -that was going about. "Although utterly false," he said, "I think it -very dangerous on account of its dissemination through the kingdom, and -that has now been going on for several years." No attention was paid to -Chevalier's warning. Mystery continued to be the rule at the Bastille -and in all that related to it. "The mildness of manners and of the -government," writes La Harpe, "had caused needlessly harsh measures in -great part to disappear. They lived on in the imagination of the -people, augmented and strengthened by the tales which credulity and hate -seize upon." Ere long the _Memoirs_ of Latude and of Linguet appeared. -Latude concealed his grievous faults, to paint his long sufferings in -strokes of fire. Linguet, with his rare literary talent, made of the -Bastille a picture dark in the extreme, compressing the gist of his -pamphlet into the sentence: "Except perhaps in hell, there are no -tortures to approach those of the Bastille." At the same period, the -great Mirabeau was launching his powerful plea against _lettres de -cachet_, "arbitrary orders." These books produced a mighty -reverberation. The Revolution broke out like a clap of thunder. The -Bastille was disembowelled. The frowning towers crumbled stone by stone -under the picks of the demolishers, and, as if they had been the -pedestal of the _ancien régime_, that too toppled over with a crash. - -One of the halls of the Bastille contained, in boxes carefully arranged, -the entire history of the celebrated fortress from the year 1659, at -which date the foundation of this precious store of archives had been -begun. There were collected the documents concerning, not only the -prisoners of the Bastille, but all the persons who had been lodged -there, either under sentence of exile, or simply arrested within the -limits of the generality of Paris in virtue of a _lettre de cachet_. - -The documents in this store-room had been in charge of archivists, who -throughout the eighteenth century had laboured with zeal and -intelligence at putting in order papers which, on the eve of the -Revolution, were counted by hundreds of thousands. The whole mass was -now in perfect order, classified and docketed. The major of the château, -Chevalier, had even been commissioned to make these documents the basis -of a history of the prisoners. - -The Bastille was taken. In the disorder, what was the fate of the -archives? The ransacking of the papers continued for two days, writes -Dusaulx, one of the commissioners elected by the Assembly for the -preservation of the archives of the Bastille. "When, on Thursday the -16th, my colleagues and myself went down into the sort of cellar where -the archives were, we found the boxes in very orderly arrangement on the -shelves, but they were already empty. The most important documents had -been carried off: the rest were strewn on the floor, scattered about the -courtyard, and even in the moats. However, the curious still found some -gleanings there." The testimony of Dusaulx is only too well confirmed. -"I went to see the siege of the Bastille," writes Restif de la Bretonne; -"when I arrived it was all over, the place was taken. Infuriated men -were throwing papers, documents of great historical value, from the top -of the towers into the moats." Among these papers, some had been burnt, -some torn, registers had been torn to shreds and trailed in the mud. The -mob had invaded the halls of the château: men of learning and mere -curiosity hunters strove eagerly to get possession of as many of these -documents as possible, in which they thought they were sure to find -startling revelations. "There is talk of the son of a celebrated -magistrate," writes Gabriel Brizard, "who went off with his carriage -full of them." Villenave, then twenty-seven years of age and already a -collector, gathered a rich harvest for his study, and Beaumarchais, in -the course of a patriotic ramble through the interior of the captured -fortress, was careful to get together a certain number of these papers. - -The papers purloined from the archives on the day of the capture and the -day following became dispersed throughout France and Europe. A large -packet came into the hands of Pierre Lubrowski, an attaché in the -Russian embassy. Sold in 1805, with his whole collection, to the Emperor -Alexander, the papers were deposited in the Hermitage Palace. To-day -they are preserved in the Imperial Library at St. Petersburg. - -Fortunately, the custody of the captured fortress was entrusted on July -15 to the company of arquebusiers, which received orders to prevent the -removal of any more papers. On July 16 one of the members present at a -sitting of the Electoral Assembly, sprang forward to the table and -cried, "Ah, gentlemen, let us save the papers! It is said that the -papers of the Bastille are being plundered; let us hasten to collect the -remnants of these old title-deeds of an intolerable despotism, so that -we may inspire our latest posterity with their horror!" There was -rapturous applause. A committee was nominated, consisting of Dusaulx, De -Chamseru, Gorneau, and Cailleau. Let us follow the style of the period: -"Before the Bastille the commissioners received a triumphant reception. -Amid the cheers of the people, who had been informed of their mission, -ten distinguished men of letters besought them to lead the commissioners -into the heart of that famous fortress, so long detested." When they got -into the Bastille, the commissioners were not long in perceiving that -they were a little behind the fair: "Many boxes were empty, and there -was an immense heap of papers in complete disorder." - -The question of the papers of the Bastille grew day by day -extraordinarily popular. The Electoral Assembly had just appointed -commissioners to collect them; La Fayette, commander of the National -Guards, imposed a similar duty on the St. Elizabeth district; Bailly, -the mayor of Paris, delegated Dusaulx to the same office. In the -Constituent Assembly, the Comte de Châtenay-Lanty proposed that the -municipality of Paris should be instructed to get together the papers -found at the Bastille, so that they might be arranged, and that extracts -from them might be printed and published, "in order to keep for ever -alive in the hearts of Frenchmen, by means of this reading, the -detestation of arbitrary orders and the love of liberty"! This book was -to be the preface to the constitution. Finally, the district of St. Roch -took the initiative in calling upon the electors to restore to the -nation the papers carried off from the Bastille by Beaumarchais. - -In the sitting of July 24, the Electoral Assembly passed a resolution -enjoining such citizens as were in possession of papers from the -Bastille to bring them back to the Hôtel de Ville. The appeal was -responded to, and the restitutions were numerous. - -When the pillage and destruction had been stopped and possession had -been regained of a part of the stolen documents, the papers were -consigned to three different depositories; but it was not long before -they were deposited all together in the convent of St. Louis la Culture. -At length, on November 2, 1791, the Commune of Paris resolved to have -the precious documents placed in the city library. The decision was so -much the more happy in that the transfer, while placing the papers under -the guardianship of trained men and genuine librarians, did not -necessitate removal, since the city library at that date occupied the -same quarters as the archives of the Bastille, namely, the convent of -St. Louis la Culture. - -To the revolutionary period succeeded times of greater calm. The -archives of the Bastille, after being the object of so much discussion, -and having occupied the Constituent Assembly, the Electoral Assembly, -the Paris Commune, the press, Mirabeau, La Fayette, Bailly, all Paris, -the whole of France, fell into absolute oblivion. They were lost from -sight; the very recollection of them was effaced. In 1840, a young -librarian named François Ravaisson discovered them in the Arsenal -library at the bottom of a veritable dungeon. How had they got stranded -there? - -Ameilhon, the city librarian, had been elected on April 22, 1797, keeper -of the Arsenal library. Anxious to enrich the new depository of which he -had become the head, he obtained a decree handing over the papers of the -Bastille to the Arsenal library. The librarians recoiled in dismay -before this invasion of documents, more than 600,000 in number and in -the most admired disorder. Then, having put their heads together, they -had the papers crammed into a dusty back-room, putting off the sorting -of them from day to day. Forty years slipped away. And if it happened -that some old antiquary, curious and importunate, asked to be allowed to -consult the documents he had heard spoken of in his youth, he was -answered--no doubt in perfect good faith--that they did not know what he -was talking about. - -In 1840 François Ravaisson had to get some repairs done in his kitchen -at the Arsenal library. The slabs of the flooring were raised, when -there came to view, in the yawning hole, a mass of old papers. It -happened by the merest chance that, as he drew a leaf out of the heap, -Ravaisson laid his hand on a _lettre de cachet_. He understood at once -that he had just discovered the lost treasure. Fifty years of laborious -effort have now restored the order which the victors of the 14th of July -and successive removals had destroyed. The archives of the Bastille -still constitute, at the present day, an imposing collection, in spite -of the gaps made by fire and pillage in 1789, for ever to be regretted. -The administration of the Arsenal library has acquired copies of the -documents coming from the Bastille which are preserved at St. -Petersburg. The archives of the Bastille are now open to inspection by -any visitor to the Arsenal library, in rooms specially fitted up for -them. Several registers had holes burnt in them on the day of the -capture of the Bastille, their binding is scorched black, their leaves -are yellow. In the boxes the documents are now numbered, and they are -daily consulted by men of letters. The catalogue has been compiled and -published recently, through the assiduity of the minister of public -instruction. - -It is by the light of these documents, of undeniable genuineness and -authority, that the black shade which so long brooded over the Bastille -has at length been dispelled. The legends have melted away in the clear -light of history, as the thick cloak of mist with which night covers the -earth is dissipated by the morning sun; and enigmas which mankind, -wearied of fruitless investigations, had resigned itself to declare -insoluble, have now at last been solved. - - - - -CHAPTER II. - -HISTORY OF THE BASTILLE. - - -Julius Cæsar describes a structure three stories high which his -legionaries used rapidly to erect in front of towns they were besieging. -Such was the remote origin of the "bastides" or "bastilles," as these -movable fortresses were called in the Middle Ages. Froissart, speaking -of a place that was being invested, says that "bastides were stationed -on the roads and in the open country" in such a manner that the town -could get no food supplies. It was not long before the designation was -applied to the fixed towers erected on the ramparts for the defence of -the towns, and more particularly to those which were constructed at the -entrance gates. - -In 1356, the chroniclers mention some important works that had been done -on the circumvallations of Paris. These were constructions interrupting -the wall at intervals, and so placed as to protect either an entrance -gate or the wall itself. The special designations of _eschiffles_, -_guérites_, or _barbacanes_ were applied to such of these buildings as -rose between two gates of the city, while the _bastilles_ or _bastides_ -were those which defended the gates. The first stone of the edifice -which for more than four centuries was to remain famous under the name -of the Bastille was laid on April 22, 1370, by the mayor of Paris in -person, Hugh Aubriot, the object being to strengthen the defences of the -city against the English. To reproach the king, Charles V., with the -construction of a cruel prison would be almost as reasonable as to -reproach Louis-Philippe with the construction of the fortress of Mont -Valérien. We borrow these details from M. Fernand Bournon's excellent -work on the Bastille in the _Histoire générale de Paris_. - -"The Bastille," writes M. Bournon, "at the time of its capture on July -14, 1789, was still identical, except in some trifling particulars, with -the work of the architects of the fourteenth century." The Place de la -Bastille of the present day does not correspond exactly to the site of -the fortress. Mentally to restore that site it is necessary to take away -the last houses of the Rue Saint-Antoine and the Boulevard Henri IV.; -the ground they occupy was then covered with the château and its glacis. -The round towers, however, must have extended considerably in advance of -the line of the houses and have encroached upon the pavement. The plan -reproducing the site exactly is to-day marked by lines of white stones, -by means of which all Parisians may get some notion of it if they go to -the Place de la Bastille. - -M. Augé de Lassus, who drew so largely upon the works of M. Bournon and -ourselves for his lecture on the Bastille,[21] will permit us in our -turn to borrow from him the description he gave of the Bastille, so far -as its construction is concerned. Prints of the commonest kind which -have circulated in thousands, the more recent reconstruction which in -1889 gave Paris so much entertainment, have familiarized us with the -aspect of the Bastille, whose eight circular towers, connected by -curtains of equal height, give us the impression of a box all of a -piece, or, if you prefer it, an enormous sarcophagus. The eight towers -all had their names. There were the Corner, the Chapel, and the Well -towers, names readily accounted for by their position or by details of -their construction. Then came the Bertaudière and Bazinière towers, -baptized by the names of two former prisoners. The Treasure tower was so -called because it had received on many occasions, notably under Henri -IV., the custody of the public money. The excellent poet Mathurin -Regnier alludes to this fact in these oft-quoted lines:-- - - "Now mark these parsons, sons of ill-got gain, - Whose grasping sires for years have stolen amain, - Whose family coffers vaster wealth conceal, - Than fills that royal store-house, the Bastille." - -The seventh tower was known as the County tower, owing its name, as M. -Bournon conjectures, to the feudal dignity called the County of Paris. -"The hypothesis," he adds, "derives the greater weight from the fact -that the mayors of Paris were called, up to the end of the _ancien -régime_, mayors of the town and viscounty of Paris." The eighth tower -bore a name which, for the tower of a prison, is very remarkable. It was -called the Tower of Liberty. This odd appellation had come to it from -the circumstance that it had been the part of the Bastille where -prisoners were lodged who enjoyed exceptionally favourable treatment, -those who had the "liberty" of walking during the day in the courtyards -of the château. These prisoners were said to be "in the liberty of the -court"; the officers of the château called them the "prisoners of the -liberty" in contradistinction to the prisoners "in durance"; and that -one of the eight towers in which they were lodged was thus, quite -naturally, called "the Tower of Liberty." - -The towers of the Chapel and the Treasure, which were the oldest, had -flanked the original gateway, but this was soon walled up, leaving -however in the masonry the outline of its arch, and even the statues of -saints and crowned princes that had been the only ornaments of its bare -walls. "In accordance with custom," says M. Augé de Lassus, "the -entrance to the Bastille was single and double at the same time; the -gate for vehicles, defended by its drawbridge, was flanked by a smaller -gate reserved for foot passengers, and this, too, was only accessible -when a small drawbridge was lowered." - -In the first of the two courtyards of the Bastille, D'Argenson had -placed a monumental clock held up by large sculptured figures -representing prisoners in chains. The heavy chains fell in graceful -curves around the clock-face, as a kind of ornamentation. D'Argenson and -his artists had a ferocious taste. - -On the morrow of the defeat at St. Quentin,[22] the fear of invasion -decided Henri II., under the advice of Coligny, to strengthen the -Bastille. It was then, accordingly, that there was constructed, in front -of the Saint-Antoine gate, the bastion which was at a later date to be -adorned with a garden for the prisoners to walk in. - -Around the massive and forbidding prison, in the course of the -seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, quite a little town sprang up and -flourished, as in the Middle Ages happened around lofty and impressive -cathedrals. Barbers, cobblers, drink-sellers, poulterers, cheesemongers, -and general dealers had their shops there. These new buildings -encroached on the Rue Saint-Antoine, and extended as far as the convent -of the Visitation, the chapel of which, converted into a Protestant -place of worship, still exists. - -"In its latter days," writes M. de Lassus, "the Bastille with its -appendages presented an appearance somewhat as follows:--On the Rue -Saint-Antoine, a gateway of considerable size, and, with its trophies of -arms, making some pretensions to a triumphal arch, gave access to a -first court skirted with shops, and open, at least during the day, to -all comers. People might pass through it freely, but were not allowed to -loiter there. Then appeared a second entrance, a double one for horse -and foot traffic, each gate defended by its drawbridge. Admittance -through this was more difficult, and the sentry's instructions more -rigorous; this was the outer guard. As soon as this entrance was passed, -one came to the court of the governor, who received the more or less -voluntary visitor. On the right stretched the quarters of the governor -and his staff, contiguous to the armoury. Then there were the moats, -originally supplied by the waters of the Seine--at that time people -frequently fell in and were drowned, the moats not being protected by -any railing--in later times they were for the most part dry. Then rose -the lofty towers of the citadel, encircled, nearly a hundred feet up, by -their crown of battlements; and then one found the last drawbridge, most -often raised, at any rate before the carriage gate, the door for foot -passengers alone remaining accessible, under still more rigorous -conditions." - -These conditions, so rigorous for contemporaries--the Czar Peter the -Great himself found them inflexible--are removed for the historian: -thanks to the numerous memoirs left by prisoners, thanks to the -documents relating to the administration of the Bastille now in the -Arsenal library, and to the correspondence of the lieutenants of police, -we shall penetrate into the interior of these well-fenced precincts and -follow the life of the prisoners day by day. - -In its early days, then, the Bastille was not a prison, though it became -such as early as the reign of Charles VI. Yet for two centuries it kept -its character as a military citadel. Sometimes the kings gave lodgment -there to great personages who were passing through Paris. Louis XI. and -Francis I. held brilliant fêtes there, of which the chroniclers speak -with admiration. - -It is Richelieu who must be considered the founder of the Bastille--the -Bastille, that is, as a royal prison, the Bastille of the seventeenth -and eighteenth centuries. Before him, imprisonment in the old fortress -was merely casual; it is to him that we must trace the conception of the -state prison as an instrument of government. Here we shall be arrested -by the question, what is to be understood by a state prison? The term, -vague and open to discussion, is explained by M. Bournon. "By a state -prison--taking the Bastille as a particular instance--must be understood -a prison for those who have committed a crime or misdemeanour not -provided for by the common law; for those who, rightly or wrongly, have -appeared dangerous to the safety of the state, whether the nation itself -is concerned, or its head, or a body more or less considerable of -citizens, a body sometimes no larger than the family of the suspect. If -we add to this class of prisoners personages too conspicuous to be -punished for a crime at common law on equal terms with the ordinary -malefactor, and for whom it would appear inevitable that an exceptional -prison should be reserved, we shall have passed in review the different -kinds of delinquents who expiated their misdeeds at the Bastille from -the time of Richelieu to the Revolution." - -The administration of the Bastille, which, up to the reign of Louis -XIII., was entrusted to great lords, dukes, constables, marshals of -France--the Marshal de Bassompierre, the Constable de Luynes, the -Marshal de Vitry, the Duke of Luxemburg, to mention only the last of -them--was placed by Richelieu in the hands of a real jailer, Leclerc du -Tremblay, brother of Père Joseph.[23] - -Documents throwing any light on the Bastille at the time when the Red -Man, as Victor Hugo named Richelieu, was supreme, are however very -rare. An advocate, Maton de la Varenne, published in 1786, in his -_Revolutions of Paris_, a letter which ostensibly had been written on -December 1, 1642, to Richelieu, at that time ill. In it we read: "I, -whom you are causing to rot in the Bastille for having disobeyed your -commandment, which would have brought upon my soul condemnation to -eternal hell, and would have made me appear in eternity with hands -stained with blood----" It is impossible to guarantee the authenticity -of this document. To us it appears suspicious, the text having been -published at a time when many apocryphal documents were produced as -coming from the archives of the Bastille. More worthy of arresting our -attention is the "return of the prisoners who are in the château of the -Bastille," a document of Richelieu's time which M. Bournon discovered in -the archives of the Foreign Office. This catalogue, containing -fifty-three names, is the oldest list of prisoners of the Bastille known -up to the present time. Among the prisoners several are suspected or -convicted of evil designs against "Monsieur le cardinal," some are -accused of an intention to "complot," that is, to conspire against the -throne, or of being spies. There is an "extravagant" priest, a monk who -had "opposed Cluni's election," three hermits, three coiners, the -Marquis d'Assigny, condemned to death, but whose punishment had been -commuted to perpetual imprisonment, a score or so of lords designated as -"madmen, vile scoundrels, evil wretches," or accused of some definite -crime, theft or murder; finally, those whose name is followed by the -simple note, "Queen-mother," or "Monsieur,"[24] whence we may conclude -that the clerk had no exact information about the prisoners of the -cardinal. We shall give later the list of the prisoners in the Bastille -on the day of its capture, July 14, 1789; and the comparison between the -two lists at the two periods, the remotest and the most recent that we -could select, will be instructive. We have also, to assist us in forming -a judgment of the Bastille in Richelieu's time, the memoirs of -Bassompierre and of Laporte, which transport us into a state prison, -elegant, we might almost say luxurious, reserved for prisoners of birth -and breeding, where they lived observing all social usages in their -mutual relations, paying and returning calls. But the Bastille preserved -its military character for many more years, and among the prisoners we -find especially a number of officers punished for breaches of -discipline. Prisoners of war were confined there, and foreign personages -of high rank arrested by way of reprisal, secret agents and spies -employed in France by hostile nations; finally, powerful lords who had -incurred the king's displeasure. The court intrigues under Richelieu and -Mazarin contributed to the diversion of the Bastille from its original -intention: they began to incarcerate there _valets de chambre_ who had -somehow become mixed up in the plots of sovereigns. - -Religious persecution was revived by the government of Louis XIV., and -ere long a whole world of gazetteers and "novelists," the journalists of -the period, were seen swarming like flies in the sun. Louis XIV. was not -precisely a stickler for the liberty of the press, but on the other hand -he shrank from cooping up men of letters, Jansenists and Protestants -convinced of the truth of their beliefs, pell-mell with the vagabonds -and thiefs confined at Bicêtre, Saint-Lazare, and the other prisons of -Paris. He threw open to them, too generously no doubt, the portals of -his château in the Suburb Saint-Antoine, where they mixed with young men -of family undergoing a mild course of the Bastille at the request of -their parents, and with quarrelsome nobles whom the marshals of France, -anxious to avoid duels, used to send there to forget their animosities. -Further, the reign of Louis XIV. was marked by some great trials which -produced a strange and appalling impression, and threw around the -accused a halo of mystery--trials for magic and sorcery, cases of -poisoning and base coining. The accused parties in these cases were -confined in the Bastille. And here we encounter a fresh departure from -the primitive character of the old fortress; prisoners were sent there -whose cases were tried by the regularly constituted judges. Henceforth -prisoners who appeared before the court of the Arsenal were divided -between the Bastille and the fortress of Vincennes. - -This is the grand epoch in the history of the Bastille: it is now a -veritable prison of state. Writers can speak of its "nobleness." It -shows itself to us in colours at once charming and awe-inspiring, -brilliant, majestic, now filled with sounds of merriment, now veiled -with an appalling silence. From the gloomy regions within the massive -walls there come to us the sounds of song and laughter mingled with -cries of despair, with sobs and tears. This is the period of the Iron -Mask: the period when the governor receives mysterious letters from the -court. "I beg you, sir, to see that, if anyone comes to ask for news of -the prisoner whom Desgrez conducted to the Bastille this morning by -order of the king, nothing be said about him, and that, if possible, in -accordance with the intention of His Majesty and the accompanying -instructions, no one may get to know him or even his name." "M. de -Bernaville (the name of one of the governors of the Bastille), having -given orders for the conveyance of an important prisoner to the prison -of my château of the Bastille, I send this letter to inform you of my -intention that you receive him there and keep him closely guarded until -further orders, warning you not to permit him, under any pretext -whatever, to hold communication with any person, either by word of mouth -or in writing." The prisoners surrounded with so absolute a silence -almost all belonged to the same category, namely, distinguished spies, -who seem to have been rather numerous in France at the full tide of -Louis XIV.'s wars, and who were hunted down with an eagerness which grew -in proportion as fortune frowned on the royal armies. We read in the -Journal kept by the King's lieutenant, Du Junca: "On Wednesday, -December 22, about ten o'clock in the morning, M. de la Coste, provost -of the King's armies, came here, bringing and leaving in our custody a -prisoner whom for greater secrecy he caused to enter by our new gate, -which allows us to pass into or out of the garden of the Arsenal at all -hours--the which prisoner, M. d'Estingen by name, a German, but married -in England, was received by the governor by order of the King sent by -the hand of the Marquis de Barbezieux, with explicit instructions to -keep the prisoner's presence a secret and to prevent him from holding -communication with anyone, in speech or writing: the which prisoner is a -widower, without children, a man of intelligence, and doing a brisk -trade in news of what is happening in France, sending his information to -Germany, England, and Holland: a gentlemanly spy." On February 10, 1710, -Pontchartrain wrote to Bernaville, governor of the Bastille: "I cannot -refrain from telling you that you and the Chevalier de la Croix speak a -good deal too much and too openly about the foreign prisoners you have. -Secrecy and mystery is one of your first duties, as I must ask you to -remember. Neither D'Argenson nor any other than those I have apprized -you of should see these prisoners. Give explicit warning to the Abbé -Renaudot and to de la Croix of the necessity of maintaining an -inviolable and impenetrable secrecy." - -It happened also at that period that a prisoner remained in complete -ignorance of the reason of his incarceration: "The prisoner at the -Bastille named J. J. du Vacquay," writes Louvois to the governor, "has -complained to the King that he has been kept there for thirteen years -without knowing the reason: be good enough to let me know what minister -signed the warrant under which he is detained, so that I may report to -His Majesty." - -As the greater part of the papers relating to the arrest were destroyed -as soon as the incarceration was effected, it sometimes happened that in -certain cases the reasons were not known even in the offices of the -ministers. Thus Seignelay writes to the governor, M. de Besmaus: "The -King has commanded me to write and ask you who is a certain prisoner -named Dumesnil, how long he has been at the Bastille, and for what -reason he was placed there." "The demoiselle de Mirail, a prisoner at -the Bastille, having demanded her liberty of the King, His Majesty has -instructed me to write and ask you the reason of her detention; if you -know it, be good enough to inform me at your earliest convenience." -Again, we find Louvois writing to the same effect: "I am sending you a -letter from M. Coquet, in regard to which the King has commanded me to -ask who signed the warrant under which he was sent to the Bastille, and -whether you know the reason of his being sent there." "Sir, I am writing -a line merely to ask you to let me know who is Piat de la Fontaine, who -has been five years at the Bastille, and whether you do not remember why -he was placed there." - -Letters of this kind are, it is true, very rare; yet if one compares the -state of things they disclose with the extraordinary comfort and luxury -with which the prisoners were surrounded, they help to characterize the -celebrated prison at this epoch of its history, namely, the seventeenth -century. - -In 1667 the office of lieutenant of police had been created. The first -to hold the title was Gabriel Nicolas de la Reynie, a man of the -greatest worth. It is very important to note that under the _ancien -régime_ the lieutenant of police had a double function, being at the -same time a subordinate of the minister of Paris[25] and a member of the -Châtelet.[26] His duties were thus of a twofold nature, administrative -and judicial. Now the Bastille, as a state prison, was more especially -an administrative institution; but gradually, owing to the character of -the persons brought there as prisoners, it became difficult to avoid -turning it also into a judicial institution, and the minister of Paris -became accustomed to delegate his subordinate, the lieutenant of police, -to conduct the examination of the prisoners at the Bastille. Though La -Reynie took practically the whole responsibility of the administration -of the Bastille, his visits to the prison itself were nevertheless -relatively rare, and on every occasion a permit signed by Louis XIV. or -by Colbert was necessary. - -La Reynie was succeeded by D'Argenson. Under him the powers of the -lieutenant of police were very largely extended, and the Bastille was -comprised within his jurisdiction. Henceforth the lieutenant of police -will enter the state prison whenever it seems good to him, as lord and -master, accompanied by his subordinates at the Châtelet, clerks and -inspectors of police; the prisoners will be in direct and constant -communication with him, and he will make an inspection of all the -chambers at least once a year. We find that at every change in the -lieutenancy of police, it sufficed for the minister of Paris to send the -name of the new officer to the governor. Dating from this period, the -prison in the Suburb Saint-Antoine remained under the authority of a -magistrate. - -The Regency was a transition period between the reigns of Louis XIV. and -Louis XV., and there was a corresponding transition period in the -history of the Bastille. The incarcerations were less numerous and less -rigorous, but the rule of the prison lost something of that aristocratic -air which had characterized it. The most important episode in the -history of the Bastille during the Regency was the incarceration of -those who were accused of complicity in the Cellamare conspiracy. Among -these was Mdlle de Launay, later to be known as Madame de Staal. She -has left some charming pages about her imprisonment, in which we find, -related with a fluent and subtle pen, the little romance which we -proceed to outline. - -Mdlle de Launay was secretary to the Duchess of Maine. She had had some -part in drawing up the scheme of the Cellamare conspiracy, which, if it -had succeeded, would have placed the king of Spain on the throne of -France. On December 10, 1718, the Regent sent her, with several of her -accomplices, to the Bastille, less with the idea of punishing her for -machinations against the state than to obtain from her details of the -conspiracy. At that period of her life she was of but moderate fortune -and rank, and it would not have been strange if she had been treated -with rigour. She found at the Bastille, on the contrary, unexpected -comfort and consideration. In her _Memoirs_, she writes that her sojourn -at the Bastille was the pleasantest time of her life. Her maid, Rondel, -was permitted to live with her. She was installed in a veritable suite -of rooms. She complained of the mice there, and a cat was given her, to -drive out the mice and provide some amusement. By and by there were -kittens, and the sportive tricks of the numerous little family cheered -her wonderfully, she said. Mdlle de Launay was regularly invited to dine -with the governor; she spent her days in writing and card-playing. The -king's lieutenant, Maisonrouge, a man well on in years, who held, after -the governor, the first place in the administration of the château, -conceived a profound and pathetic passion for the fair prisoner. He -declared that nothing would give him greater happiness than to make her -his wife. His apartments happened to be near those of Mdlle de Launay. -Unhappily for the king's lieutenant, there was in the neighbourhood a -third suite, occupied by a young and brilliant nobleman, the Chevalier -de Ménil, who also was implicated in the Cellamare affair. The fair -prisoner was not acquainted with him. Maisonrouge impresses us as a man -of great dignity, and rare nobility of character. He spoke to the two -young prisoners about each other, hoping, by bringing them into -communication, to provide them with fresh distractions, more -particularly the lady, whom he loved. The Chevalier de Ménil and Mdlle -de Launay could not see each other; they had never met. They began by -exchanging epistles in verse. Like everything that came from her pen, -the verses of Mdlle de Launay were full of animation and charm. The good -Maisonrouge played post between them, happy to see his little friend's -delight in the diversion she owed to him. It was not long before the -verses carried from one room to the other by Maisonrouge began to speak -of love, and this love--surprising as it may seem, but not difficult to -understand in the sequestered life of the Bastille--ere long became real -in the consciousness of the young people, who saw each other in -imagination under the most charming colours. Maisonrouge was soon -induced to contrive an interview between them. It is a delightful -moment. The two captives had never seen each other, yet loved each -other passionately: what will their mutual impressions be? Mdlle de -Launay's impression, when she saw the gay chevalier, was of unmixed -enthusiasm; the chevalier's, maybe, was more subdued; but if it is true, -as someone has said, that to nuns the gardener represents mankind, to a -prisoner every young woman must be an exquisite creature. The interviews -continued under the benevolent eye of Maisonrouge, who watched the -development of Mdlle de Launay's love for Ménil--the love of the girl -whom he himself loved intensely, but whose happiness he preferred to his -own. There are delightful details which may be found delightfully -described in Mdlle de Launay's _Memoirs_. It is M. Bournon's opinion -that, according to the testimony of Mdlle de Launay herself, this idyll -of the Bastille had "the dénouement that might have been foretold." We -have caught no hint of the sort in the _Memoirs_ of Madame de Staal, but -then, M. Bournon is no doubt the better psychologist. At any rate, the -governor of the Bastille got wind of the diversions of the lovers. He -put his foot down. Ménil was transferred to a distant tower, Mdlle de -Launay shed tears, and, incredible as it seems, Maisonrouge, while -redoubling his efforts to please her, sympathized with her lot to the -point of arranging fresh and more difficult interviews with the sparkish -chevalier. Mdlle de Launay left the prison in the spring of 1720, after -having sent to the Regent a detailed statement of the facts of the -conspiracy, which hitherto she had refused to furnish. Once at liberty, -she vainly implored the Chevalier de Ménil to fulfil his pledges and -make her his wife. Maisonrouge died in the following year, of -disappointment, says the gay coquette, at his failure to get from her, -during her imprisonment, the promise of marriage which now she would -have been glad enough to fulfil. - -It seems as though under the Regency everything at the Bastille turned -on love--a reflection of the epoch itself. The young Duke de Richelieu -was locked up there because he did not love his wife. The brilliant -nobleman was kept under lock and key for several weeks, "in solitude and -gloom," he says, when suddenly the door of his room flew open and Madame -de Richelieu appeared, a wonder of grace, brightness and charm: "The -fair angel," writes the duke, "who flew from heaven to earth to set -Peter free was not so radiant." - -We have seen how the Bastille had been transformed from a military -citadel into a prison of state. We shall now witness, under the -government of the Duke of Orleans, another transformation, betokened by -an event which is of little apparent importance. The Duke de Richelieu -was imprisoned in the Bastille a second time as the result of a duel: a -judge of the Parlement went there to question him and the Parlement -tried his case. The Parlement[27] at the Bastille, in the prison of the -king! From that moment the fortress continued year by year to grow more -like our modern prisons. "Under the Cardinal de Fleury," writes La -Harpe, "this famous château was inhabited by hardly any but Jansenist -writers: it then became the enforced residence of champions of -philosophy and authors of clandestine satires, and acted as a foil to -their obscurity and shame." It became increasingly the practice to -confine there accused persons whose cases were regularly tried at the -Châtelet or even before the Parlement. By the second half of the -eighteenth century accused persons had come to be incarcerated in the -Bastille by direct order of the Châtelet, which would have seemed -incredible to a contemporary of Louis XIV. The summoning officer would -post himself before the towers, and there, while the prisoner pressed -his head close against the bars of the window, the officer would shout -the terms of the writ at him across the moat. The advocates defending -the accused obtained permission to go and consult their clients, and -they were the only persons who were permitted to interview the prisoners -in private. On the appointed day the prisoner was transferred to the law -courts quietly and by night to avoid the curiosity of the crowd. - -Under Louis XVI. the judges of the Parlement visited the Bastille as -they visited the other prisons; at length the minister Breteuil sent -instructions to the officials informing them that no more _lettres de -cachet_ would be issued without stating the duration of the penalty to -which the guilty person was condemned and the grounds for his -punishment. The Bastille was now merely a prison like the others, -except that the prisoners were better treated there. - -In 1713 Voysin, the Secretary of State, wrote to D'Argenson: -"Beaumanielle is not sufficiently deserving of consideration to warrant -his removal from the Châtelet to the Bastille." La Harpe has well -described the transformation which from this time came over the great -state prison by saying that, from the beginning of the century, none of -the prisoners who had been placed there "had merited the honour." His -remark receives corroboration from Linguet: "It is not, in these latter -days especially, for criminals of state that the Bastille is reserved: -it has become in some sort the antichambre of the conciergerie." - -If the glories of the Bastille paled as it grew older, on the other hand -torture, which, it is true, had never been applied except by order of -the courts, had completely disappeared. From the beginning of the -eighteenth century, the cells and chains were merely a temporary -punishment reserved for insubordinate prisoners: from the accession of -Louis XVI. they had fallen into disuse. Breteuil forbade any person -whatever to be placed in the cells, which were the rooms on the lowest -floor of each tower, a sort of damp and gloomy vaults. On September 11, -1775, Malesherbes writes: "No prisoner should be refused material for -reading and writing. The abuse it is pretended that they may make of it -cannot be dangerous, confined so closely as they are. Nor should any -refusal be made to the desire of such as may wish to devote themselves -to other occupations, provided they do not require you to leave in their -hands tools of which they might avail themselves to effect their escape. -If any of them should wish to write to his family and his friends, he -must be permitted to receive replies, and to send replies to their -letters after having read them. In all this you must be guided by your -prudence and your humanity." The reading of the gazettes, formerly -rigidly forbidden, was now authorised. - -It must further be remarked that the number of prisoners confined in the -Bastille was not so large as might be thought. During the whole reign of -Louis XVI. the Bastille received no more than two hundred and forty -prisoners, an average of sixteen a year; while it had room for forty-two -in separate apartments. - -Under Louis XIV., at the period when the government was most liberal in -dispensing its _lettres de cachet_, an average of only thirty prisoners -a year entered the château, and their captivity was for the most part of -short duration. Dumouriez informs us in his _Memoirs_ that during his -detention he had never more than eighteen fellow prisoners, and that -more than once he had only six. M. Alfred Bégis has drawn up a list of -the prisoners detained in the Bastille from 1781 to 1789. In May, 1788, -it contained twenty-seven prisoners, the highest figure reached during -these eight year; in September, 1782, it contained ten; in April, 1783, -seven; in June of the same year, seven; in December, 1788, nine; in -February, 1789, nine; at the time of its capture, July 14, 1789, there -were seven. - -True, not only men were locked up in the Bastille, but also books when -they appeared dangerous. The royal warrant under which they were -incarcerated was even drawn up on the model of the _lettres de cachet_. -M. Bournon has published a specimen of these. The books were shut up in -a closet between the towers of the Treasure and the County, over an old -passage communicating with the bastion. In 1733 the lieutenant of police -instructed the governor of the Bastille to receive at the château "all -the apparatus of a clandestine printing-press which had been seized in a -chamber of the Saint-Victor abbey: the which you will be good enough to -have placed in the store room of the Bastille." When the books ceased to -appear dangerous, they were set at liberty. In this way the -_Encyclopædia_[28] was liberated after a detention of some years. - -We have just seen that during the reign of Louis XVI. the Bastille did -not receive more than sixteen prisoners a year, on an average. Several -of these were only detained for a few days. From 1783 to 1789 the -Bastille remained almost empty, and would have been absolutely empty if -it had not been decided to place there prisoners who should properly -have been elsewhere. As early as February, 1784, the fortress of -Vincennes, which served as a sort of overflow pipe to the Bastille, had -been shut for lack of prisoners. The system of _lettres de cachet_ was -slipping away into the past. On the other hand, the Bastille was a -source of great expense to the King. The governor alone received 60,000 -livres annually. When you add the salaries and board of the officers of -the garrison, the turnkeys, the physicians, the surgeon, the apothecary, -the chaplains; when you add the food--this alone in 1774 came to 67,000 -livres--and the clothing of the prisoners, and the upkeep of the -buildings, the total will appear outrageous, for the figures given above -must be tripled to represent the value of the present day. So Necker, -seeing that the Bastille was of no further utility, thought of -suppressing it "for economy's sake,"[29] and he was not the only one in -high places to speak of this suppression. The Carnavalet[30] museum -possesses a scheme drawn up in 1784 by Corbet, the superintending -architect to the city of Paris, whence the project has an official -character: it is a scheme for a "Place Louis XVI." to be opened up on -the site of the old fortress. We learn from Millin that other artists -"were occupied with a scheme for erecting a monument on the site of the -Bastille." One of these schemes deserves special mention. Seven of the -eight towers were to be destroyed, the eighth to remain standing, but in -a significant state of dilapidation: on the site of the demolished -towers a monument was to be erected to the glory of Louis XVI. This -monument was to consist of a pedestal formed by piling up chains and -bolts taken from the state prison, above which would rise a statue of -the king, one hand extended towards the ruined tower with the gesture of -a deliverer. It is to be regretted, if not for the beauty, at least, for -the picturesqueness of Paris, that this scheme was never put into -execution. Davy de Chavigné, king's counsellor and auditor to the -treasury, was allowed to present to the Royal Academy of Architecture, -at its sitting on June 8, 1789, "a plan for a monument on the site of -the Bastille, to be decreed by the States General to Louis XVI. as the -restorer of the public liberty." On this subject the famous sculptor -Houdon wrote to Chavigné: "I am very anxious for the plan to be adopted. -The idea of erecting a monument to liberty on the very spot where -slavery has reigned up to the present, appears to me particularly well -conceived, and well calculated to inspire genius. I shall think myself -only too fortunate to be among the artists who will celebrate the epoch -of the regeneration of France." - -We have seen prints, long anterior to 1789--one of them the frontispiece -of the edition of Linguet's _Memoirs_ that appeared in 1783--representing -Louis XVI. extending his hand towards the lofty towers, which workmen -are in the act of demolishing. - -Among the archives of the Bastille are preserved two reports drawn up in -1788 by the king's lieutenant, Puget, the most important personage in -the fortress after the governor. He proposes the suppression of the -state prison, the demolition of the old château, and the sale of the -ground for the benefit of the crown. It may be said of these schemes, as -of the plan of the architect Corbet, that they would not have been -propounded if they had not been approved in high places. - -Further, in the year 1784, an ardent supporter of the old state of -things cried: "Oh! if our young monarch ever committed a fault so great, -if he so far belied the most ancient usages of this government, if it -were possible that one day he could be tempted to destroy you" (the -author is apostrophizing the Bastille) "to raise on your ruins a -monument to the liberator-king...." The demolition of the Bastille was -decided on; and it would have been accomplished as a government -undertaking but for the outbreak of the Revolution. - -From January 1 to July 14, 1789, that is to say for more than six -months, only one solitary prisoner entered the Bastille; and what a -prisoner!--Réveillon, the paper manufacturer of the Suburb -Saint-Antoine, who was shut up on May 1 at his own request, in order to -escape the fury of the mob. The same year, the lieutenant of police, de -Crosne, made an inspection of the Bastille, accompanied by a judge of -the Parlement; their object was to arrange officially about the -destruction of the state prison. - -Thus, on the eve of the Revolution, the Bastille no longer existed, -though its towers were still standing. - -The victors of the 14th of July set free seven prisoners: four forgers -whose arrest had been ordered by the Châtelet, whose case had been -regularly tried, and whose proper place was an ordinary prison; two -madmen who ought to have been at Charenton; and the Comte de Solages, a -young nobleman who had been guilty of a monstrous crime over which it -was desired to throw a veil out of regard for his family; he was -maintained on a pension paid by his father. The conquerors of the -Bastille destroyed an old fortified castle: the state prison no longer -existed. They "broke in an open door." That was said of them even in -1789. - - - - -CHAPTER III. - -LIFE IN THE BASTILLE. - - -Having sketched rapidly and with bold strokes the outlines of the -history of the Bastille from its foundation to its fall, we intend to -show how the rule to which prisoners in the fortress of the Suburb -Saint-Antoine were submitted underwent its own process of -transformation, parallel with the transformation of the prison itself. -To understand the facts which follow, and which are of a kind to astound -the mind of everyone in these days, it is necessary to remember what we -have already said as to the character of the Bastille. It was the prison -of luxury, the aristocratic prison of the _ancien régime_, the _prison -de luxe_ at a period when it was no dishonour, as we shall see later, to -be confined there. We must remember the phrase of the minister of Paris -writing to D'Argenson, in regard to a personage of but modest rank, that -this individual did not deserve "consideration" enough to be put in the -Bastille. Let us reflect on this observation of Mercier in his excellent -_Pictures of Paris_: "The people fear the Châtelet more than the -Bastille. Of the latter they have no dread, because it is almost unknown -to them." - -We have shown how the Bastille, originally a military citadel, had -become a prison of state; then, little by little, had approximated to -the ordinary prisons, until the day when it died a natural death ere it -could be assassinated. The same transformation took place in the -treatment of the prisoners. Midway in the seventeenth century, the -Bastille had none of the characteristics of a prison, but was simply a -château in which the king caused certain of his subjects to sojourn, for -one cause or another. They lived there just as they thought proper, -furnishing their rooms according to their fancy with their own -furniture, indulging their tastes in regard to food at their own -expense, and waited on by their own servants. When a prisoner was rich -he could live at the Bastille in princely style; when he was poor, he -lived there very wretchedly. When the prisoner had no property at all, -the king did not for that reason give him furniture or food; but he gave -him money which he might use as seemed good to him in providing himself -with furniture and food: money of which he could retain a part--a number -of prisoners did not fail to do so--these savings becoming his own -property. This system, the character of which it is important to -recognize, underwent gradual modification during the course of the -seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, approximating, without ever -becoming identical with, the system of our modern prisons. Thus the -king, instead of granting pensions individually to the poorest of the -prisoners, came to endow the Bastille with a certain fixed number of -pensions for the less fortunate prisoners. The recipients of these -pensions continued to enjoy them for long years, and if they did not -wish the whole of the money to be expended on their support, the balance -was handed over to them. So we see certain individuals getting little -fortunes together by the mere fact of their having been prisoners in the -Bastille--a circumstance which has so much surprised historians because -they have not sought its cause. It even happened that prisoners, when -their liberation was announced to them, asked to remain a little longer -in order to swell their savings, a favour which was sometimes granted -them. In the course of the eighteenth century the money destined to the -maintenance of the prisoners at the Bastille could not be diverted from -its purpose; the prisoners were no longer able to appropriate a part; -the whole sum had to be expended. - -It was only in the second half of the seventeenth century that the king -had some rooms at the Bastille furnished for such prisoners as were -without means of procuring furniture themselves. And it is very -interesting to note that it was only at the extreme end of the century, -under the administration of Saint-Mars, that certain apartments of the -Bastille were arranged in the prison style with bars and bolts. Until -then they had been simply the rooms of a stronghold.[31] - -Let us follow the prisoner from his entrance to his exit. - -When the _lettre de cachet_ had been signed, it was usually a sort of -sheriff's officer who effected the arrest. He appeared in company with -five or six men-at-arms, and signified the arrest by touching his quarry -with a white staff. A coach was in waiting. The police officer politely -begged the person he was instructed to secure to step into the coach, -and took his place beside him. And, according to the testimony of -various memoirs, while the vehicle was rolling along with lowered -blinds, there was a pleasant conversational exchange of courtesies up to -the moment of the prisoner's finding himself within the walls of the -Bastille. A certain Lafort was living in furnished apartments with a -young and pretty Englishwoman whom he had abducted, when one evening, -about sunset, a police officer arrived. The coach was at the door. -Preliminaries were settled on both sides with as much politeness as if a -visit or an evening party had been the topic of discussion. They all got -into the vehicle, even the young man's lackey who, beguiled by -appearances, mounted behind. Arrived at the Bastille, the lackey lost no -time in descending to open the door: there was general astonishment, -especially on the part of the poor servant, when he learnt that since he -had entered the Bastille along with his master, he must stay with him. - -Most often the officer and his companions surprised their quarry early -in the morning, on rising from bed. Imagine then the coach with the -prisoner and the police officer inside, arriving before the Bastille, in -the first court in front of the castle keep. "Who goes there?" cries the -sentinel. "The king's writ!" replies the officer. At this, the shops we -have seen attached to the flanks of the château are bound at once to be -shut. The soldiers on guard have to turn their faces to the wall, or -perhaps to pull their hats over their eyes. The coach passes the -outpost, a bell sounds. "Advance!" cries the officer on duty. The -drawbridge is lowered and the coach rattles over the stout iron-clamped -boards. For greater secrecy, spies and prisoners of war were taken in by -a private door leading to the gardens of the Arsenal. - -Officers and noblemen presented themselves before the Bastille alone, -unless they were accompanied by relatives or friends. "It is my -intention," the king had written to them, "that you betake yourselves to -my château of the Bastille." And no one dreamt of declining the royal -invitation. Further, when the governor desired to transfer one of them -from one prison to another, he contented himself with telling him so. We -find in the Journal of Du Junca, king's lieutenant[32] at the Bastille, -several notes like the following: "Monday, December 26, 1695, about ten -o'clock in the morning, M. de Villars, lieutenant-colonel of the -regiment of Vosges infantry, came and reported himself a prisoner, as -ordered by M. Barbezieux, though he was a prisoner in the citadel of -Grenoble, whence he came direct without being brought by anyone."[33] On -the arrival of the prisoner, the king's lieutenant, accompanied by the -captain of the gates, came to receive him as he got out of his carriage. -The officers of the château at once led the new-comer into the presence -of the governor, who received him civilly, invited him to sit down, and -after having endorsed the _lettre de cachet_ conversed with him for some -time. Under Louis XIV. the governor in most cases even kept his new -guest, as well as the persons who had accompanied him, to lunch or -dinner. Meanwhile his quarters had been got ready. We read in Du Junca's -Journal that on January 26, 1695, a certain De Courlandon, a colonel of -cavalry, presented himself for incarceration at the Bastille. There -being no room ready to receive him, the governor asked him to go and -pass the night in a neighbouring inn, at the sign of the _Crown_, and -to return next day. "Whereupon M. de Courlandon did not fail to return -about eleven o'clock in the morning, having dined with M. de Besmaus -(the governor), and in the afternoon he entered the château." - -The reader will not be surprised at learning that the prospect of -incarceration at the Bastille did not always strike the future prisoner -with terror. We read in the _Memoirs_ of the Duke de Lauzun:[34] -"Scolded for two hours on end by everybody who fancied himself entitled -to do so, I thought I could not do better than go to Paris and await -developments. A few hours after my arrival, I received a letter from my -father telling me that it had been decided to put us all in the -Bastille, and that I should probably be arrested during the night. I -determined at least to finish gaily, so I invited some pretty girls from -the Opera to supper, so that I might await the officer without -impatience. Seeing that he did not arrive, I determined on the bold move -of going to Fontainebleau and joining the king's hunt. He did not speak -to me once during the chase, which was such a confirmation of our -disgrace that on our return no one gave us the customary salute. But I -did not lose heart; in the evening I was in attendance, and the king -came to me. 'You are all,' he said, 'hotheaded rips, but funny dogs all -the same; come along and have supper, and bring M. de Guéméné and the -Chevalier de Luxembourg.'" - -Before the new arrival was installed in the chamber prepared for him, he -was taken to the great council hall, where he was requested to empty his -pockets. Only notorious rogues were searched. If the prisoner had upon -him money, jewels, or other articles such as knives and scissors, the -use of which was not allowed by the regulations, they were done up in a -parcel which he himself sealed, with his own seal if he had one; if not, -with the seal of the Bastille. Finally, he was conducted to the room -reserved for him. - -Each of the eight towers of the Bastille contained four or five stories -of rooms or cells. The worst of these rooms were on the lowest floor, -and these were what were called the "cells,"--octagonal vaults, cold and -damp, partly under ground; the walls, grey with mould, were bare from -floor to ceiling, the latter a groined arch. A bench and a bed of straw -covered with a paltry coverlet, formed the whole appointments. Daylight -feebly flickered through the vent-hole opening on to the moat. When the -Seine was in flood, the water came through the walls and swamped the -cells; and then any prisoners who might happen to be in them were -removed. During the reign of Louis XIV. the cells were sometimes -occupied by prisoners of the lowest class and criminals condemned to -death. Later, under Louis XV., the cells ceased to be used except as a -place of punishment for insubordinate prisoners who assaulted their -guardians or fellow-prisoners, or for turnkeys and sentinels of the -château who had committed breaches of discipline. They stayed in the -cells for a short time in irons. The cells had fallen into disuse by -the time the Revolution broke out; since the first ministry of Necker, -it had been forbidden to confine in them any one whatever, and none of -the warders questioned on July 18 remembered having seen any one placed -in them. The two prisoners, Tavernier and Béchade, whom the conquerors -of the 14th of July found in one of these dungeons, had been placed -there, at the moment of the attack, by the officers of the château, for -fear lest amid the rain of bullets some harm should befall them. - -The worst rooms after the cells were the _calottes_, the rooms on the -floor above. In summer the heat was extreme in them, and in winter the -cold, in spite of the stoves. They were octagons whose ceilings, as the -name implies, were shaped like a skull-cap. High enough in the centre, -they gradually diminished in height towards the sides. It was impossible -to stand upright except in the middle of the room. - -The prisoners were only placed in the cells and _calottes_ under -exceptional circumstances. Every tower had two or three floors of lofty -and airy chambers, and in these the prisoners lived. They were octagons -from fifteen to sixteen feet in diameter and from fifteen to twenty feet -high. Light entered through large windows approached by three steps. We -have said that it was only towards the end of Louis XIV.'s reign that -these rooms were arranged like prison cells with bars and bolts. They -were warmed with open fireplaces or stoves. The ceiling was whitewashed, -the floor of brick. On the walls the prisoners had chalked verses, -mottoes, and designs. - -One artistic prisoner amused himself by decorating the bare walls with -paintings. The governor, delighted at seeing him thus find relaxation, -moved him from room to room; when he had finished filling one with his -designs and arabesques, he was placed in another. Some of these rooms -were decorated with portraits of Louis XIV. placed above the -chimney-piece, a characteristic detail which helps to show what the -Bastille was at this period: the château of the king, where the king -received a certain number of his subjects as his willing or unwilling -guests. - -The best rooms in the Bastille were those that were fitted up in the -eighteenth century for the accommodation of the staff. These were what -were called the "suites." In these were placed invalids and prisoners of -distinction. - -At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the furniture of these -apartments was still extremely simple: they were absolutely empty. The -reason of this we have indicated above. "I arrived," says Madame de -Staal, "at a room where there was nothing but four walls, very filthy, -and daubed all over by my predecessors for want of something better to -do. It was so destitute of furniture that someone went and got a little -straw chair for me to sit on, and two stones to support a lighted -faggot, and a little candle-end was neatly stuck on the wall to give me -light." - -The prisoners sent to their own homes for a table, bed, and chair, or -they hired these from the upholsterer of the Bastille. When they had -nothing to bless themselves with, the government, as we have already -said, did not provide them with furniture. It gave them money, sometimes -considerable sums, which permitted them to adorn their rooms after their -own fancy. This was the case in regard to all prisoners up to 1684. At -this date the king ordered the administration to supply furniture to -those of the prisoners whose detention was to be kept secret, for, by -getting in bedding from their own houses or the houses of friends, they -made known their arrest. D'Argenson had half a dozen of the rooms -permanently furnished, others were furnished under Louis XV.; under -Louis XVI., almost all were furnished. The appointments were very -modest: a bed of green baize with curtains, one or two tables, several -chairs, fire-dogs, a shovel, and a small pair of tongs. But after having -undergone examination, the prisoner retained the right of getting in -furniture from outside. And in this way the rooms of the prisoners were -sometimes adorned with great elegance. Madame de Staal relates that she -had hers hung with tapestry; the Marquis de Sade covered the bare walls -with long and brilliant hangings: other prisoners ornamented their rooms -with family portraits: they procured chests of drawers, desks, round -tables, dressing-cases, armchairs, cushions in Utrecht velvet; the -inventories of articles belonging to the prisoners show that they -managed to secure everything they thought necessary. The Abbé Brigault, -who was imprisoned at the same time as Madame de Staal and for the same -affair, brought into the Bastille five arm-chairs, two pieces of -tapestry, eleven serge hangings, eight chairs, a bureau, a small table, -three pictures, &c. The list of effects taken out of the Bastille by the -Comte de Belle-Isle when he was set at liberty includes a library -consisting of 333 volumes and ten atlases, a complete service of fine -linen and plate for the table, a bed furnished with gold-bordered red -damask, four pieces of tapestry on antique subjects, two mirrors, a -screen of gold-bordered red damask matching the bed, two folding -screens, two armchairs with cushions, an armchair in leather, three -chairs in tapestry, an overmantel of gilt copper, tables, drawers, -stands, candlestick of plated copper, &c. We might multiply examples, -even from among prisoners of middle station. - -It was the rule that prisoners newly arrived at the Bastille should be -examined within twenty-four hours. It sometimes happened, however, that -one or another remained for two or three weeks before appearing before -the magistrate. The Châtelet commissioner, specially delegated to the -Bastille for these examinations, founded his questions on notes supplied -him by the lieutenant of police, who, indeed, often went in person to -see the prisoners. A special commission was appointed for affairs of -importance. Dumouriez says that he was examined after nine hours of -detention by three commissioners: "The president was an old councillor -of state named Marville, a man of intelligence, but coarse and -sarcastic. The second was M. de Sartine, lieutenant of police and -councillor of state, a man of polish and refinement. The third was a -_maître des requêtes_[35] named Villevaux, a very insincere and -disputatious fellow. The clerk, who had more intelligence than any of -them, was an advocate named Beaumont." - -We have found many instances of prisoners who spoke in high terms of -their judges. And it cannot be said that prisoners at the Bastille -escaped judgment. A Châtelet commissioner examined them and sent the -official report of his examination, with a statement of his opinion, to -the lieutenant of police. He decided whether the arrest should be -sustained. Moreover, it would be a mistake to compare the lieutenant of -police under the _ancien régime_ with the prefect of police of to-day; -the lieutenants of police, selected from former _maîtres des requêtes_, -had a judicial character: the documents of the period call them -"magistrates"; they issued decrees without appeal and pronounced penal -sentences, even condemning to the galleys; they were at the same time -justices of the peace with an extensive jurisdiction. In addition to the -examination held on the entrance of a prisoner, the lieutenants of -police, in the course of their frequent visits, addressed to the -ministers of Paris reports on the prisoners,--reports in which they -discussed the evidence, and which constituted veritable judgments. - -When the prisoner was recognized as innocent, a new _lettre de cachet_ -soon set him at liberty. The verdict of "no true bill" often supervened -with a rapidity which the decisions of our police magistrates would do -well to emulate. A certain Barbier, who entered the Bastille on February -15, 1753, was found not guilty and set at liberty the next day. Of the -279 persons imprisoned in the Bastille during the last fifteen years of -the _ancien régime_, thirty-eight benefited by the dropping of the -indictment. - -Finally--and here is a point on which the new method might well model -itself on that of the Bastille--when a detention was recognized as -unjust, the victim was indemnified. A great number of examples might be -mentioned. An advocate named Subé left the Bastille on June 18, 1767, -after a detention of eighteen days; he had been falsely accused of the -authorship of a book against the king, and received compensation to the -tune of 3000 livres, more than £240 of our money. A certain Pereyra, -imprisoned in the Bastille from November 7, 1771, to April 12, 1772, and -then from July 1 to September 26, 1774, having been found to be -innocent, was reinstated in all his property, and received from the king -a life pension of 1200 livres, more than £100 to-day. A certain number -of those accused in the Canada case, when the charge was withdrawn, -received a life pension on leaving the Bastille. At other times, the -detention of an individual might throw his family into want. He was kept -in the Bastille, if it was thought he deserved it, but his people were -assisted. Under date September 3, 1763, the Duke de Choiseul writes to -the lieutenant of police: "I have received the letter you did me the -honour of writing to me in favour of the children of the Sieur -Joncaire-Chabert. I have the pleasure to inform you that I have got for -them a second subsidy of 300 livres (nearly £30 to-day) in consideration -of the sad condition you informed me they were in." Louis XIV. -guaranteed to Pellisson, at his liberation, a pension of 2000 crowns. -The Regent granted to Voltaire, when he left the Bastille, a pension of -1200 livres. Louis XVI. awarded to Latude an annuity of 400 livres, and -to La Rocheguérault an annuity of 400 crowns. The minister Breteuil -pensioned all the prisoners whom he set at liberty. Brun de Condamine, -confined from 1779 to 1783, received on leaving a sum of 600 livres. -Renneville speaks of a prisoner to whom Seignelay gave an important -situation in compensation for his detention at the Bastille. We hear of -one, Toussaint Socquart, a commissioner of the Châtelet and of police -whose offices were restored to him when he came out of the Bastille. In -fact, contrary to detention in our modern prisons, incarceration in the -Bastille did not cast the slightest slur on the prisoner's character, -even in the eyes of those to whom his arrest was due, and instances have -been known of men who, on their release from the Bastille, not only -were reinstated in public offices, but reached the highest positions. - -Until his examinations were quite completed, the prisoner was kept in -close confinement. None but the officers of the château were allowed to -communicate with him. And during this time he lived in solitude, unless -he had brought a servant with him. The administration readily permitted -the prisoners to avail themselves of the services of their valets, who -were boarded at the king's expense. It even happened that the government -sometimes gave their prisoners valets, paying not only for their board, -but also their wages at the rate of 900 livres a year. One might cite -prisoners of inferior rank who thus had servants to wait on them. Two or -three prisoners were sometimes put together in one room. Prison life has -no greater terror than solitude. In absolute solitude many of the -prisoners became mad. In company, the hours of captivity seemed less -tedious and oppressive. Father and son, mother and daughter, aunt and -niece, lived together. Many might be named. On September 7, 1693, a lady -named De la Fontaine was taken to the Bastille for the second time. The -first time, she had been imprisoned quite alone; but this new detention -evoked the compassion of the lieutenant of police, who, to please the -poor lady, sent her husband to the Bastille, locked him up with her, and -gave them a lackey to wait on them. - -The examinations being ended, the prisoners enjoyed a greater liberty. -They could then enter into communication with the people of the town. -They obtained permission to see their relatives and friends. These -sometimes paid them visits in their rooms; but as a rule the interviews -took place in the council-hall, in presence of one of the officers of -the château. They were usually permitted to discuss only family affairs -and business matters. All conversation on the Bastille and the reasons -for their imprisonment was forbidden. The rules of the prison increased -in severity as time went on. Towards the end of Louis XV.'s reign the -lieutenant of police went so far as to prescribe the subjects of -conversation which would alone be permitted in the course of the visits -the prisoners received. "They may talk to the prisoner about the harvest -his vineyards will yield this year, about cancelling a lease, about a -match for his niece, about the health of his parents." But it is -necessary to read the _Memoirs_ of Gourville, Fontaine, Bussy-Rabutin, -Hennequin, Madame de Staal, the Duke de Richelieu, to form a general -idea of life at the Bastille under Louis XIV. and under the Regent. -Several prisoners were free to move about through the château wherever -it seemed good to them; they entered the rooms of their fellow-prisoners -at all hours of the day. The governor contented himself with locking -them in their own rooms at night. The prisoners who had the "liberty of -the court" organized games of bowls or _tonneau_, and hobnobbed with the -officers of the garrison. Fontaine relates that they might have been -seen from the top of the towers, collected fifty at a time in the inner -court Bussy-Rabutin's room was open to all comers: his wife and friends -visited him; he gave dinners to persons from court, plotted love -intrigues there, and corresponded freely with his friends and relatives. -Several prisoners even had permission to take a walk into the town on -condition of their returning to the château in the evening. Two brothers -were placed in the Bastille together. They went out when they pleased, -taking turns; it was sufficient for one or other to be always at the -château. The officers of the staff gossiped with the prisoners and gave -them advice as to the best means of obtaining their liberty. - -This animated, courtly, and elegant life is described with infinite -charm by Madame de Staal, whom we have already cited. "We all used to -spend a part of the day with the governor. We dined with him, and after -dinner I enjoyed a rubber of ombre with Messieurs de Pompadour and de -Boisdavis, Ménil advising me. When it was over we returned to our own -apartments. The company met again in my rooms before supper, for which -we returned to the governor's, and after that we all went to bed." - -As to the manner in which the prisoners were fed and looked after, that -is surprising indeed, and what we shall say about it, though rigidly -accurate, will perhaps be regarded as an exaggeration. The governor drew -three livres a day for the maintenance of a man of inferior rank; five -livres for the maintenance of a tradesman; ten livres for a banker, a -magistrate, or a man of letters; fifteen livres for a judge of the -Parlement; thirty-six livres for a marshal of France. The Cardinal de -Rohan had 120 francs a day spent on him. The Prince de Courlande, during -a stay of five months at the Bastille, spent 22,000 francs. These -figures must be doubled and trebled to give the value they would -represent to-day. - -We read, too, with the greatest astonishment the description of the -meals the prisoners made. Renneville, whose evidence is the more -important in that his book is a pamphlet against the administration of -the Bastille, speaks in these terms of his first meal: "The turnkey put -one of my serviettes on the table and placed my dinner on it, which -consisted of pea soup garnished with lettuce, well simmered and -appetizing to look at, with a quarter of fowl to follow; in one dish -there was a juicy beef-steak, with plenty of gravy and a sprinkling of -parsley, in another a quarter of forcemeat pie well stuffed with -sweetbreads, cock's combs, asparagus, mushrooms, and truffles; and in a -third a ragoût of sheep's tongue, the whole excellently cooked; for -dessert, a biscuit and two pippins. The turnkey insisted on pouring out -my wine. This was good burgundy, and the bread was excellent. I asked -him to drink, but he declared it was not permitted. I asked if I should -pay for my food, or whether I was indebted to the king for it. He told -me that I had only to ask freely for whatever would give me pleasure, -that they would try to satisfy me, and that His Majesty paid for it -all." The "most Christian" king desired that his guests should fast on -Fridays and in Lent, but he did not treat them any the worse on that -account. "I had," says Renneville, "six dishes, and an admirable prawn -soup. Among the fish there was a very fine weever, a large fried sole, -and a perch, all very well seasoned, with three other dishes." At this -period Renneville's board cost ten francs a day; later he was reduced to -the rate of the prisoners of a lower class. "They much reduced my usual -fare," he says; "I had, however, a good soup with fried bread crumbs, a -passable piece of beef, a ragoût of sheep's tongue, and two custards for -dessert. I was treated in pretty much the same manner the whole time I -was in this gloomy place; sometimes they gave me, after my soup, a wing -or leg of fowl, sometimes they put two little patties on the edge of the -dish." - -Towards the end of Louis XV.'s reign, Dumouriez eulogizes the cookery of -the Bastille in almost the same terms. On the day of his entrance, -noticing that they were serving a fish dinner, he asked for a fowl to be -got from a neighbouring eating-house. "A fowl!" said the major, "don't -you know that to-day is Friday?" "Your business is to look after me and -not my conscience. I am an invalid, for the Bastille itself is a -disease," replied the prisoner. In an hour's time the fowl was on the -table. Subsequently he asked for his dinner and supper to be served at -the same time, between three and four o'clock. His valet, a good cook, -used to make him stews. "You fared very well at the Bastille; there -were always five dishes at dinner and three at supper, without the -dessert, and the whole being put on the table at once, appeared -magnificent." There is a letter from the major of the Bastille addressed -in 1764 to the lieutenant of police, discussing a prisoner named Vieilh, -who never ate butcher's meat; so they had to feed him exclusively on -game and poultry. Things were much the same under Louis XVI., as -Poultier d'Elmotte testifies: "De Launey, the governor, used to come and -have a friendly chat with me; he got them to consult my taste as regards -food, and to supply me with anything I wished for." The bookseller -Hardy, transferred in 1766 to the Bastille with the members of the -Breton deputation, declares frankly that they were all treated in the -best possible way. Finally, Linguet himself, in spite of his desire to -paint the lot of the victims of the Bastille in the most sombre colours, -is obliged to confess that food was supplied in abundance. Every morning -the cook sent up to him a menu on which he marked the dishes he fancied. - -The account books of the Bastille confirm the testimony of former -prisoners. The following, according to these documents, are the meals -that La Bourdonnais enjoyed during July, 1750. Every day the menu -contains soup, beef, veal, beans, French beans, two eggs, bread, -strawberries, cherries, gooseberries, oranges, two bottles of red wine, -and two bottles of beer. In addition to this regular bill of fare we -note on July 2, a fowl and a bottle of Muscat; on the 4th, a bottle of -Muscat; on the 7th, tea; on the 12th, a bottle of brandy; on the 13th, -some flowers; on the 14th, some quails; on the 15th, a turkey; on the -16th, a melon; on the 17th, a fowl; on the 18th, a young rabbit; on the -19th, a bottle of brandy; on the 20th, a chicken and ham sausage and two -melons; and so on. - -Tavernier was a prisoner of mean station, son of a doorkeeper of Paris -de Montmartel. He was implicated in a plot against the King's life, and -was one of the seven prisoners set free on the 14th of July. He was -found out of his mind in his cell. After he had been led in triumph -through the streets of Paris, he was shut up at Charenton. He was a -martyr, people exclaimed. He was certainly not so well off in his new -abode as he had been at the Bastille. We have an account of what was -supplied to him at the Bastille in addition to the ordinary meals, in -November, 1788, in March and May, 1789, three of the last months of his -imprisonment. In November we find: tobacco, four bottles of brandy, -sixty bottles of wine, thirty bottles of beer, two pounds of coffee, -three pounds of sugar, a turkey, oysters, chestnuts, apples, and pears; -in March: tobacco, four bottles of brandy, forty-four bottles of wine, -sixty bottles of beer, coffee, sugar, fowls, cheese; in May: tobacco, -four bottles of brandy, sixty-two bottles of wine, thirty-one bottles of -beer, pigeons, coffee, sugar, cheese, &c. We have the menus of the -Marquis de Sade for January, 1789: chocolate cream, a fat chicken -stuffed with chestnuts, pullets with truffles, potted ham, apricot -marmalade, &c. - -The facts we are describing were the rule. The prisoners who were -treated with the least consideration fed very well. Only those who were -sent down to the cells were sometimes put on bread and water, but that -was only a temporary punishment. - -When a complaint was formulated by any prisoner in regard to his food, a -reprimand to the governor soon followed. Then the lieutenant of police -inquired of the person concerned if he was better treated than formerly. -"His Majesty tells me," writes Pontchartrain to De Launey, "that -complaints have been raised about the bad food of the prisoners; he -instructs me to write to you to give the matter great attention." And -Sartine wrote jokingly to Major de Losmes: "I am quite willing for you -to get the clothes of Sieur Dubois enlarged, and I hope all your -prisoners may enjoy as excellent health." - -Further, the king clothed those of the prisoners who were too poor to -buy their own clothes. He did not give them a prison uniform, but -dressing-gowns padded or lined with rabbit skin, breeches of coloured -stuff, vests lined with silk plush and fancy coats.[36] The commissary -at the Bastille appointed to look after the supplies took the prisoners' -measure, and inquired about their tastes, and the colours and styles -that suited them best. A lady prisoner named Sauvé asked to have made -for her a dress of white silk, dotted with green flowers. The wife of -commissary Rochebrune spent several days in going the round of the Paris -shops, and then wrote in despair that no dressmaker had such a material, -the nearest approach to it being a white silk with green stripes: if -Madame Sauvé would be satisfied with that, they would send to take her -measure. "Monsieur le major," writes a prisoner named Hugonnet, "the -shirts they brought me yesterday are not a bit what I asked for, for I -remember having written 'fine, and with embroidered ruffles'; instead of -which these things are coarse, made of wretched linen, and with ruffles -at best only fit for a turnkey; and so I shall be glad if you will send -them back to the commissary; and let him keep them, for I declare I -won't have them." - -The governor also saw that the prisoners had some means of diversion. -The poorest he provided with pocket-money and tobacco. - -About the beginning of the seventeenth century, a Neapolitan named -Vinache died at the Bastille, after founding a library there for the use -of his fellow-prisoners. This library was gradually augmented by -donations from the governors, by gifts from various prisoners, and even -by the generosity of a citizen of Paris whose compassion had been -excited for the lot of the prisoners. The books consisted of romances, -works of science and philosophy, and religious books, light literature -predominating. The lieutenant of police, Berryer, struck out of the -list of books that were being sent one day to the binder a "poem on the -greatness of God," as being on "too melancholy a subject for prisoners." -The prisoners also procured books from outside. We have mentioned the -Comte de Belle-Isle, who had more than three hundred books and atlases -at the Bastille. La Beaumelle collected a library of more than 600 -volumes. The administration, moreover, never refused to get for the -prisoners, out of the royal funds and sometimes at considerable expense, -such works as they said were necessary to their studies. The works of -Voltaire and Puffendorf were readily placed in their hands. Finally, -under Louis XVI., they were allowed to read the gazettes. - -After the permission to have books and to write, the most coveted favour -was that of walking exercise. Refusal of this was rare. The prisoners -might walk, either on the towers of the Bastille, or in the inner -courts, or lastly along the bastion, which was transformed into a -garden. To fresh invigorating air the platform of the towers added the -attraction of the finest view. Fontaine relates that Sacy went to the -top of the towers every day after dinner. He there walked about in -company with the officers, who gave him news of the town and the -prisoners. - -In their rooms the prisoners amused themselves with feeding cats and -birds and animals of all kinds: they taught dogs tricks. Some were -allowed to have a violin or a clavecin. Pellisson was shut up with a -Basque who used to play to him on the musette. The Duke de Richelieu -boasts of the operatic airs he sang in parts with his neighbours in the -Bastille, Mdlle. de Launay among them, with her head at the bars of her -window; "we got up choruses of a sort, with fine effect." - -Other prisoners killed time with embroidery, weaving or knitting; some -made ornaments for the chapel of the château. Some devoted themselves to -carpentry, turned wood, made small articles of furniture. Artists -painted and sketched. "The occupation of M. de Villeroi was somewhat -singular: he had very fine clothes, which he was for ever unpicking and -sewing together again with much cleverness." The prisoners who lived -several in one room played at cards, chess, and backgammon. In 1788, at -the time of the troubles in Brittany, a dozen noblemen of that country -were shut up in the Bastille. They lived together, and asked for a -billiard table to amuse themselves; the table was set up in the -apartments of the major, and there these gentlemen went for their games. - -The prisoners who died in the Bastille were interred in the graveyard of -St. Paul's; the funeral service was held in the church of St. Paul, and -the burial certificate, bearing the family name of the deceased, was -drawn up in the vestry. It is not true that the names of the deceased -were wrongly stated in the register in order that their identity might -be concealed from the public. The Man in the Iron Mask was inscribed on -the register of St. Paul's under his real name. Jews, Protestants, and -suicides were buried in the garden of the château, the prejudices of the -period not allowing their remains to be laid in consecrated ground. - -Those who were liberated had a happier fate. Their dismissal was ordered -by a _lettre de cachet_, as their incarceration had been. These orders -for their liberation, so anxiously expected, were brought by the court -"distributors of packets" or by the ordinary post; sometimes relatives -and friends themselves brought the sealed envelope, in order to have the -joy of taking away at once those whose deliverance they came to effect. - -The governor, or, in his absence, the king's lieutenant, came into the -prisoner's chamber and announced that he was free. The papers and other -effects which had been taken from him on entrance were restored to him, -the major getting a receipt for them; then he signed a promise to reveal -nothing of what he had seen at the château. Many of the prisoners -refused to submit to this formality, and were liberated notwithstanding; -others, after having signed, retailed everywhere all they knew about the -prison, and were not interfered with. When the prisoner only recovered -his freedom under certain conditions, he was required to give an -undertaking to submit to the king's pleasure. - -All these formalities having been completed, the governor, with that -feeling for good form which characterized the men of the _ancien -régime_, had the man who had been his guest served for the last time -with an excellent dinner. If the prisoner was a man of good society, -the governor would even go so far as to invite him to his own table, and -then, the meal over and the good-byes said, he placed his own carriage -at the prisoner's disposal, and often entered it himself to accompany -him to his destination. - -More than one prisoner thus restored to the world must have felt greatly -embarrassed before a day was past, and have been at a loss what to do or -where to go. The administration of the Bastille sometimes gave money to -one and another to enable them to get along for a time. In December, -1783, a certain Dubu de la Tagnerette, after being set at liberty, was -lodged in the governor's house for a fortnight until he had found -apartments that would suit him. Moreover, many of the prisoners were -actually annoyed at being dismissed: we could cite examples of persons -who sought to get themselves sent to the Bastille; others refused to -accept their liberty, and others did their best to get their detention -prolonged. - -"Many come out," says Renneville, "very sad at having to leave." Le -Maistre de Sacy and Fontaine affirm that the years spent at the Bastille -were the best years in their lives. "The innocent life we lived," says -Renneville again, "Messieurs Hamilton, Schrader, and myself, seemed so -pleasant to M. Hamilton that he begged me to write a description of it -in verse." The _Memoirs_ of Madame de Staal represent her years at the -Bastille as the happiest she ever knew. "In my heart of hearts, I was -very far from desiring my liberty." "I stayed at the Bastille for six -weeks," observes the Abbé Morellet, "which sped away--I chuckle still as -I think of them--very pleasantly for me." And later, Dumouriez declares -that at the Bastille he was happy and never felt dull. - -Such was the rule of the celebrated state prison. In the last century -there was no place of detention in Europe where the prisoners were -surrounded with so many comforts and attentions: there is no such place -in these days. - -But in spite of these very real alleviations, it would be absurd to -pretend that the prisoners were in general reconciled to their -incarceration. Nothing is a consolation for the loss of liberty. How -many poor wretches, in their despair, have dashed their heads against -the thick walls while wife and children and concerns of the utmost -gravity were summoning them from without! The Bastille was the cause of -ruin to many; within its walls were shed tears which were never dried. - -An eighteenth-century writer thus defined the state prison: "A bastille -is any house solidly built, hermetically sealed, and diligently guarded, -where any person, of whatever rank, age, or sex, may enter without -knowing why, remain without knowing how long, hoping to leave it, but -not knowing how." These lines, written by an apologist for the old state -prison, contain its condemnation, without appeal, before the modern -mind. - - - - -CHAPTER IV. - -THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK. - - -For two centuries no question has excited public opinion more than that -of the Man in the Iron Mask. The books written on the subject would fill -a library. People despaired of ever lifting the veil. "The story of the -Iron Mask," says Michelet, "will probably remain for ever obscure," and -Henri Martin adds: "History has no right to pronounce judgment on what -will never leave the domain of conjecture." To-day, the doubt no longer -exists. The problem is solved. Before disclosing the solution which -criticism has unanimously declared correct, we propose to transcribe the -scanty authentic documents that we possess on the masked man, and then -to state the principal solutions which have been proposed, before -arriving at the true solution. - - -1. THE DOCUMENTS. - -_The Register of the Bastille._--To begin with, let us quote the text -which is the origin and foundation of all the works published on the -question of the Iron Mask. - -[Illustration: Note in Du Junca's Journal regarding the entrance to the -Bastille (September 18, 1698) of the Man in the Iron Mask.] - -Etienne du Junca, king's lieutenant at the Bastille, in a journal -which he began to keep on October 2, 1690, when he entered upon his -office--a sort of register in which he recorded day by day the details -concerning the arrival of the prisoners--writes, under date September -18, 1698, these lines,[37] which the popular legend has rendered -memorable:-- - -"Thursday, September 18 (1698), at three o'clock in the afternoon, M. de -Saint-Mars, governor of the château of the Bastille, made his first -appearance, coming from his governorship of the Isles of -Sainte-Marguerite-Honorat, bringing with him, in his conveyance, a -prisoner he had formerly at Pignerol, whom he caused to be always -masked, whose name is not mentioned; directly he got out of the carriage -he put him in the first room of the Bazinière tower, waiting till night -for me to take him, at nine o'clock, and put him with M. de Rosarges, -one of the sergeants brought by the governor, alone in the third room of -the Bertaudière tower, which I had had furnished with all necessaries -some days before his arrival, having received orders to that effect from -M. de Saint-Mars: the which prisoner will be looked after and waited on -by M. de Rosarges, and maintained by the governor." - -In a second register, supplementary to the first, in which du Junca -records details of the liberation or the death of the prisoners, we -read, under date November 19, 1703:-- - -"On the same day, November 19, 1703, the unknown prisoner, always masked -with a mask of black velvet, whom M. de Saint-Mars, the governor, -brought with him on coming from the Isles de Sainte-Marguerite, whom he -had kept for a long time, the which happening to be a little ill -yesterday on coming from mass, he died to-day, about ten o'clock at -night, without having had a serious illness; it could not have been -slighter. M. Giraut, our chaplain, confessed him yesterday, is surprised -at his death. He did not receive the sacrament, and our chaplain -exhorted him a moment before he died. And this unknown prisoner, kept -here for so long, was buried on Tuesday at four o'clock p.m., November -20, in the graveyard of St. Paul, our parish; on the register of burial -he was given a name also unknown. M. de Rosarges, major, and Arreil, -surgeon, signed the register." - -And in the margin:-- - -"I have since learnt that they called him M. de Marchiel on the -register, and that forty livres was the cost of the funeral." - -The registers of du Junca were preserved among the ancient archives of -the Bastille, whence they passed to the Arsenal library, where they are -now kept. They are drawn up in the clumsy handwriting of a soldier, with -little skill in penmanship. The spelling is bad. But the facts are -stated with precision, and have always proved accurate when checked. - -[Illustration: Notice in Du Junca's Journal of the death of the masked -prisoner in the Bastille (November 19, 1703).] - -The extract from the second register shows that the mysterious -prisoner wore, not a mask of iron, but one of black velvet. - -Further, the entry on the register of St. Paul's church has been -discovered. It reads:-- - -"On the 19th, Marchioly, aged 45 years or thereabouts, died in the -Bastille, whose body was buried in the churchyard of St. Paul, his -parish, the 20th of the present month, in the presence of M. Rosage -(_sic_), major of the Bastille, and of M. Reglhe (_sic_), surgeon major -of the Bastille, who signed.--(Signed) ROSARGES, REILHE." - -Such are the fundamental documents for the story of the Iron Mask; we -shall see by and by that they are sufficient to establish the truth. - -_The Letter of the Governor of Sainte-Marguerite._--We have just seen, -from the register of du Junca, that the masked man had been at the Isles -of Sainte-Marguerite under the charge of Saint-Mars, who, on being -appointed governor of the Bastille, had brought the prisoner with him. -In the correspondence exchanged between Saint-Mars and the minister -Barbezieux, occurs the following letter, dated January 6, 1696, in which -Saint-Mars describes his method of dealing with the prisoners, and the -masked man is referred to under the appellation "my ancient prisoner." - - "MY LORD,--You command me to tell you what is the practice, when I - am absent or ill, as to the visits made and precautions taken daily - in regard to the prisoners committed to my charge. My two - lieutenants serve the meals at the regular hours, just as they - have seen me do, and as I still do very often when I am well. The - first of my lieutenants, who takes the keys of the prison of _my - ancient prisoner_, with whom we commence, opens the three doors and - enters the chamber of the prisoner, who politely hands him the - plates and dishes, put one on top of another, to give them into the - hands of the lieutenant, who has only to go through two doors to - hand them to one of my sergeants, who takes them and places them on - a table two steps away, where is the second lieutenant, who - examines everything that enters and leaves the prison, and sees - that there is nothing written on the plate; and after they have - given him the utensil, they examine his bed inside and out, and - then the gratings and windows of his room, and very often the man - himself: after having asked him very politely if he wants anything - else, they lock the doors and proceed to similar business with the - other prisoners." - -_The Letter of M. de Palteau._--On June 19, 1768, M. de Formanoir de -Palteau addressed from the château of Palteau, near Villeneuve-le-Roi, -to the celebrated Fréron, editor of the _Année Littéraire_, a letter -which was inserted in the number for June 30, 1768. The author of this -letter was the grand-nephew of Saint-Mars. At the time when the latter -was appointed governor of the Bastille, the château of Palteau belonged -to him, and he halted there with his prisoner on the way from the Isles -of Sainte-Marguerite to Paris. - -"In 1698," writes M. de Palteau, "M. de Saint-Mars passed from the -governorship of the Isles of Sainte-Marguerite to that of the Bastille. -On his way to take up his duties, he stayed with his prisoner on his -estate at Palteau. The masked man arrived in a conveyance which preceded -that of M. de Saint-Mars; they were accompanied by several horsemen. The -peasants went to meet their lord: M. de Saint-Mars ate with his -prisoner, who had his back turned to the windows of the dining-hall -looking on the courtyard. The peasants whom I have questioned could not -see whether he ate with his mask on; but they observed very well that M. -de Saint-Mars, who was opposite him at table, had two pistols beside his -plate. They had only one footman to wait on them, and he fetched the -dishes from an ante-room where they were brought him, carefully shutting -the door of the dining-hall behind him. When the prisoner crossed the -courtyard, he always had his black mask over his face; the peasants -noticed that his lips and teeth were not covered, that he was tall and -had white hair. M. de Saint-Mars slept in a bed that was put up for him -near that of the masked man." - -This account is marked throughout with the stamp of truth. M. de -Palteau, the writer, makes no attempt to draw inferences from it. He -declares for none of the hypotheses then under discussion in regard to -the identity of the mysterious unknown. He is content to report the -testimony of those of his peasants who saw the masked man when he passed -through their lord's estates. The only detail in the story which we are -able to check--a characteristic detail, it is true--is that of the black -mask of which M. de Palteau speaks: it corresponds exactly to the mask -of black velvet mentioned in du Junca's register. - -The château of Palteau is still in existence. In his work on -Superintendent Fouquet, M. Jules Lair gives a description of it. "The -château of Palteau, situated on an eminence among woods and vines, -presented at that time, as it does to-day, the aspect of a great lordly -mansion in the style of the time of Henri IV. and Louis XIII. First -there is a wide courtyard, then two wings; within, the principal -building and the chapel. The lower story is supported on arches, and its -lofty windows go right up into the roof, and light the place from floor -to attic." Since the eighteenth century, however, the château has -undergone some modifications. The room in which Saint-Mars dined with -his prisoner is now used as a kitchen. - -_The Notes of Major Chevalier._--In addition to the entries in du -Junca's Journal which we have transcribed, scholars are accustomed to -invoke, as equally worthy of credence though later in date, the -testimony of Father Griffet, chaplain of the Bastille, and that of Major -Chevalier. - -The extracts from du Junca quoted above were published for the first -time in 1769 by Father Griffet, who added the following comments: "The -memory of the masked prisoner was still preserved among the officers, -soldiers, and servants of the Bastille, when M. de Launey, who has long -been the governor, came to occupy a place on the staff of the garrison. -Those who had seen him with his mask, when he crossed the courtyard on -his way to attend mass, said that after his death the order was given to -burn everything he had used, such as linen, clothes, cushions, -counterpanes, &c.: that the very walls of the room he had occupied had -to be scraped and whitewashed again, and that all the tiles of the -flooring were taken up and replaced by others, because they were so -afraid that he had found the means to conceal some notes or some mark, -the discovery of which would have revealed his name." - -The testimony of Father Griffet happens to be confirmed by some notes -from the pen of a major of the Bastille named Chevalier. The major was -not a personage of the highest rank in the administration of the -Bastille, since above him were the governor and the king's lieutenant: -but he was the most important personage. The whole internal -administration, so far as the prisoners were concerned, was entrusted to -him. Chevalier fulfilled these duties for nearly thirty-eight years, -from 1749 to 1787. M. Fernand Bournon's estimate of him is as follows: -"Chevalier is a type of the devoted hard-working official who has no -ambition to rise above a rather subordinate rank. It would be impossible -to say how much the administration of the Bastille owed to his zeal and -to his perfect familiarity with a service of extraordinary difficulty." - -Among notes put together with a view to a history of the Bastille, -Chevalier gives in condensed form the information furnished by du -Junca's register, and adds: "This is the famous masked man whom no one -has ever known. He was treated with great distinction by the governor, -and was seen only by M. de Rosarges, major of the said château, who had -sole charge of him; he was not ill except for a few hours, and died -rather suddenly: interred at St. Paul's, on Tuesday, November 20, 1703, -at 4 o'clock p.m., under the name of Marchiergues. He was buried in a -new white shroud, given by the governor, and practically everything in -his room was burnt, such as his bed, chairs, tables, and other bits of -furniture, or else melted down, and the whole was thrown into the -privies." - -These notes of Father Griffet and Major Chevalier have derived great -force, in the eyes of historians, from their exact agreement; but a -close examination shows that the testimony of Chevalier was the source -of Father Griffet's information; in fact, Chevalier was major of the -Bastille when the Jesuit compiled his work, and it is doubtless upon his -authority that the latter depended. - -Documents recently published in the _Revue Bleue_ upset these -assertions, which appeared to be based on the firmest foundations. - -In the Journal of du Junca, which we have already mentioned, we read -under date April 30, 1701: "Sunday, April 30, about 9 o'clock in the -evening, M. Aumont the younger came, bringing and handing over to us a -prisoner named M. Maranville, alias Ricarville, who was an officer in -the army, a malcontent, too free with his tongue, a worthless fellow: -whom I received in obedience to the king's orders sent through the Count -of Pontchartrain: whom I have had put along with the man Tirmon, in the -second room of the Bertaudière tower, with the _ancient prisoner_, both -being well locked in." - -The "ancient prisoner" here referred to is no other than the masked man. -When he entered the Bastille, as we have seen, on September 18, 1698, he -was placed in the third room of the Bertaudière tower. In 1701, the -Bastille happened to be crowded with prisoners, and they had to put -several together in one and the same room; so the man in the mask was -placed with two companions. One of them, Jean-Alexandre de Ricarville, -also called Maranville, had been denounced as a "retailer of ill speech -against the State, finding fault with the policy of France and lauding -that of foreigners, especially that of the Dutch." The police reports -depict him as a beggarly fellow, poorly dressed, and about sixty years -old. He had formerly been, as du Junca says, an officer in the royal -troops. Maranville left the Bastille on October 19, 1708. He was -transferred to Charenton, where he died in February, 1709. It must be -pointed out that Charenton was then an "open" prison, where the -prisoners associated with one another and had numerous relations with -the outside world. - -The second of the fellow-prisoners of the man in the mask, -Dominique-François Tirmont, was a servant. When he was placed in the -Bastille, on July 30, 1700, he was nineteen years old. He was accused of -sorcery and of debauching young girls. He was put in the second room of -the Bertaudière tower, where he was joined by Maranville and the man in -the mask. On December 14, 1701, he was transferred to Bicêtre. He lost -his reason in 1703 and died in 1708. - -The man in the mask was taken out of the third room of the Bertaudière -tower, in which he had been placed on his entrance to the Bastille, on -March 6, 1701, in order to make room for a woman named Anne Randon, a -"witch and fortune-teller," who was shut up alone in it. The masked -prisoner was then placed in the "second Bertaudière" with Tirmont, who -had been there, as we have just seen, since July 30, 1700. Maranville -joined them on April 30, 1701. Not long after, the masked man was -transferred to another room, with or without Maranville. Tirmont had -been taken to Bicêtre in 1701. We find that on February 26, 1703, the -Abbé Gonzel, a priest of Franche-Comté, accused of being a spy, was shut -up alone in the "second Bertaudière." - -These facts are of undeniable authenticity, and one sees at a glance the -consequences springing from them. At the time when the masked prisoner -shared the same room with fellow-captives, other prisoners at the -Bastille were kept rigorously isolated, in spite of the crowded state of -the prison, so much more important did the reasons for their -incarceration seem! The man in the mask was associated with persons of -the lowest class, who were soon afterwards to leave and take their -places with the ruck of prisoners at Charenton and Bicêtre. We read in a -report of D'Argenson that there was even some talk of enlisting one of -them, Tirmont, in the army. Such, then, was this strange personage, the -repository of a terrible secret of which Madame Palatine[38] was already -speaking in mysterious terms, the man who puzzled kings, Louis XV., -Louis XVI., who puzzled the very officers of the Bastille, and caused -them to write stories as remote as possible from the reality! - - -2. THE LEGEND. - -If the very officers of the Bastille indulged such wild freaks of -imagination, what flights into dreamland might not the thoughts of the -public be expected to take? The movement is a very curious one to -follow. To begin with, we have the light Venetian mask transforming -itself into an iron mask with steel articulations which the prisoner -was never without. The consideration--imaginary, as we have seen--with -which the prisoner is supposed to have been treated, and which is -referred to in the notes of Major Chevalier, becomes transformed into -marks of a boundless deference shown by the jailers towards their -captive. The story was that Saint-Mars, the governor, a knight of St. -Louis, never spoke to the prisoner except standing, with bared head, -that he served him at table with his own hands and on silver plate, and -that he supplied him with the most luxurious raiment his fancy could -devise. Chevalier says that after his death his room at the Bastille was -done up like new, to prevent his successor from discovering any -tell-tale evidence in some corner. Speaking of the time when the masked -man was at the Isles of Sainte-Marguerite, Voltaire relates: "One day -the prisoner wrote with a knife on a silver dish, and threw the dish out -of the window towards a boat moored on the shore, almost at the foot of -the tower. A fisherman, to whom the boat belonged, picked up the dish -and carried it to the governor. Astonished, he asked the fisherman, -'Have you read what is written on this dish, and has anyone seen it in -your hands?' 'I cannot read,' replied the fisher, 'I have only just -found it, and no one has seen it.' The poor man was detained until the -governor was assured he could not read and that no one had seen the -dish. 'Go,' he said, 'it is lucky for you that you can't read!'" - -In Father Papon's _History of Provence_, linen takes the place of the -dish. The upshot is more tragic: "I found in the citadel an officer of -the Free Company, aged 79 years. He told me several times that a barber -of that company saw one day, under the prisoner's window, something -white floating on the water; he went and picked it up and carried it to -M. de Saint-Mars. It was a shirt of fine linen, folded with no apparent -care, and covered with the prisoner's writing. M. de Saint-Mars, after -unfolding it and reading a few lines, asked the barber, with an air of -great embarrassment, if he had not had the curiosity to read what was on -it. The barber protested over and over again that he had read nothing; -but, two days after, he was found dead in his bed." - -And the fact that Saint-Mars had had the body of the prisoner buried in -a white cloth struck the imagination, and was developed in its turn into -an extraordinary taste on the part of the prisoner for linen of the -finest quality and for costly lace--all which was taken to prove that -the masked man was a son of Anne of Austria, who had a very special -love, it was declared, for valuable lace and fine linen. - -_A Brother of Louis XIV._--We are able to fix with precision, we -believe, the origin of the legend which made the Iron Mask a brother of -Louis XIV. Moreover, it was due to this suggestion, which was hinted at -from the first, that the story of the prisoner made so great a noise. -The glory of it belongs to the most famous writer of the eighteenth -century. With a boldness of imagination for which to-day he would be -envied by the cleverest journalistic inventor of sensational paragraphs, -Voltaire started this monstrous hoax on its vigorous flight. - -In 1745 there had just appeared a sort of romance entitled _Notes -towards the History of Persia_, which was attributed, not without some -reason, to Madame de Vieux-Maisons. The book contained a story within a -story, in which the mysterious prisoner, who was beginning to be talked -about everywhere, was identified with the Duke de Vermandois, and to -this fact was due the sensation which the book caused. Voltaire -immediately saw how he could turn the circumstance to account. He had -himself at one time been confined in the Bastille, which was one reason -for speaking of it; but he did not dare put in circulation suddenly, -without some preparation, the terrible story he had just conceived, and, -with a very delicate sensitiveness to public opinion, he contented -himself with printing the following paragraph in the first edition of -his _Age of Louis XIV._: "A few months after the death of Mazarin there -occurred an event which is unexampled in history, and, what is not less -strange, has been passed over in silence by all the historians. There -was sent with the utmost secrecy to the château of the Isle of -Sainte-Marguerite, in the Sea of Provence, an unknown prisoner, of more -than ordinary height, young, and with features of rare nobility and -beauty. On the way, this prisoner wore a mask the chinpiece of which was -fitted with springs of steel, which allowed him to eat freely with the -mask covering his face. The order had been given to kill him if he -uncovered. He remained in the island until an officer in whom great -confidence was placed, named Saint-Mars, governor of Pignerol, having -been made governor of the Bastille, came to the Isle of -Sainte-Marguerite to fetch him, and conducted him to the Bastille, -always masked. The Marquis de Louvois saw him in the island before his -removal, and remained standing while he spoke to him, with a -consideration savouring of respect." Voltaire, however, does not say who -this extraordinary prisoner was. He observed the impression produced on -the public by his story. Then he ventured more boldly, and in the first -edition of his _Questions on the Encyclopædia_ insinuated that the -motive for covering the prisoner's face with a mask was fear lest some -too striking likeness should be recognized. He still refrained from -giving his name, but already everyone was on tip-toe with the -expectation of startling news. At last, in the second edition of -_Questions on the Encyclopædia_, Voltaire intrepidly added that the man -in the mask was a uterine brother of Louis XIV., a son of Mazarin and -Anne of Austria, and older than the king. We know what incomparable -agitators of public opinion the Encyclopædists were. - -Once hatched, the story was not long in producing a numerous progeny, -which grew in their turn and became a monstrous brood. - -We read in the _Memoirs_ of the Duke de Richelieu, compiled by his -secretary the Abbé Soulavie, that Mdlle. de Valois, the Regent's -daughter and at this date the mistress of Richelieu, consented, at the -instigation of the latter, to prostitute herself to her -father--tradition has it that the Regent was enamoured of his -daughter--in order to get sight of an account of the Iron Mask drawn up -by Saint-Mars. According to this story, which the author of the -_Memoirs_ prints in its entirety, Louis XIV. was born at noon, and at -half-past eight in the evening, while the king was at supper, the queen -was brought to bed of a second son, who was put out of sight so as to -avoid subsequent dissensions in the state. - -The Baron de Gleichen goes still farther. He is at the pains to prove -that it was the true heir to the throne who was put out of sight, to the -profit of a child of the queen and the cardinal. Having became masters -of the situation at the death of the king, they substituted their son -for the Dauphin, the substitution being facilitated by a strong likeness -between the children. One sees at a glance the consequences of this -theory, which nullifies the legitimacy of the last Bourbons. - -But the career of imagination was not yet to be checked. The legend came -into full bloom under the first empire. Pamphlets then appeared in which -the version of Baron de Gleichen was revived. Louis XIV. had been only a -bastard, the son of foreigners; the lawful heir had been imprisoned at -the Isles of Sainte-Marguerite, where he had married the daughter of one -of his keepers. Of this marriage was born a child who, as soon as he was -weaned, was sent to Corsica, and entrusted to a reliable person, as a -child coming of "good stock," in Italian, _Buona-parte_. Of that child -the Emperor was the direct descendant. The right of Napoleon I. to the -throne of France established by the Iron Mask!--there is a discovery -which the great Dumas missed. But, incredible as it seems, there were -men who actually took these fables seriously. In a Vendéan manifesto -circulated among the Chouans,[39] in Nivose of the year IX,[40] we read: -"It is not wise for the Royalist party to rely on the assurances given -by some emissaries of Napoleon, that he seized the throne only to -restore the Bourbons; everything proves that he only awaits the general -pacification to declare himself, and that he means to base his right on -the birth of the children of the Iron Mask!" - -We shall not stay to refute the hypothesis which makes the Iron Mask a -brother of Louis XIV. Marius Topin has already done so in the clearest -possible manner. The notion, moreover, has long been abandoned. The last -writers who adhered to it date from the revolutionary period. - -_The Successive Incarnations of the Iron Mask._--"Never has an Indian -deity," says Paul de Saint-Victor, speaking of the Iron Mask, "undergone -so many metempsychoses and so many avatars." It would take too long -merely to enumerate all the individuals with whom it has been attempted -to identify the Iron Mask: even women have not escaped. We shall cite -rapidly the theories which have found most credence amongst the public, -or those which have been defended in the most serious works, in order to -arrive finally at the identification--as will be seen, it is one of -those proposed long ago--which is beyond doubt the true one. - -The hypothesis which, after that of a brother of Louis XIV., has most -powerfully excited public opinion, is that which made the mysterious -unknown Louis, Comte de Vermandois, admiral of France, and son of the -charming Louise de la Vallière. This was indeed the belief of Father -Griffet, chaplain of the Bastille, and even of the officers of the -staff. But the conjecture is disproved in a single line: "The Comte de -Vermandois died at Courtrai, on November 18, 1683." A precisely similar -fact refutes the theory identifying the Iron Mask with the Duke of -Monmouth, the natural son of Charles II. and Lucy Walters. Monmouth -perished on the scaffold in 1683. Lagrange-Chancel throws much ardour -and talent into a defence of the theory which made the Iron Mask Francis -of Vendôme, Duke de Beaufort, who, under the Fronde, was called "King of -the Markets." The Duke de Beaufort died at the siege of Candia, June 25, -1669. - -To Lagrange-Chancel succeeds the Chevalier de Taulès. "I have discovered -the Man in the Mask," he cries, "and it is my duty to impart my -discovery to Europe and posterity!" This discovery brings forward one -Avedick, an Armenian patriarch of Constantinople and Jerusalem, -kidnapped in the East at the instigation of the Jesuits, and transported -to France. Vergennes, on entering the ministry for foreign affairs, set -investigations on foot. They confirmed the statement that Avedick had -actually been arrested in the circumstances indicated, but after 1706; -and so he could not be identified with the Iron Mask. - -Such were the theories of the eighteenth century. We come now to those -of our own time. Since mystery and sinister machinations were involved, -the Jesuits could not be long left out of the business. We have just -seen them at their tricks with the Armenian patriarch. People dreamt of -an innocent youth thrown into a dungeon at their instigation for having -written a couple of verses against them. But even this fancy was -completely cast into the shade in a work published in 1885 under the -pseudonym of "Ubalde," the author of which was unquestionably M. Anatole -Loquin. This is his conclusion: "The more I reflect, the more I believe -I recognize in the Man in the Iron Mask, without any elaborate theory, -without prejudice on my part, no other than J. B. Poquelin de Molière." -The Jesuits have got their revenge for _Tartufe_! - -Let us come now to the conjectures which have almost hit the truth and -have been defended by genuine scholars. - -Superintendent Fouquet is the solution of the bibliophile Jacob (Paul -Lacroix). M. Lair has shown that Fouquet died at Pignerol, of a sort of -apoplexy, on March 23, 1680, at the very moment when there was an idea -at court of sending him to the waters at Bourbon, as a first step -towards his final liberation. - -François Ravaisson, the learned and charming keeper of the Arsenal -library, whose work in classifying the archives of the Bastille we have -had the honour to continue, believed for a moment that the celebrated -prisoner might have been the young Count de Kéroualze who had fought at -Candia under the orders of Admiral de Beaufort. Ravaisson put forth his -theory with much hesitation, and as, in the sequel, he was himself led -to abandon it, we need not dwell any longer upon it. - -M. Loiseleur, in the course of his brilliant controversy with Marius -Topin, suggested "an obscure spy arrested by Catinat in 1681," and his -opponent refuted him in the most piquant manner by discovering Catinat -in the very prisoner he was said to have arrested! - -General Jung published a large volume in support of the claims of a -certain Oldendorf, a native of Lorraine, a spy and poisoner, arrested on -March 29, 1673, in a trap laid for him at one of the passages of the -Somme. The theory was refuted by M. Loiseleur. As M. Lair pointed out, -General Jung did not even succeed in proving that his nominee entered -Pignerol, an essential condition to his being the Man in the Mask. - -Baron Carutti urged the claims of a mad Jacobin, a prisoner at Pignerol -whose name remains unknown; but this Jacobin died at Pignerol towards -the close of 1693.' - -The recent work of M. Emile Burgaud, written in collaboration with -Commandant Bazeries, made a great sensation. He fixes on General Vivien -Labbé de Bulonde, whom Louvois arrested for having shown dereliction of -a general's duty before Coni. M. Geoffroy de Grandmaison published in -the _Univers_ of January 9, 1895, two receipts signed by General de -Bulonde, one in 1699, when the masked man was in rigorous isolation at -the Bastille, the other in 1705, when he had been dead for two years. - -We come at last to the hypothesis which is the most probable of -all--after the true hypothesis, of course. Eustache Dauger, whom M. Lair -identifies with the masked prisoner, was a valet, who had been put into -jail at Pignerol on July 28, 1669. But it must be noted that the masked -prisoner was kept guarded in rigorous secrecy in the early days of his -detention, as long as he was at Pignerol and the Isles of -Sainte-Marguerite. Now, when Dauger went to Pignerol, his case seemed of -such slight importance that Saint-Mars thought of making him into a -servant for the other prisoners, and in fact, in 1675, Louvois gave him -as a valet to Fouquet, who for some time past had seen the rigour of his -confinement sensibly mitigated, receiving visits, walking freely in the -courts and purlieus of the fortress, Dauger accompanying him. Further, -we know that the masked man was transferred direct from Pignerol to the -Isles of Sainte-Marguerite, whilst Dauger was transferred in 1681 to -Exiles, whence he only went to the Isles in 1687. - -We now come to the correct solution. - - -3. MATTIOLI. - -To Baron Heiss, once captain in the Alsace regiment, and one of the most -distinguished bibliophiles of his time, belongs the honour of being the -first, in a letter dated from Phalsbourg, June 28, 1770, and published -by the _Journal encyclopédique_, to identify the masked prisoner with -Count Mattioli, secretary of state to the Duke of Mantua. After him, -Dutens, in 1783, in his _Intercepted Correspondence_; Baron de -Chambrier, in 1795, in a Memoir presented to the Academy of Berlin; -Roux-Fazillac, member of the Legislative Assembly and the Convention, in -a remarkable work printed in 1801; then successively, Reth, Delort, -Ellis, Carlo Botta, Armand Baschet, Marius Topin, Paul de Saint-Victor, -and M. Gallien, in a series of publications more or less important, -endeavoured to prove that the Man in the Mask was the Duke of Mantua's -secretary of state. The scholars most intimate with the history of Louis -XIV.'s government, Depping, Chéruel, Camille Rousset, have not hesitated -to pronounce in favour of the same view; while against them, -singlehanded like his D'Artagnan, Alexandre Dumas resisted the efforts -of twenty scholars, and the _Vicomte de Bragelonne_--giving a new lease -of life to the legend about the brother of Louis XIV., put in -circulation by Voltaire, and reinforced by the Revolution--drove back -into their dust among the archives the documents which students had -exhumed. - -We have no longer to deal with so formidable an adversary, and we hope -that the following pages will not leave the shadow of a doubt. - -We know how, under the influence of Louvois, the able and insinuating -policy directed first by Mazarin, then by Lionne, gave way to a military -diplomacy, blunt and aggressive. Louis XIV. was master of Pignerol, -acquired in 1632. He was induced by Louvois to cast covetous glances at -Casal. In possession of these two places, the French armies could not -but dominate Upper Italy, and hold the court of Turin directly at their -mercy. The throne of Mantua was then occupied by a young duke, Charles -IV. of Gonzago, frivolous, happy-go-lucky, dissipating his wealth at -Venice in fêtes and pleasures. In 1677 he had pledged to the Jews the -crown revenues for several years. Charles IV. was also Marquis of -Montferrat, of which Casal was the capital. Noting with watchful eye the -frivolity and financial straits of the young prince, the court of -Versailles conceived the bold scheme of buying Casal for hard cash. - -At this date, one of the principal personages in Mantua was Count -Hercules Antony Mattioli. He was born at Bologna on December 1, 1640, of -a distinguished family. A brilliant student, he had barely passed his -twentieth year when he was elected a professor at the University of -Bologna. Afterwards he established himself at Mantua, where Charles -III., whose confidence he had won, made him his secretary of state. -Charles IV., continuing the favour of his father, not only maintained -Mattioli in his office as minister of state, but appointed him an -honorary senator, a dignity which was enhanced by the title of Count. - -Louis XIV. was employing at the capital of the Venetian republic a -keen-witted and enterprising ambassador, the Abbé d'Estrades. He saw -through the ambitious and intriguing nature of Mattioli, and, towards -the end of 1677, succeeded in winning over his support for the designs -of the French court on Casal. - -On January 12, 1678, Louis XIV. with his own hand wrote expressing his -thanks to Mattioli, who by-and-by came to Paris. On December 8, the -contract was signed, the Duke of Mantua receiving in exchange for Casal -100,000 crowns. In a private audience, Louis XIV. presented Mattioli -with a costly diamond and paid him the sum of a hundred double louis. - -Scarcely two months after Mattioli's journey to France, the courts of -Vienna, Madrid, Turin, and the Venetian Republic were simultaneously -informed of all that had taken place. In order to reap a double harvest -of gold, Mattioli had cynically betrayed both his master Charles IV. and -the King of France. Like a thunderbolt there came to Versailles the news -of the arrest of Baron d'Asfeld, the envoy appointed by Louis XIV. to -exchange ratifications with Mattioli. The governor of Milan had caused -him to be seized and handed over to the Spaniards. The rage of Louis -XIV. and of Louvois, who had urged the opening of negotiations, taken -an active part in them, and begun preparations for the occupation of -Casal, may well be imagined. The Abbé d'Estrades, not less irritated, -conceived a scheme of the most daring kind, proposing to Versailles -nothing less than the abduction of the Mantuan minister. But Louis XIV. -was determined to have no scandal. Catinat was charged with carrying out -the scheme in person. The Abbé d'Estrades, in his dealings with -Mattioli, feigned ignorance of the double game the Count was playing. He -led him to believe, on the contrary, that the balance of the sums -promised at Versailles was about to be paid. A meeting was fixed for May -2, 1679. On that day d'Estrades and Mattioli got into a carriage, the -passing of which was awaited by Catinat accompanied by some dozen men. -At two o'clock in the afternoon, Mattioli was in the fortress of -Pignerol, in the hands of jailer Saint-Mars. When we remember the rank -held by the Italian minister, we are confronted with one of the most -audacious violations of international law of which history has preserved -a record. - -Early in the year 1694, Mattioli was transferred to the Isles of -Sainte-Marguerite; we have seen that he entered the Bastille on -September 18, 1698, and died there on November 19, 1703. - -The details that we possess of the imprisonment of Mattioli at Pignerol -and afterwards at the Isles of Sainte-Marguerite show that he was at the -outset treated with the consideration due to his rank and to the -position he occupied at the time of his arrest. Eventually the respect -which the prisoner had at first inspired gradually diminished: as years -went on the attentions shown him grew less and less until the day when, -at the Bastille, he was given a room in common with persons of the -basest class. On the other hand, the rigour of his confinement, so far -as the secrecy in which he was kept was concerned, was more and more -relaxed; what it was material to conceal was the circumstances under -which Mattioli had been arrested, and with the lapse of time this secret -continually diminished in importance. As to the mask of black velvet -which Mattioli had among his possessions when he was arrested, and which -he put on, without a doubt, only for the occasion, this in reality -constituted a relief to his captivity, for it permitted the prisoner to -leave his room, while the other state prisoners were rigorously mewed up -in theirs. - - * * * * * - -It remains to prove that the masked prisoner was really Mattioli. - -1. In the despatch sent by Louis XIV. to the Abbé d'Estrades five days -before the arrest, the king approves the scheme of his ambassador and -authorizes him to secure Mattioli, "since you believe you can get him -carried off without the affair giving rise to any scandal." The prisoner -is to be conducted to Pignerol, where "instructions are being sent to -receive him and keep him there without anybody having knowledge of it." -The king's orders close with these words: "You must see to it that no -one knows what becomes of this man." The capture effected, Catinat wrote -on his part to Louvois: "It came off without any violence, and no one -knows the name of the knave, not even the officers who helped to arrest -him." Finally, we have a very curious pamphlet entitled _La Prudenza -triomfante di Casale_, written in 1682, that is, little more than two -years after the event, and--this slight detail is of capital -importance--thirty years before there was any talk of the Man in the -Mask. In this we read: "The secretary (Mattioli) was surrounded by ten -or twelve horsemen, who seized him, disguised him, _masked_ him, and -conducted him to Pignerol"--a fact, moreover, confirmed by a tradition -which in the eighteenth century was still rife in the district, where -scholars succeeded in culling it. - -Is there any need to insist on the strength of the proofs afforded by -these three documents, taken in connection one with another? - -2. We know, from du Junca's register, that the masked man was shut up at -Pignerol under the charge of Saint-Mars. In 1681, Saint-Mars gave up the -governorship of Pignerol for that of Exiles. We can determine with -absolute precision the number of prisoners Saint-Mars had then in his -keeping. It was exactly five. A dispatch from Louvois, dated June 9, is -very clear. In the first paragraph, he orders "the two prisoners in the -lower tower" to be removed; in the second, he adds: "The rest of the -prisoners in your charge." Here there is a clear indication of the -"rest": what follows settles the number: "The Sieur du Chamoy has orders -to pay two crowns a day for the board of these _three_ prisoners." This -account, as clear as arithmetic can make it, is further confirmed by the -letter addressed by Saint-Mars to the Abbé d'Estrades on June 25, 1681, -when he was setting out for Exiles: "I received yesterday the warrant -appointing me governor of Exiles: I am to keep charge of two jailbirds I -have here, who have no other name than 'the gentlemen of the lower -tower'; Mattioli will remain here with two other prisoners." - -The prisoners, then, were five in number, and the masked man is to be -found, of necessity, among them. Now we know who these five were: (1) a -certain La Rivière, who died at the end of December, 1686; (2) a -Jacobin, out of his mind, who died at the end of 1693; (3) a certain -Dubreuil, who died at the Isles of Sainte-Marguerite about 1697. There -remain Dauger and Mattioli. The Man in the Mask is, without possible -dispute, the one or the other. We have explained above the reasons which -lead us to discard Dauger. The mysterious prisoner, then, was Mattioli. -The proof is mathematically exact. - -[Illustration: - - Burial certificate of the masked prisoner (November 20, 1703), - reproduced from the facsimile in the sixth edition of _The Man in - the Iron Mask_, by Marius Topin, 1883. The original, in the city - archives of Paris, was destroyed in the conflagration of 1871. -] - -3. Opposite this page will be found a facsimile reproduction of the -death certificate of the masked prisoner as inscribed on the registers -of the church of St. Paul. It is the very name of the Duke of Mantua's -former secretary that is traced there: "Marchioly." It must be -remembered that "Marchioly" would be pronounced in Italian "Markioly," -and that Saint-Mars, governor of the Bastille, who furnished the -information on which the certificate was drawn up, almost always wrote -in his correspondence--a characteristic detail--not "Mattioli," but -"Martioly": that is the very name on the register, less distorted than -the name of the major of the Bastille, who was called "Rosarges," and -not "Rosage," as given on the register; and the name of the surgeon, who -was called "Reilhe," and not "Reglhe." - -It has been shown above how, as time went on, the rigorous seclusion to -which the masked prisoner had been condemned was relaxed. What it had -been thought necessary to conceal was the manner in which Mattioli had -been captured, and with time that secret itself had lost its importance. -As the Duke of Mantua had declared himself very well pleased with the -arrest of the minister by whom he, no less than Louis XIV., had been -deceived, there was nothing to prevent the name from being inscribed on -a register of death, where, moreover, no one would ever have thought of -looking for it. - -Let us add that, in consequence of error or carelessness on the part of -the officer who supplied the information for the register, or perhaps on -the part of the parson or beadle who wrote it, the age is stated -incorrectly, "forty-five years or thereabouts," while Mattioli was -sixty-three when he died. However, the register was filled up without -the least care, as a formality of no importance. - -4. The Duke de Choiseul pressed Louis XV. to reveal to him the clue to -the enigma. The king escaped with an evasion. One day, however, he said -to him: "If you knew all about it, you would see that it has very little -interest;" and some time after, when Madame de Pompadour, at de -Choiseul's instigation, pressed the king on the subject, he told her -that the prisoner was "the minister of an Italian prince." - -In the _Memoirs of the Private Life of Marie Antoinette_ by her -principal lady in waiting, Madame de Campan, we read that the queen -tormented Louis XVI., who did not know the secret, to have a search made -among the papers of the various ministries. "I was with the queen," says -Madame de Campan, "when the king, having finished his researches, told -her that he had found nothing in the secret papers which had any bearing -on the existence of this prisoner; that he had spoken on the subject to -M. de Maurepas, whose age brought him nearer the time when the whole -story must have been known to the ministers (Maurepas had been minister -of the king's household as a very young man, in the early years of the -eighteenth century, having the department of the _lettres de cachet_), -and that M. de Maurepas had assured him that the prisoner was simply a -man of a very dangerous character through his intriguing spirit, and a -subject of the Duke of Mantua. He was lured to the frontier, arrested, -and kept a prisoner, at first at Pignerol, then at the Bastille." - -These two pieces of evidence are of such weight that they alone would -be sufficient to fix the truth. When they were written, there was no -talk of Mattioli, of whose very name Madame de Campan was ignorant. -Supposing that Madame de Campan had amused herself by inventing a -fable--an absurd and improbable supposition, for what reason could she -have had for so doing?--it is impossible to admit that her imagination -could have hit upon fancies so absolutely in accord with facts.[41] - -And so the problem is solved. The legend, which had reared itself even -as high as the throne of France, topples down. The satisfaction of the -historian springs from his reflection that all serious historical works -for more than a century, resting on far-reaching researches and -eschewing all preoccupations foreign to science--such, for example, as -the desire of attaining a result different from the solutions proposed -by one's predecessors--have arrived at the same conclusion, which proves -to be the correct solution. Heiss, Baron de Chambrier, Reth, -Roux-Fazillac, Delort, Carlo Botta, Armand Baschet, Marius Topin, Paul -de Saint-Victor, Camille Rousset, Chéruel, Depping, have not hesitated -to place under the famous mask of black velvet the features of -Mattioli. But at each new effort made by science, legend throws itself -once more into the fray, gaining new activity from the passions produced -by the Revolution. - -The truth, in history, sometimes suggests to our mind's eye those white -or yellow flowers which float on the water among broad flat leaves; a -breeze springs up, a wave rises and submerges them, they disappear; but -only for a moment: then they come to the surface again. - - - - -CHAPTER V. - -MEN OF LETTERS IN THE BASTILLE. - - -Speaking of men of letters in France under the _ancien régime_, Michelet -calls them "the martyrs of thought"; he adds: "The world thinks, France -speaks. And that is precisely why the Bastille of France, the Bastille -of Paris--I would rather say, the prison-house of thought--was, among -all bastilles, execrable, infamous, and accursed." In the course of the -article devoted to the Bastille in the _Grande Encyclopédie_, M. Fernand -Bournon writes: "After Louis XIV. and throughout the eighteenth century, -the Bastille was especially employed to repress, though it could not -stifle, that generous and majestic movement (the glory of the human -spirit) towards ideas of emancipation and enfranchisement; it was the -epoch when philosophers, publicists, pamphleteers, the very booksellers, -were imprisoned there in large numbers." And to substantiate this -eloquent apostrophe, M. Bournon cites the names of Voltaire, La -Beaumelle, the Abbé Morellet, Marmontel, and Linguet, imprisoned in the -Bastille; and of Diderot and the Marquis de Mirabeau placed in the -château of Vincennes. - -Let us recall the story of these poor victims in turn, and trace the -history of their martyrdom. - - -VOLTAIRE. - -The most illustrious and the earliest in date of the writers mentioned -by M. Bournon is Voltaire. He was sent to the Bastille on two different -occasions. His first imprisonment began on May 17, 1717. At that date -the poet was only twenty-two years of age and of no reputation; he did -not even bear the name of Voltaire, which he only took after his -discharge from the Bastille on April 14, 1718. The cause of his -detention was not "the generous and majestic movement towards ideas of -enfranchisement which is the glory of the human spirit," but some -scurrilities which, to speak plainly, brought him what he deserved: -coarse verses against the Regent and his daughter, and public utterances -coarser still. Many authors state that Voltaire was imprisoned for -writing the _J'ai vu_, a satire against the government of Louis XIV., -each stanza of which ended with the line:-- - - J'ai vu ces maux, et je n'ai pas vingt ans.[42] - -This is a mistake. Voltaire was imprisoned for having written the _Puero -regnante_, some verses on the Regent and his daughter, the Duchess of -Berry, which it would be impossible to translate. To these he added -observations whose reproduction would be equally impossible. At the -Bastille Voltaire underwent examinations in the usual way, in the course -of which he lied with impudence; after that he was allowed considerable -liberty. "It was at the Bastille," wrote Condorcet, "that the young poet -made the first draft of his poem _La Ligue_, corrected his tragedy of -_OEdipe_, and composed some very lively lines on the ill-luck of being -there." - -The following are the most respectable lines of this production:-- - - So one fine faultless morning in the spring, - When Whitsun splendour brighten'd everything, - A strange commotion startled me from sleep. - - * * * * * - - At last I reach'd my chamber in the keep. - A clownish turnkey, with an unctuous smile, - Of my new lodging 'gan to praise the style: - "What ease, what charms, what comforts here are yours! - For never Phoebus in his daily course - Will blind you here with his too brilliant rays; - Within these ten-foot walls you'll spend your days - In cool sequester'd blithefulness always." - Then bidding me admire my cloistral cell-- - The triple doors, the triple locks as well, - The bolts, the bars, the gratings all around-- - "'Tis but," says he, "to keep you safe and sound!" - - * * * * * - - Behold me, then, lodged in this woful place, - Cribb'd, cabin'd, and confined in narrow space; - Sleepless by night, and starving half the day; - No joys, no friend, no mistress--wellaway![43] - -When Voltaire was set at liberty, the Regent, whom, as we have just -said, he had reviled, made him a very handsome offer of his protection. -The poet's reply is well known: "My lord, I thank your royal highness -for being so good as to continue to charge yourself with my board, but -I beseech you no longer to charge yourself with my lodging." The young -writer thus obtained from the Regent a pension of 400 crowns, which -later on the latter augmented to 2000 livres. - -Voltaire was sent to the Bastille a second time in April, 1726. For this -new detention there was no justification whatever. He had had a violent -quarrel, one evening at the Opera, with the Chevalier de Rohan-Chabot. -On another occasion, at the Comédie Française, the poet and the nobleman -had a warm altercation in the box of Mdlle. Lecouvreur. Rohan raised his -stick, Voltaire put his hand on his sword, and the actress fainted. Some -days later "the gallant chevalier, assisted by half a dozen ruffians, -behind whom he courageously posted himself," gave our poet a thrashing -in broad daylight. When relating the adventure later, the Chevalier said -pleasantly: "I commanded the squad." From that moment Voltaire sought -his revenge. "The police reports reveal curious details of the loose, -erratic, and feverish life he lived between the insult and his arrest," -writes the careful biographer of Voltaire, Desnoiresterres. From one of -these police reports we see that the young writer established relations -with soldiers of the guard: several notorious bullies were constantly -about him. A relative who attempted to calm him found him more irritated -and violent in his language than ever. It appears certain that he was -meditating some act of violence, which indeed would not have been -without justification. But the Cardinal de Rohan contrived that he -should be arrested on the night of April 17, 1726, and placed in the -Bastille. - -Speaking of this new imprisonment Marshal de Villars writes: "The -public, disposed to find fault all round, came to the conclusion on this -occasion that everybody was in the wrong: Voltaire for having offended -the Chevalier de Rohan, the latter for having dared to commit a capital -offence in causing a citizen to be beaten, the government for not having -punished a notorious crime, and for having sent the injured party to the -Bastille to pacify the injurer." Nevertheless, we read in the report of -Hérault, the lieutenant of police: "The Sieur de Voltaire was found -armed with pocket pistols, and his family, when informed of the matter, -unanimously and universally applauded the wisdom of an order which saves -this young man the ill effects of some new piece of folly and the worthy -people who compose his family the vexation of sharing his shame." - -Voltaire remained at the Bastille for _twelve days_: he was permitted to -have a servant of his own choice to wait on him, who was boarded at the -king's expense; as for himself, he took his meals whenever he pleased at -the governor's table, going out of the Bastille, as the governor's -residence stood outside the prison. Relatives and friends came to see -him; his friend Thiériot dined with him; he was given pens, paper, -books, whatever he desired in order to divert himself. "Using and -abusing these opportunities," writes Desnoiresterres, "Voltaire believed -that he could give audience to all Paris. He wrote to those of his -friends who had not yet shown a sense of their duty, exhorting them to -give him proof they were alive." "I have been accustomed to all -misfortunes," he wrote to Thiériot, "but not yet to that of being -utterly abandoned by you. Madame de Bernières, Madame du Deffand, the -Chevalier des Alleurs really ought to come and see me. They only have to -ask permission of M. Hérault or M. de Maurepas." At the time of the -poet's entrance to the Bastille, the lieutenant of police had written to -the governor: "The Sieur de Voltaire is of a _genius_ that requires -humouring. His Serene Highness has approved of my writing to tell you -that the king's intention is that you should secure for him mild -treatment and the internal liberty of the Bastille, so far as these do -not jeopardize the security of his detention." The warrant setting him -at liberty was signed on April 26. - - -LA BEAUMELLE. - -In M. Bournon's list La Beaumelle comes second. The circumstances under -which he was put into the Bastille were as follows. After having fallen -out at Berlin with Voltaire, whom he had compared to a monkey, La -Beaumelle returned to Paris, whence he had been exiled. There he got -printed a new edition of Voltaire's _Age of Louis XIV._, unknown to the -author, and interpolated therein odes insulting to the house of Orleans. -"La Beaumelle," exclaimed Voltaire, "is the first who dared to print -another man's work in his lifetime. This miserable Erostrates of the -_Age of Louis XIV._ has discovered the secret of changing into an -infamous libel, for fifteen ducats, a work undertaken for the glory of -the nation." - -La Beaumelle became an inmate of the Bastille in April, 1753, and -remained there for six months. Writing on May 18, 1753, to M. Roques, -Voltaire said that "there was scarcely any country where he would not -inevitably have been punished sooner or later, and I know from a certain -source that there are two courts where they would have inflicted a -chastisement more signal than that which he is undergoing here." - -It was not long before La Beaumelle issued his edition of _Notes towards -the History of Madame de Maintenon and that of the past century_, with -nine volumes of correspondence. He had fabricated letters which he -attributed to Madame de Saint-Géran and Madame de Frontenac, and -published a correspondence of Madame de Maintenon which M. Geffroy, in a -work recognized as authoritative, regards as full of barefaced -falsehoods and foul and scurrilous inventions. He had inserted in his -work the following phrase: "The court of Vienna has been long accused of -having poisoners always in its pay." - -It must be observed that La Beaumelle's publication owed its great vogue -to special circumstances. The author's reputation abroad, the very title -of the book, lent it great importance; and France, then engaged in the -Seven Years' War, found it necessary to keep in Austria's good graces. -La Beaumelle was conveyed to the Bastille a second time. The lieutenant -of police, Berryer, put him through the usual examination. La Beaumelle -was a man of the world, so witty that in the course of their quarrels he -drove Voltaire himself to despair. He showed himself such in his -examination. "La Beaumelle," said Berryer to him, "this is wit you are -giving me when what I ask of you is plain sense." On his expressing a -wish for a companion, he was placed with the Abbé d'Estrades. The -officers of the château had all his manuscripts brought from his house, -so that he might continue his literary work. He had at the Bastille a -library of 600 volumes, ranged on shelves which the governor ordered to -be made for him. He there finished a translation of the _Annals_ of -Tacitus and the _Odes_ of Horace. He had permission to write to his -relatives and friends, and to receive visits from them; he had the -liberty of walking in the castle garden, of breeding birds in his room, -and of having brought from outside all the luxuries to which he was -partial. The principal secretary of the lieutenant of police, Duval, -reports the following incident: "Danry (the famous Latude) and Allègre -(his companion in confinement and ere long in escape) found means to -open a correspondence with all the prisoners in the Bastille. They -lifted a stone in a closet of the chapel, and put their letters -underneath it. La Beaumelle pretended to be a woman in his letters to -Allègre, and as he was a man of parts and Allègre was of keen -sensibility and an excellent writer, the latter fell madly in love with -La Beaumelle, to such a degree that, though they mutually agreed to -burn their letters, Allègre preserved those of his fancied mistress, -which he had not the heart to give to the flames; with the result that, -the letters being discovered at an inspection of his room, he was put in -the cells for some time. The prisoner amused himself also by composing -verses which he recited at the top of his voice. This gave much concern -to the officers of the garrison, and Chevalier, the major, wrote to the -lieutenant of police on the matter: "The Sieur de la Beaumelle seems to -have gone clean out of his mind; he seems to be a maniac; he amuses -himself by declaiming verses in his room for a part of the day: for the -rest of the time he is quiet." - -This second detention lasted from August, 1756, till August, 1757. - - -THE ABBÉ MORELLET. - -We come to the Abbé Morellet, a man of fine and fascinating mind, one of -the best of the Encyclopædists, who died in 1819 a member of the -Institute and the object of general esteem. He was arrested on June 11, -1760, for having had printed and distributed, without privilege or -permission, a pamphlet entitled: _Preface to the Philosophers' Comedy; -or, the Vision of Charles Palissot_.[44] These are the terms in which, -later on, Morellet himself judged his pamphlet: "I must here make my -confession. In this work, I went far beyond the limits of a literary -pleasantry regarding the Sieur Palissot, and to-day I am not without -remorse for my fault." And further, as J. J. Rousseau, in whose favour -the pamphlet had been in part composed, had to acknowledge, the Abbé -"very impudently" insulted a young and pretty woman, Madame de Robecq, -who was dying of decline, spitting blood, and did actually die a few -days later. - -The arrest of Morellet was demanded by Malesherbes, then censor of the -press, one of the most generous and liberal spirits of the time, the -inspirer of the famous remonstrances of the Court of Taxation against -_lettres de cachet_--the man who, as M. H. Monin testifies, "being -elected censor of the press, protected philosophers and men of letters, -and by his personal efforts facilitated the publication of the -_Encyclopædia_." Speaking of the _Preface to the Comedy_, Malesherbes -writes to Gabriel de Sartine, lieutenant-general of police: "It is an -outrageous pamphlet, not only against Palissot, but against respectable -persons whose very condition should shelter them against such insults. I -beg you, sir, to be good enough to put a stop to this scandal. I believe -it to be a matter of public importance that the punishment should be -very severe, and that this punishment should not stop at the Bastille or -the For-l'Evêque,[45] because a very wide distinction must be drawn -between the delinquencies of men of letters tearing each other to -pieces and the insolence of those who attack persons of the highest -consideration in the State. I do not think that Bicêtre would be too -severe for these last. If you have to ask M. de Saint-Florentin for the -royal authority for your proceedings, I hope you will be good enough to -inform him of the request I am making." - -It will be observed that, on Malesherbes' showing, the Bastille would -not suffice to punish the _Preface to the Comedy_, nor even the -For-l'Evêque; he asks for the most stringent of the prisons, Bicêtre. -Before long, it is true, this excellent man returned to milder -sentiments. An imprisonment at Bicêtre, he wrote, would be infamous. -Saint-Florentin and Sartine were not hard to convince. Morellet was -taken to the Bastille. "The warrant for his arrest," wrote one of his -agents to Malesherbes, "was executed this morning by Inspector D'Hémery -with all the amenities possible in so unpleasant a business. D'Hémery -knows the Abbé Morellet, and has spoken of him to M. de Sartine in the -most favourable terms." - -When he entered the Bastille the Abbé calculated that his imprisonment -would last six months, and after acknowledging that he at that time -viewed his detention without great distress, he adds: "I am bound to -say, to lower the too high opinion that may be formed of me and my -courage, that I was marvellously sustained by a thought which rendered -my little virtue more easy. I saw some literary glory illumining the -walls of my prison; persecuted, I must be better known. The men of -letters whom I had avenged, and the philosophy for which I was a -martyr, would lay the foundation of my reputation. The men of the world, -who love satire, would receive me better than ever. A career was opening -before me, and I should be able to pursue it at greater advantage. These -six months at the Bastille would be an excellent recommendation, and -would infallibly make my fortune." - -The Abbé remained at the Bastille, not six months, but six weeks, "which -slipped away," he observes "--I chuckle still as I think of them--very -pleasantly for me." He spent his time in reading romances, and, with -admirable humour, in writing a _Treatise on the Liberty of the Press_. -Afterwards the good Abbé informs us that the hopes which he had indulged -were not deceived. On issuing from the Bastille he was a made man. -Little known two months before, he now met everywhere with the reception -he desired. The doors of the salons of Madame de Boufflers, Madame -Necker, the Baron d'Holbach, flew open before him; women pitied him and -admired him, and men followed their example. Why have we not to-day a -Bastille to facilitate the career of writers of talent! - - -MARMONTEL. - -To Marmontel his stay at the royal prison appeared as pleasant as the -Abbé Morellet had found his. He had amused himself by reciting at Madame -Geoffrin's a mordant satire in which the Duke d'Aumont, first groom of -the stole to the king, was cruelly hit. The duke expostulated; -Marmontel wrote to him declaring that he was not the author of the -satire; but the nobleman stood his ground. - -"I am helpless," said the Count de Saint-Florentin, who countersigned -the _lettre de cachet_, to Marmontel; "the Duke d'Aumont accuses you, -and is determined to have you punished. It is a satisfaction he demands -in recompense for his services and the services of his ancestors. The -king has been pleased to grant him his wish. So you will go and find M. -de Sartine; I am addressing to him the king's order; you will tell him -that it was from my hand you received it." - -"I went to find M. de Sartine," writes Marmontel, "and I found with him -the police officer who was to accompany me. M. de Sartine was intending -that he should go to the Bastille in a separate carriage; but I myself -declined this obliging offer, and we arrived at the Bastille, my -introducer and myself, in the same hack.... The governor, M. d'Abadie, -asked me if I wished my servant to be left with me.... They made a -cursory inspection of my packets and books, and then sent me up to a -large room furnished with two beds, two tables, a low cupboard, and -three cane chairs. It was cold, but a jailer made us a good fire and -brought me wood in abundance. At the same time they gave me pens, ink, -and paper, on condition of my accounting for the use I made of them and -the number of sheets they allowed me. - -"The jailer came back to ask if I was satisfied with my bed. After -examining it I replied that the mattresses were bad and the coverlets -dirty. In a minute all was changed. They sent to ask me what was my -dinner hour. I replied, 'The same as everybody's.' The Bastille had a -library: the governor sent me the catalogue, giving me free choice among -the books. I merely thanked him for myself, but my servant asked for the -romances of Prévost, and they were brought to him." - -Let us go on with Marmontel's story. "For my part," he says, "I had the -means of escape from ennui. Having been for a long time impatient of the -contempt shown by men of letters for Lucan's poem, which they had not -read, and only knew in the barbarous fustian of Brébeuf's version, I had -resolved to translate it more becomingly and faithfully into prose; and -this work, which would occupy me without fatiguing my brain, was the -best possible employment for the solitary leisure of my prison. So I had -brought the _Pharsalia_ with me, and, to understand it the better, I had -been careful to bring with it the _Commentaries_ of Cæsar. Behold me -then at the corner of a good fire, pondering the quarrel of Cæsar and -Pompey, and forgetting my own with the Duke d'Aumont. And there was Bury -too (Marmontel's servant) as philosophical as myself, amusing himself by -making our beds placed at two opposite corners of my room, which was at -this moment lit up by the beams of a fine winter sun, in spite of the -bars of two strong iron gratings which permitted me a view of the Suburb -Saint-Antoine. - -"Two hours later, the noise of the bolts of the two doors which shut me -in startled me from my profound musings, and the two jailers, loaded -with a dinner I believed to be mine, came in and served it in silence. -One put down in front of the fire three little dishes covered with -plates of common earthenware; the other laid on that one of the two -tables which was clear a tablecloth rather coarse, indeed, but white. I -saw him place on the table a very fair set of things, a pewter spoon and -fork, good household bread, and a bottle of wine. Their duty done, the -jailers retired, and the two doors were shut again with the same noise -of locks and bolts. - -"Then Bury invited me to take my place, and served my soup. It was a -Friday. The soup, made without meat, was a _purée_ of white beans, with -the freshest butter, and a dish of the same beans was the first that -Bury served me with. I found all this excellent. The dish of cod he gave -me for second course was better still. It was served with a dash of -garlic, which gave it a delicacy of taste and odour which would have -flattered the taste of the daintiest Gascon. The wine was not -first-rate, but passable; no sweets: of course one must expect to be -deprived of something. On the whole, I thought that dinner in prison was -not half bad. - -"As I was rising from table, and Bury was about to sit down--for there -was enough for his dinner in what was left--lo and behold! in came my -two jailers again, with pyramids of dishes in their hands. At this -display of fine linen, fine china-ware, spoon and fork of silver, we -recognized our mistake; but we made not the ghost of a sign, and when -our jailers, having laid down their burden, had retired, 'Sir,' said -Bury, 'you have just eaten my dinner, you will quite agree to my having -my turn and eating yours.' 'That's fair,' I replied, and the walls of my -room were astonished, I fancy, at the sound of laughter. - -"This dinner was not vegetarian; here are the details: an excellent -soup, a juicy beef-steak, a boiled capon's leg streaming with gravy and -melting in one's mouth, a little dish of artichokes fried in pickle, a -dish of spinach, a very fine William pear, fresh-cut grapes, a bottle of -old burgundy, and best Mocha coffee; this was Bury's dinner, with the -exception of the coffee and the fruit, which he insisted on reserving -for me. - -"After dinner the governor came to see me, and asked me if I found the -fare sufficient, assuring me that I should be served from his table, -that he would take care to cut my portions himself, and that no one -should touch my food but himself. He suggested a fowl for my supper; I -thanked him and told him that what was left of the fruit from my dinner -would suffice. The reader has just seen what my ordinary fare was at the -Bastille, and from this he may infer with what mildness, or rather -reluctance, they brought themselves to visit on me the wrath of the Duke -d'Aumont. - -"Every day I had a visit from the governor. As he had some smack of -literature and even of Latin, he took some interest in following my -work, in fact, enjoyed it; but soon, tearing himself away from these -little dissipations, he said, 'Adieu, I am going to console men who are -more unfortunate than you.'" - -Such was the imprisonment of Marmontel. It lasted for eleven days. - - -LINGUET. - -Linguet, advocate and journalist, was arrested for a breach of the press -laws and for slander. He was a man of considerable ability, but little -character. Attorney-general Cruppi has devoted to the story of Linguet a -work as extensive as it is eloquent. He has a wealth of indulgence for -his hero; yet, despite the goodwill he shows for him and endeavours to -impart to the reader, his book reveals between the lines that Linguet -was worthy of little esteem, and that his professional brethren were -justified in removing his name from the roll of the advocates of Paris. - -Linguet's captivity lasted for two years. He has left a description of -it in his _Memoirs on the Bastille_, which made a great noise, and of -which the success has endured down to our own day. His book, like -everything which came from his pen, is written in a fluent style, with -spirit and brilliance; the facts cited are for the most part correct, -but the author, aiming at making a sensation, has cleverly presented -them in a light which distorts their real character. "There are means," -says Madame de Staal, "of so distributing light and shade on the facts -one is exhibiting, as to alter their appearance without altering the -groundwork." Take, for instance, the description that Linguet gives of -his belongings while in the Bastille: "Two worm-eaten mattresses, a cane -chair the seat of which was only held to it by strings, a folding table, -a jug for water, two earthenware pots, one of them for drinking, and two -stone slabs to make a fire on." A contemporary could say of Linguet's -_Memoirs_, "It is the longest lie that ever was printed." And yet, if we -take the facts themselves which are related by the clever journalist, -and disengage them from the deceitful mirage in which he has enwrapped -them, we do not see that his life in the Bastille was so wretched as he -endeavours to make us believe. He is forced to acknowledge that his food -was always most abundant, adding, it is true, that that was because they -wished to poison him! He owed his life, he is convinced, "only to the -obstinate tenacity of his constitution." He marked, nevertheless, on the -menu for the day, which was sent up every morning by the Bastille cook, -the dishes he fancied; and later on he had his room furnished after his -own heart. He still enjoyed, moreover, enough liberty to write during -his imprisonment a work entitled, _The Trials of Three Kings, Louis -XVI., Charles III., and George III._, which appeared in London in 1781. -Let us recall once more the famous saying of Linguet to the wig-maker of -the Bastille on the first day that he presented himself to trim the -prisoner's beard: "To whom have I the honour of speaking?" "I am, sir, -the barber to the Bastille." "Gad, then, why don't you raze it?" - -In June, 1792, some years after his liberation, Linguet was prosecuted a -second time for breach of the press laws. The revolutionary tribunal -condemned him to death. As he mounted the steps of the scaffold, the -ardent pamphleteer thought, mayhap, with bitterly ironical regret, of -that Bastille whose destruction he had so clamorously demanded. - - -DIDEROT. - -We have still to speak of Diderot and the Marquis de Mirabeau, who were -not incarcerated at the Bastille, but at Vincennes, not in the castle -keep, but in the château itself, which constituted a separate place of -imprisonment. They placed in the château only prisoners guilty of minor -offences, who were sentenced to a temporary detention, and to whom they -wished to show some consideration. This was, as we have just said, the -abode of Diderot and the Marquis de Mirabeau. Diderot was arrested on -July 24, 1749. His last book, _Letters on the Blind for the Use of those -Who Can See_, contained theories which appeared to have but little title -to the description of "moral." But in the course of his examination he -stoutly denied that he was its author, as also he denied the authorship -of the _Thoughts of a Philosopher_ he had published some years before. -The lieutenant of police gave instructions to the governor of Vincennes -that, short of being set at liberty, Diderot was to be granted all -possible comforts--allowed to walk in the garden and park; "that the -king's desire was, in consideration of the literary work on which he was -engaged (the _Encyclopædia_), to permit him to communicate freely with -persons from without who might come for that purpose or on family -business." And so Diderot received a visit from his wife and walked with -her in the wood; Rousseau and D'Alembert spent their afternoons with -him, and, as in the "good old days" of Plato and Socrates, our -philosophers chatted of metaphysics and love, seated on the green grass -under the shade of mighty oaks. The booksellers and printers who had -undertaken the publication of the _Encyclopædia_ were, as we have seen, -in constant communication with Diderot at Vincennes; he corrected in -prison the proofs of the publication, which the court looked on with no -favourable eye. And we know, too, that at night, with the secret -complicity of the governor, our philosopher cleared the park walls to -hurry to a fair lady at Paris, one Madame de Puysieux, whom he loved -with a passion by no means platonic; ere the sun was up, the jailers -found him safely back under lock and key. This irksome captivity lasted -little more than three months. - - -THE MARQUIS DE MIRABEAU. - -The imprisonment of Mirabeau lasted only ten days. The _lettre de -cachet_ had been obtained by the clique of financiers, who took fright -at the audacious conceptions of the _Theory of Taxation_. "I fancy I -deserved my punishment," wrote the Marquis, "like the ass in the fable, -for a clumsy and misplaced zeal." In regard to the arrest, Madame -d'Epinay sent word to Voltaire: "Never before was a man arrested as this -one was. The officer said to him, 'Sir, my orders do not state I am to -hurry you: to-morrow will do, if you haven't time to-day.' 'No, sir, one -cannot be too prompt in obeying the king's orders, I am quite ready.' -And off he went with a bag crammed with books and papers." At Vincennes -the Marquis had a servant with him. His wife came to see him. The king -spent for his support fifteen livres a day, more than twenty-five -shillings of our money. He was liberated on December 24, 1760. His -brother, Bailie Mirabeau, speaking of this detention, wrote to him of "a -week's imprisonment in which you were shown every possible -consideration." - - * * * * * - -We have exhausted M. Bournon's list of the writers who were victims of -arbitrary authority. Such are the "martyrs" for whom that excellent -historian, and Michelet and others, have shown the most affecting -compassion. The foregoing facts do not call for comment. Men of letters -were the spoilt children of the eighteenth century much more than of our -own, and never has an absolute government shown a toleration equal to -that of the monarchy under the _ancien régime_ towards writers whose -doctrines, as events have proved, tended directly to its destruction. - - - - -CHAPTER VI. - -LATUDE. - - -Few historical figures have taken a higher place in the popular -imagination than Masers de Latude. That celebrated prisoner seems to -have accumulated in his life of suffering all the wrongs that spring -from an arbitrary government. The novelists and playwrights of the -nineteenth century have made him a hero; the poets have draped his woes -in fine mourning robes, our greatest historians have burnt for him the -midnight oil; numerous editions of his _Memoirs_ have appeared in quick -succession down to our own days. Even by his contemporaries he was -regarded as a martyr, and posterity has not plucked the shining crown of -martyrdom from his head, hoary with the snows of long captivity. His -legend is the creature of his own unaided brain. When in 1790 he -dictated the story of his life, he made greater calls on his glowing -southern imagination than on his memory; but the documents relating to -his case in the archives of the Bastille have been preserved. At the -present time they are to be found dispersed among various libraries, at -the Arsenal, at Carnavalet, at St. Petersburg. Thanks to them it is -easy to establish the truth. - -On March 23, 1725, at Montagnac in Languedoc, a poor girl named -Jeanneton Aubrespy gave birth to a male child who was baptized three -days later under the name of Jean Henri, given him by his god-parents, -Jean Bouhour and Jeanne Boudet. Surname the poor little creature had -none, for he was the illegitimate child of a father unknown. Jeanneton, -who had just passed her thirtieth year, was of respectable middle-class -family, and lived near the Lom gate in a little house which seems to -have been her own. Several cousins of hers held commissions in the army. -But from the day when she became a mother, her family had no more to do -with her, and she fell into want. Happily she was a woman of stout -heart, and by her spinning and sewing she supported her boy, who shot up -into a lad of keen intelligence and considerable ambition. She succeeded -in getting him some sort of education, and we find Jean Henri at the age -of seventeen acting as assistant surgeon in the army of Languedoc. -Surgeons, it is true, made no great figure in the eighteenth century; -they combined the duties of barber and dentist as well as leech. But the -situation was good enough. "Assistant surgeons in the army," wrote -Saint-Marc the detective, "who really worked at their trade, made a good -deal of money." At this time, being reluctant to bear his mother's name, -the young man ingeniously transformed his double forename into Jean -Danry, under which he is designated in a passport for Alsace, given him -on March 25, 1743, by the general commanding the royal forces in -Languedoc. In the same year 1743, Danry accompanied the army of Marshal -de Noailles in its operations on the Maine and the Rhine, receiving from -the Marshal, towards the end of the season, a certificate testifying to -his good and faithful service throughout the campaign. - -Four years later we find Danry at Brussels, employed in the -field-hospital of the army in Flanders, at a salary of 500 livres a -month. He was present at the famous siege of Bergen-op-Zoom, the -impregnable fortress which the French so valiantly stormed under the -command of the Comte de Lowendal. But peace being concluded at -Aix-la-Chapelle, the armies were disbanded, and Danry went to Paris. He -had in his pocket a letter of recommendation to Descluzeaux, the surgeon -of Marshal de Noailles, and a certificate signed by Guignard de La -Garde, chief of the commissariat, testifying to the ability and good -conduct of "the aforesaid Jean Danry, assistant surgeon." These two -certificates formed the most substantial part of his fortune. - -Danry arrived in Paris about the end of the year 1748. On any afternoon -he might have been seen strolling about the Tuileries in a grey frock -and red waistcoat, carrying his twenty-three years with a good grace. Of -middle height and somewhat spare figure, wearing his brown hair in a -silk net, having keen eyes and an expression of much intelligence, he -would probably have been thought a handsome fellow but for the marks -which smallpox had indelibly stamped on his face. His accent had a -decided Gascon tang, and it is obvious, from the spelling of his -letters, not only that he could not boast of a literary education, but -that his speech was that of a man of the people. Yet, what with his -brisk temperament, his professional skill, and his favour with his -superiors, he was in a fair way to attain an honourable position, which -would have enabled him at length to support his mother, then living in -solitary friendlessness at Montagnac, centring on him, in her forlorn -condition, all her affection and her dearest hopes. - -Paris, with its gaiety and stir, dazzled the young man. Its brilliant -and luxurious life, its rustling silks and laces, set him dreaming. He -found the girls of Paris charming creatures, and opened his heart to -them without stint, and his purse too; and his heart was more opulent -than his purse. Ere long he had spent his modest savings and sunk into -want. He fell into bad company. His best friend, an apothecary's -assistant named Binguet, shared with him a mean garret in the Cul-de-sac -du Coq, in the house of one Charmeleux, who let furnished lodgings. Than -these two no greater rakes, wastrels, or thorough-paced rascals could -have been found in all Paris. Danry in particular very soon got a name -all over his neighbourhood for his riotous, threatening, and choleric -temper. Dying of hunger, threatened with being ejected neck-and-crop -from his lodging for nonpayment of rent, he was reduced at last to write -for money to his mother, who, poor thing, had barely enough for her own -modest wants. - -As yet we are a long way from the "handsome officer of engineers" who -lives in our remembrance: we see little likeness to the brilliant -picture which Danry drew later of those youthful years during which he -received, "by the care of his father the Marquis de La Tude, the -education of a gentleman destined to serve his country and his king." - -Having come now absolutely to the end of his resources, Danry took it -into his head that, at the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom, he had been stripped -by some soldiers of all his clothes but his shirt, and robbed of 678 -livres into the bargain. This story he worked up in a letter addressed -to Moreau de Séchelles, commissary of the army in Flanders, hoping to -get it corroborated by Guignard de La Garde, the commissary under whom -he had himself served. In this letter he demanded compensation for the -losses he had suffered while devoting himself under fire to the care of -the wounded. But we read, in the _Memoirs_ he wrote later, that so far -from having been stripped and robbed, he had actually purchased at -Bergen-op-Zoom a considerable quantity of goods of all kinds when they -were sold off cheap after the sack of the town. However that may be, his -experiment was a failure. But Danry was a man of resource, and not many -days had passed before he had hit on another means of raising the wind. - -[Illustration: - - Cover of the explosive box sent by Danry to the Marquise de - Pompadour. The words almost obliterated are: "Je vous prie, Madame, - d'ouvrir le paquet en particulié." Below is the record and the date - of Danry's examination, with his signature, and that of Berryer, - the lieutenant of police. -] - -At this time everybody was talking about the struggle between the -king's ministers and the Marquise de Pompadour, which had just ended in -a triumph for the lady. Maurepas was going into exile, but it was -generally believed that he was a man who would wreak vengeance on his -enemy, and the favourite herself openly declared that she went in fear -of poison. A light dawned on the young surgeon's mind as he heard such -gossip as this; he caught a sudden glimpse of himself--even he, the -ragged outcast--arrayed in cloth of gold and rolling in his carriage -along the Versailles road. - -This was his plan. On April 27, 1749, in a shop under the arcade of the -Palais-Royal, hard by the grand staircase, he bought of a small -tradesman six of those little bottle-shaped toys, once called Prince -Rupert's Drops, out of which children used to get so much harmless -amusement. They were globules of molten glass, which, on being thrown -into cold water, had taken the shape of pears, and which, if the -tapering end was suddenly snapped, crumbled with a loud report into -dust. Four of these crackers Danry placed in a cardboard box, binding -the thin ends together with a thread which he fixed in the lid. Over -these he sprinkled some toilet powder, and this he covered with a layer -of powdered vitriol and alum. The whole packet he then enclosed in a -double wrapper, writing on the inner one, "I beg you, madam, to open the -packet in private," and on the outer one, "To Madame the Marquise de -Pompadour, at court." - -At eight o'clock in the evening of the next day, Danry, having seen his -packet safely in the post, hurried off himself to Versailles. He had -hoped to gain admittance to the favourite herself, but being stopped by -Gourbillon, her principal valet, in a voice trembling with emotion he -related to him a frightful story. Happening to be at the Tuileries, he -said, he had observed two men seated in animated conversation, and on -going close to them heard them mouthing the most horrible threats -against Madame de Pompadour. When they rose he dogged their footsteps, -which led direct to the post office, where they consigned a packet to -the box. Who the men were, and what was the nature of the packet, were -natural questions to which Danry had no answer; all he could say was -that, devoted to the interests of the Marquise, he had instantly sped -off to reveal to her what he had seen. - -To understand the impression produced by the young man's information, it -is necessary to bear in mind the feverish excitement then prevailing at -court. Maurepas, the witty and sprightly minister who had won Louis -XV.'s special affection because of the charm with which he endowed mere -business for "the man who was always bored"--Maurepas had just been -exiled to Bourges. "Pontchartrain," the king sent word to him, "is too -near." The struggle between the minister and the favourite had been one -of extraordinary violence. Maurepas was for ever dashing off satirical -verses on the girl who had reached the steps of the throne, and -incessantly pursuing her with the cruel and insolent shafts of his wit; -his muse indeed did not shrink from the most brutal insults. Nor was the -Marquise a whit more tender towards her foe: she openly dubbed him liar -and knave, and assured everybody that he was trying to get her poisoned. -A surgeon was actually required to be in constant attendance upon her, -and she always had an antidote within reach. At table she was careful -never to be the first to partake of any dish, and in her box at the -theatre she would drink no lemonade but what had been prepared by her -surgeon. - -The packet which Danry had posted arrived at Versailles on April 29, and -Quesnay, the physician to the king and the Marquise, was requested to -open it. Having done so with infinite precaution, he recognized the -vitriol and alum and toilet powder, and declared at once that there was -not a pennyworth of danger in the whole contrivance. But since alum and -vitriol were substances capable of being turned to baneful uses, he -thought that possibly it was a case of a criminal design clumsily -executed. - -There is not a shadow of doubt that Louis XV. and his mistress were -seriously alarmed. D'Argenson himself, who had upheld Maurepas against -the favourite, had the greatest possible interest in seeing the affair -cleared up as soon as possible. The first move was altogether in favour -of the informer. D'Argenson wrote to Berryer that Danry was deserving of -a reward. - -No time was lost in instituting a search for the authors of the plot. -The lieutenant of police selected the most skilful and intelligent of -his officers, the detective Saint-Marc, who put himself in communication -with Danry. But he had not spent two days with the assistant surgeon -before he drew up a report demanding his arrest. "It is not unimportant -to note that Danry is a surgeon, and his best friend an apothecary. In -my opinion it is essential to apprehend both Danry and Binguet without -further delay, and without letting either know of the other's arrest, -and at the same time to search their rooms." - -Accordingly Danry was conveyed to the Bastille on May 1, 1749, and -Binguet was secured the same day. Saint-Marc had taken the precaution to -ask the assistant surgeon for a written account of his adventure. This -document he put into the hands of an expert, who compared the -handwriting with the address on the packet sent to Versailles. Danry was -lost. Suspicion was but too well confirmed by the results of a search in -his room. Being shut up in the Bastille, Danry knew nothing of all these -proceedings, and when, on May 2, the lieutenant-general of police came -to question him, he replied only with lies. - -Berryer, the lieutenant of police, was a man of much firmness, but -honourable and kindly disposed. "He inspired one's confidence," wrote -Danry himself, "by his urbanity and kindness." This excellent man was -vexed at the attitude taken up by the prisoner, and pointing out the -danger he was incurring, he besought him to tell the truth. But at a -second examination Danry only persisted in his lies. Then all at once he -changed his tactics and refused to answer the questions put to him. -"Danry, here we do justice to every one," said Berryer to him, to give -him courage. But entreaties had no better success than threats. Danry -maintained his obstinate silence; and D'Argenson wrote to Berryer: "The -thorough elucidation of this affair is too important for you not to -follow up any clue which may point towards a solution." - -By his falsehoods, and then by his silence, Danry had succeeded in -giving the appearance of a mysterious plot to what was really an -insignificant piece of knavery. - -Not till June 15 did he make up his mind to offer a statement very near -the truth, which was written down and sent at once to the king, who read -it over several times and kept it in his pocket the whole day--a -circumstance which indicates to what importance the affair had now -swelled. Suspicions were not dispelled by the declaration of June 15. -Danry had misrepresented the truth in his former examinations, and there -was reason to believe that he was equally misrepresenting it in the -third. Thus he owed his ruin to his silence and his self-contradictory -depositions. Six months later, on October 7, 1749, when he was at -Vincennes, Dr. Quesnay, who had shown much interest in the young -surgeon, was sent to find out from him the name of the individual who -had instigated the crime. On his return the doctor wrote to Berryer, -"My journey has been utterly useless. I only saw a blockhead, who -persisted nevertheless in adhering to his former declarations." Two -years more had passed away when the lieutenant of police wrote to -Quesnay:--"February 25, 1751. Danry would be very glad if you would pay -him a visit, and your compliance might perhaps induce him to lay bare -his secret soul, and make a frank confession to you of what up to the -present he has obstinately concealed from me." - -Quesnay at once repaired to the Bastille, bearing with him a conditional -promise of liberty. Working himself up into a frenzy, Danry swore that -"all his answers to the lieutenant of police had been strictly true." -When the doctor had taken his leave, Danry wrote to the minister: "M. -Quesnay, who has been several times to see me in my wretchedness, tells -me that your lordship is inclined to believe I had some accomplice in my -fault whom I will not reveal, and that it is for this reason your -lordship will not give me my liberty. I could wish, my lord, from the -bottom of my heart, that your belief were true, for it would be much to -my profit to put my guilt upon another, whether for having induced me to -commit my sin or for not having prevented me from committing it." - -It was the opinion of the ministers that Danry had been the instrument -of a plot against the life of the Marquise de Pompadour directed by some -person of high rank, and that at the critical moment he had either -taken fright, or else had made a clean breast of the matter at -Versailles in the hope of reaping some advantage from both sides. These -facts must be kept in mind if we are to understand the real cause of his -confinement. Kept, then, in the Bastille, he was subjected to several -examinations, the reports of which were regularly drawn up and signed by -the lieutenant of police. Under the _ancien régime_, this officer was, -as we have seen, a regular magistrate, indeed he has no other -designation in the documents of the period; he pronounced sentence and -awarded punishments in accordance with that body of customs which then, -as to-day in England, constituted the law. - -Binguet, the apothecary, had been set at liberty immediately after -Danry's declaration of June 15. In the Bastille, Danry was treated with -the utmost consideration, in accordance with the formal instructions of -Berryer. He was provided with books, tobacco, and a pipe; he was -permitted to play on the flute; and having declared that a solitary life -bored him, he was given two room mates. Every day he was visited by the -officers of the fortress, and on May 25 the governor came to tell him of -the magistrate's order: "That the utmost attention was to be shown him; -if he needed anything he was to be requested to say so, and was to be -allowed to want for nothing." No doubt the lieutenant of police hoped, -by dint of kindness, to persuade him to disclose the authors of the -unfortunate plot which was the figment of his imagination. - -Danry did not remain long in the prison of the Suburb Saint-Antoine; on -July 28 Saint-Marc transferred him to Vincennes, and we see from the -report drawn up by the detective with what astonishment the Marquis du -Châtelet, governor of the fortress, heard "that the court had resolved -to send him such a fellow." Vincennes, like the Bastille, was reserved -for prisoners of good position; our hero was sent there by special -favour, as he was told for his consolation by the surgeon who attended -him: "Only persons of noble birth or the highest distinction are sent to -Vincennes." Danry was indeed treated like a lord. The best apartment was -reserved for him, and he was able to enjoy the park, where he walked for -two hours every day. At the time of his admission to the Bastille, he -was suffering from some sort of indisposition which later on he ascribed -to his long confinement. At Vincennes he complained of the same illness, -with the same plea that his troubles had made him ill. He was attended -by a specialist as well as by the surgeon of the prison. - -Meantime the lieutenant came again to see him, reiterating assurances of -his protection, and advising him to write direct to Madame de Pompadour. -Here is what Danry wrote:-- - -"VINCENNES, _November 4, 1749_. - - "MADAM,--If wretchedness, goaded by famine, has driven me to commit - a fault against your dear person, it was with no design of doing - you any mischief. God is my witness. If the divine mercy would - assure you to-day, on my behalf, how my soul repents of its heinous - fault, and how for 188 days I have done nothing but weep at the - sight of my iron bars, you would have pity on me. Madam, for the - sake of God who is enlightening you, let your just wrath soften at - the spectacle of my repentance, my wretchedness, my tears. One day - God will recompense you for your humanity. You are all-powerful, - Madam; God has given you power with the greatest king on all the - earth, His well-beloved; he is merciful, he is not cruel, he is a - Christian. If the divine power moves your magnanimity to grant me - my freedom, I would rather die, or sustain my life on nothing but - roots, than jeopardize it a second time. I have staked all my hopes - on your Christian charity. Lend a sympathetic ear to my prayer, do - not abandon me to my unhappy fate. I hope in you, Madam, and God - will vouchsafe an abundant answer to my prayers that your dear - person may obtain your heart's desires. - - "I have the honour to be, with a repentance worthy of pardon, - Madam, your very humble and very obedient servant, - -"DANRY." - - - -A letter which it is a pleasure to quote, for it shows to great -advantage beside the letters written later by the prisoner. It was only -the truth that he had no evil design on the favourite's life; but soon -becoming more audacious, he wrote to Madame de Pompadour saying that if -he had addressed the box to her at Versailles, it was out of pure -devotion to her, to put her on her guard against the machinations of her -enemies, in short, to save her life. - -Danry's letter was duly forwarded to the Marquise, but remained without -effect. Losing patience, he resolved to win for himself the freedom -denied him: on June 15, 1750, he escaped. - - * * * * * - -In his _Memoirs_ Danry has related the story of this first escape in a -manner as lively as imaginative. He really eluded his jailers in the -simplest way in the world. Having descended to the garden at the usual -hour for his walk, he found there a black spaniel frisking about. The -dog happened to rear itself against the gate, and to push it with its -paws. The gate fell open. Danry passed out and ran straight ahead, -"till, towards four o'clock in the afternoon, he fell to the ground with -fatigue, in the neighbourhood of Saint-Denis." - -There he remained until nine o'clock in the evening. Then he struck into -the road to Paris, passing the night beside the aqueduct near the -Saint-Denis gate. At daybreak he entered the city. - -We know what importance was attached at court to the safe custody of the -prisoner: there was still hope that he would make up his mind to speak -of the grave conspiracy of which he held the secret. D'Argenson wrote at -once to Berryer: "Nothing is more important or more urgent than to set -on foot at once all conceivable means of recapturing the prisoner." -Accordingly all the police were engaged in the search; the description -of the prisoner was printed, a large number of copies being distributed -by Inspector Rulhière among the mounted police. - -Danry took up his lodging with one Cocardon, at the sign of the Golden -Sun; but he did not venture to remain for more than two days in the same -inn. He expected his old chum Binguet to come to his assistance, but -Binguet was not going to have anything more to do with the Bastille. It -was a pretty girl, Annette Benoist, whom Danry had known when he was -lodging with Charmeleux, that devoted herself heart and soul to him. She -knew she herself was running the risk of imprisonment, and already -strangers of forbidding appearance had come asking at the Golden Sun who -she was. Little she cared; she found assistance among her companions: -the girls carried Danry's letters and undertook the search for a safe -lodging. Meanwhile, Danry went to pass the night under the aqueducts; in -the morning he shut himself in the lodging the girls had chosen for him, -and there he remained for two days without leaving the house, Annette -coming there to keep him company. Unluckily the young man had no money: -how was he to pay his score? "What was to be done, what was to become of -me?" he said later. "I was sure to be discovered if I showed myself; if -I fled I ran no less risk." He wrote to Dr. Quesnay, who had shown him -so much kindness at Vincennes; but the police got wind of the letter, -and Saint-Marc arrived and seized the fugitive in the inn where he lay -concealed. The unlucky wretch was haled back to the Bastille. Annette -was arrested at the Golden Sun at the moment when she was asking for -Danry's letters; she too was shut up in the Bastille. The warders and -sentinels who were on duty at Vincennes on the day of the escape had -been thrown into the cells. - -By his escape from Vincennes, Danry had doubled the gravity of his -offence. The regulations demanded that he should be sent down into the -cells reserved for insubordinate prisoners. "M. Berryer came again to -lighten my woes; outside the prison he demanded justice and mercy for -me, inside he sought to calm my grief, which seemed less poignant when -he assured me that he shared it." The lieutenant of police ordered the -prisoner to be fed as well as formerly, and to be allowed his books, -papers, knick-knacks, and the privilege of the two hours' walk he had -enjoyed at Vincennes. In return for these kindnesses, the assistant -surgeon sent to the magistrate "a remedy for the gout." He asked at the -same time to be allowed to breed little birds, whose chirping and lively -movements would divert him. The request was granted. But instead of -bearing his lot with patience, Danry grew more and more irritable every -day. He gave free rein to his violent temper, raised a hubbub, shrieked, -tore up and down his room, so that they came perforce to believe that he -was going mad. On the books of the Bastille library, which circulated -from room to room, he wrote ribald verses against the Marquise de -Pompadour. In this way he prolonged his sojourn in the cells. Gradually -his letters changed their tone. "It is a little hard to be left for -fourteen months in prison, a whole year of the time, ending to-day, in -one cell where I still am." - -Then Berryer put him back into a good room, about the end of the year -1751. At the same time he gave him, at the king's expense, a servant to -wait on him. - -As to Annette Benoist, she had been set at liberty after a fortnight's -detention. Danry's servant fell sick; as there was no desire to deprive -the prisoner of society, he was given a companion. This was a certain -Antoine Allègre, who had been there since May 29, 1750. The -circumstances which had led to his imprisonment were almost identical -with those to which Danry owed his confinement. Allègre was keeping a -school at Marseilles when he learnt that the enemies of the Marquise de -Pompadour were seeking to destroy her. He fabricated a story of a -conspiracy in which he involved Maurepas, the Archbishop of Albi, and -the Bishop of Lodève; he sent a denunciation of this plot to Versailles, -and, to give it some semblance of truth, addressed to the favourite's -valet a letter in disguised handwriting, beginning with these words: "On -the word of a gentleman, there are 100,000 crowns for you if you poison -your mistress." He hoped by this means to obtain a good situation, or -the success of a business project he had in hand. - -Intelligent, with some education, and venturesome, Danry and Allègre -were just the men to get on well together, so much the better that the -schoolmaster dominated the comrade to whom he was so much superior. The -years that Danry spent in company with Allègre exercised so great an -influence on his whole life that the lieutenant of police, Lenoir, could -say one day: "Danry is the second volume of Allègre." The letters of the -latter, a large number of which have been preserved, bear witness to the -originality and energy of his mind: their style is fine and fluent, of -the purest French; the ideas expressed have distinction and are -sometimes remarkable without eccentricity. He worked untiringly, and was -at first annoyed at the presence of a companion: "Give me, I beg you, a -room to myself," he wrote to Berryer, "even without a fire: I like being -alone, I am sufficient for myself, because I can find things to do, and -seed to sow for the future." His temperament was naturally mystical, but -of that cold and acrid mysticism which we sometimes find in men of -science, and mathematicians in particular. For Allègre's principal -studies were mathematics, mechanics, and engineering. The lieutenant of -police procured for him works on fortification, architecture, mechanics, -hydraulics. The prisoner used them to compile essays on the most diverse -questions, which he sent to the lieutenant of police in the hope of -their procuring his liberation. Those essays which we possess show the -extent of his intelligence and his education. Danry followed his example -by-and-by, in this as in everything else, but clumsily. Allègre was -also very clever with his fingers, and could make, so the officials of -the château declared, whatever he pleased. - -Allègre was a dangerous man: the warders were afraid of him. Some time -after his entrance into the Bastille he fell ill, and a man was set to -look after him; the two men did not agree at all. Allègre sent complaint -after complaint to the lieutenant of police. An inquiry was made which -turned out not unfavourable to the keeper, and he was left with the -prisoner. One morning--September 8, 1751--the officers of the Bastille -heard cries and clamour in the "Well" tower. Hastily ascending, they -found Allègre in the act of stabbing his companion, who lay on the floor -held down by the throat, wallowing in the blood that streamed from a -gash in the stomach. If Allègre had not been in the Bastille, the -Parlement would have had him broken on the wheel in the Place de Grève: -the Bastille was his safety, though he could no longer hope for a speedy -liberation. - -Danry, in his turn, wore out the patience of his guardians. Major -Chevalier, who was kindness itself, wrote to the lieutenant of police: -"He is no better than Allègre, but though more turbulent and choleric, -he is much less to be feared in every respect." The physician of the -Bastille, Dr. Boyer, a member of the Academy, wrote likewise: "I have -good reason to distrust the man." The temper of Danry became embittered. -He began to revile the warders. One morning they were obliged to take -from him a knife and other sharp instruments he had concealed. He used -the paper they gave him to open communications with other prisoners and -with people outside. Paper was withheld: he then wrote with his blood on -a handkerchief; he was forbidden by the lieutenant of police to write to -him with his blood, so he wrote on tablets made of bread crumbs, which -he passed out secretly between two plates. - -The use of paper was then restored to him, which did not prevent him -from writing to Berryer: "My lord, I am writing to you with my blood on -linen, because the officers refuse me ink and paper; it is now more than -six times that I have asked in vain to speak to them. What are you -about, my lord? Do not drive me to extremities. At least, do not force -me to be my own executioner. Send a sentry to break my head for me; that -is the very least favour you can do me." Berryer, astonished at this -missive, remarked on it to the major, who replied: "I have not refused -paper to Danry." - -[Illustration: - - Beginning of a letter written with blood on linen by Danry (Latude) - while a prisoner at Vincennes, to Rougemont, the king's lieutenant. -] - -So the prisoner forced them more and more to the conclusion that he was -a madman. On October 13, 1753, he wrote to Dr. Quesnay to tell him that -he wished him well, but that being too poor to give him anything else, -he was making him a present of his body, which was on the point of -perishing, for him to make a skeleton of. To the paper on which he -wrote, Danry had sewn a little square of cloth, adding: "God has given -the garments of martyrs the virtue of healing all manner of diseases. It -is now fifty-seven months since I have been suffering an enforced -martyrdom. So there is no doubt that to-day the cloth of my coat will -work miracles; here is a bit for you." This letter was returned to the -lieutenant of police in December, and on it we find a marginal note in -Berryer's hand: "A letter worth keeping, as it reveals the prisoner's -mind." We know in what fashion madmen were wont to be treated in the -eighteenth century. - -But suddenly, to the great astonishment of the officers of the château, -our two friends amended their character and their conduct. No more -noises were heard in their room, and they answered politely anyone who -came to speak to them. But their behaviour was even more odd than ever. -Allègre used to walk up and down the room half naked, "to save his -toggery," he said, and he sent letter after letter to his brother and -the lieutenant of police, asking them to send him things, particularly -shirts and handkerchiefs. Danry followed suit. "This prisoner," wrote -Chevalier to the lieutenant of police, "is asking for linen. I shall not -make a requisition, because he has seven very good shirts, four of them -new; he has shirts on the brain." But why decline to humour a prisoner's -whim? So the commissary of the Bastille had two dozen expensive shirts -made--every one cost twenty livres, more than thirty-three shillings of -our money--and some handkerchiefs of the finest cambric. - -If the wardrobe-keeper of the Bastille had kept her eyes open, she would -have noticed that the serviettes and cloths which went into the room of -the two companions were of much smaller dimensions when they came out. -Our friends had established communication with their neighbours above -and below, begging twine and thread from them and giving tobacco in -exchange. They had succeeded in loosening the iron bars which prevented -climbing up the chimney; at night they used to mount to the platforms, -whence they conversed down the chimneys with prisoners in the other -towers. One of these hapless creatures believed himself to be a prophet -of God; he heard at night the sound of a voice descending upon his cold -hearth: he revealed the miracle to the officers, who only considered him -still more insane than before. On the terrace Allègre and Danry found -the tools left there in the evening by the masons and gardeners employed -at the Bastille. Thus they got possession of a mallet, an auger, two -sorts of pulleys, and some bits of iron taken from the gun-carriages. -All these they concealed in the hollow between the floor of their room -and the ceiling of the room below. - -Allègre and Danry escaped from the Bastille on the night of February 25, -1756. They climbed up the chimney till they reached the platform, and -descended by means of their famous rope ladder, fastened to a -gun-carriage. A wall separated the Bastille moat from that of the -Arsenal. By the aid of an iron bar they succeeded in working out a large -stone, and they escaped through the hole thus made. Their rope ladder -was a work of long patience and amazing skill. When in after days -Allègre went mad, Danry appropriated the whole credit of this -enterprise which his friend had conceived and directed. - -At the moment of leaving, Allègre had written on a scrap of paper, for -the officers of the Bastille, the following note, which is an excellent -indication of his character:-- - -"We have done no damage to the furniture of the governor, we have only -made use of a few rags of coverlets of no possible use; the others are -left just as they were. If some serviettes are missing, they will be -found at the bottom of the water in the great moat, whither we are -taking them to wipe our feet. - -"_Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam!_ - -"_Scito cor nostrum et cognosce semitas nostras._"[46] - -Our two companions had provided themselves with a portmanteau, and they -made haste to change their clothes as soon as they had cleared the -precincts of the fortress. A foreman of works whom Danry knew interested -himself in them, and conducted them to one Rouit, a tailor, who lodged -them for some little time. Rouit even lent Danry forty-eight livres, -which he promised to return as soon as he reached Brussels. At the end -of a month our two friends were across the frontier. - -It is very difficult to follow Danry's proceedings from the time when he -left Rouit to the moment of his reincarceration in the Bastille. He has -left, it is true, two accounts of his sojourn in Flanders and Holland; -but these accounts are themselves inconsistent, and both differ from -some original documents which remain to us. - -The two fugitives had considered it advisable not to set out together. -Allègre was the first to arrive at Brussels, whence he wrote an insolent -letter to Madame de Pompadour. This letter led to his discovery. On -reaching Brussels, Danry learnt that his friend had been arrested. He -lost no time in making for Holland, and at Amsterdam he took service -with one Paul Melenteau. From Rotterdam he had written to his mother, -and the poor creature, collecting her little savings, sent him 200 -livres by post. But Saint-Marc had already struck on the track of the -fugitive. "The burgomaster of Amsterdam readily and gladly granted the -request made by Saint-Marc on behalf of the king, through the -ambassador, for the arrest and extradition of Danry." Louis XV. confined -himself to claiming him as one of his subjects. Saint-Marc, disguised as -an Armenian merchant, discovered him in his retreat. Danry was arrested -in Amsterdam on June 1, 1756, conducted to a cell belonging to the town -hall, and thence brought back to France and consigned to the Bastille on -June 9. Word came from Holland that Saint-Marc was there regarded as a -sorcerer. - -By his second escape the unhappy man had succeeded in making his case -very serious. In the eighteenth century, escape from a state prison was -punishable with death. The English, great apostles of humanity as they -were, were no more lenient than the French; and everyone knows what -treatment was meted out by Frederick II. to Baron de Trenck. He was to -have remained in prison only one year; but after his second escape he -was chained up in a gloomy dungeon; at his feet was the grave in which -he was to be buried, and on it his name and a death's-head had been cut. - -The government of Louis XV. did not punish with such rigour as this. The -fugitive was simply put in the cells for a time. At the Bastille the -cells were damp and chilly dungeons. Danry has left in his _Memoirs_ an -account of the forty months spent in this dismal place,--an account -which makes one's hair stand on end; but it is packed full of -exaggeration. He says that he spent three years with irons on his hands -and feet: in November, 1756, Berryer offered to remove the irons from -either hands or feet at his choice, and we see from a marginal note by -Major Chevalier that he chose the feet. Danry adds that he lay all -through the winter on straw without any coverlet: he was actually so -well supplied with coverlets that he applied to Berryer for some others. -To believe him you would think that when the Seine was in flood the -water rose as high as his waist: as a fact, when the water threatened to -invade the cell, the prisoner was removed. Again, he says that he passed -there forty months in absolute darkness: the light of his prison was -certainly not very brilliant, but it was sufficient to enable him to -read and write, and we learn from letters he sent to the lieutenant of -police that he saw from his cell all that went on in the courtyard of -the Bastille. Finally, he tells us of a variety of diseases he -contracted at the time, and cites in this connection the opinion of an -oculist who came to attend him. But this very report was forged by Danry -himself, and the rest he invented to match. - -In this cell, where he professes to have been treated in so barbarous a -manner, Danry, however, proved difficult enough to deal with, as we -judge from the reports of Chevalier. "Danry has a thoroughly nasty -temper; he sends for us at eight o'clock in the morning, and asks us to -send warders to the market to buy him fish, saying that he never eats -eggs, artichokes, or spinach, and that he insists on eating fish; and -when we refuse, he flies into a furious passion." That was on fast days; -on ordinary days it was the same. "Danry swore like a trooper, that is, -in his usual way, and after the performance said to me: 'Major, when you -give me a fowl, at least let it be stuffed!'" He was not one of the -vulgar herd, he said, "one of those fellows you send to Bicêtre." And he -demanded to be treated in a manner befitting his condition. - -It was just the same with regard to clothes. One is amazed at the sight -of the lists of things the lieutenant of police got made for him. To -give him satisfaction, the administration did not stick at the most -unreasonable expense, and it was by selling these clothes that Danry, at -his various escapes, procured a part of the money he was so much in -need of. He suffered from rheumatism, so they provided him with -dressing-gowns lined with rabbit-skin, vests lined with silk plush, -gloves and fur hats, and first-rate leather breeches. In his _Memoirs_ -Danry lumps all these as "half-rotten rags." Rochebrune, the commissary -charged with the prisoners' supplies, was quite unable to satisfy him. -"You instructed me," he wrote to the major, "to get a dressing-gown made -for the Sieur Danry, who asks for a calamanco with red stripes on a blue -ground. I have made inquiries for such stuff of a dozen tradesmen, who -have no such thing, and indeed would be precious careful not to have it, -for there is no sale for that kind of calamanco. I don't see why I -should satisfy the fantastic tastes of a prisoner who ought to be very -well pleased at having a dressing-gown that is warm and well-fitting." -On another occasion, the major writes: "This man Danry has never up to -the present consented to accept the breeches that M. de Rochebrune got -made for him, though they are excellent, lined with good leather, with -silk garters, and in the best style." And Danry had his own pretty way -of complaining. "I beg you," he wrote to the governor, "to have the -goodness to tell M. de Sartine in plain terms that the four -handkerchiefs he sent me are not fit to give to a galley-slave, and I -will not have them on any account; but that I request him kindly to give -me six print handkerchiefs, blue, and large, and two muslin cravats." He -adds, "If there is no money in the treasury, go and ask Madame de -Pompadour for some." - -One day Danry declared that something was wrong with his eyes. -Grandjean, the king's oculist, came more than once to see him, ordered -aromatic fumigations for him, gave him ointments and eye-salve; but it -was soon seen that all that was wrong was that Danry desired to get a -spy-glass, and to smuggle out, with the doctor's assistance, memoirs and -letters. - -On September 1, 1759, Danry was removed from the cells and placed in a -more airy chamber. He wrote at once to Bertin to thank him, and to tell -him that he was sending him two doves. "You delight in doing good, and I -shall have no less delight, my lord, if you favour me by accepting this -slight mark of my great gratitude. - -"Tamerlaine allowed himself to be disarmed by a basket of figs presented -to him by the inhabitants of a town he was proceeding to besiege. The -Marquise de Pompadour is a Christian lady; I beg you to allow me to send -her also a pair: perhaps she will allow her heart to be touched by these -two innocent pigeons. I append a copy of the letter which will accompany -them:-- - - "'MADAM,--Two pigeons used to come every day to pick grains out of - my straw; I kept them, and they gave me young ones. I venture to - take the liberty of presenting you with this pair as a mark of my - respect and affection. I beseech you in mercy to be good enough to - accept them, with as much pleasure as I have in offering them to - you. I have the honour to be, with the profoundest respect, Madam, - your very humble and obedient servant, - -"'DANRY, for eleven years at the Bastille.'" - -Why did not Danry always make so charming a use of the permission -accorded him to write to the minister, the lieutenant of police, Madame -de Pompadour, Dr. Quesnay, and his mother? He wrote incessantly, and we -have letters of his in hundreds, widely differing one from another. Some -are suppliant and pathetic: "My body is wasting away every day in tears -and blood, I am worn out." He writes to Madame de Pompadour:--"Madam,--I -have never wished you anything but well; be then sensible to the voice -of tears, of my innocence, and of a poor despairing mother of sixty-six -years. Madam, you are well aware of my martyrdom. I beg you in God's -name to grant me my precious liberty; I am spent, I am dying, my blood -is all on fire by reason of my groaning; twenty times in the night I am -obliged to moisten my mouth and nostrils to get my breath." Everyone -knows the famous letter beginning with the words, "I have been suffering -now for 100,000 hours." He writes to Quesnay: "I present myself to you -with a live coal upon my head, indicating my pressing necessity." The -images he uses are not always so happy: "Listen," he says to Berryer, -"to the voice of the just bowels with which you are arrayed"! - -In other letters the prisoner alters his tone; to plaints succeed cries -of rage and fury, "he steeps his pen in the gall with which his soul is -saturated." He no longer supplicates, he threatens. There is nothing to -praise in the style of these epistles: it is incorrect and vulgar, -though at times vigorous and coloured with vivid imagery. To the -lieutenant of police he writes: "When a man is to be punished in this -accursed prison, the air is full of it, the punishments fall quicker -than the thunderbolt; but when it is a case of succouring a man who is -unfortunate, I see nothing but crabs;" and he addresses to him these -lines of Voltaire:-- - - "Perish those villains born, whose hearts of steel - No touch of ruth for others' woes can feel." - -He predicts terrible retribution for the ministers, the magistrates, and -Madame de Pompadour. To her he writes: "You will see yourself one day -like that owl in the park of Versailles; all the birds cast water upon -him to choke him, to drown him; if the king chanced to die, before two -hours were past someone would set five or six persons at your heels, and -you would yourself pack to the Bastille." The accused by degrees becomes -transformed into the accuser; he writes to Sartine: "I am neither a dog -nor a criminal, but a man like yourself." And the lieutenant of police, -taking pity on him, writes on one of these letters sent to the minister -of Paris: "When Danry writes thus, it is not that he is mad, but frantic -from long imprisonment." The magistrate counsels the prisoner "to keep -out of his letters all bitterness, which can only do him harm." Bertin -corrected with his own hand the petitions Danry sent to the Marquise de -Pompadour; in the margin of one of them we read, "I should think I was -prejudicing him and his interests if I sent on to Madame de Pompadour a -letter in which he ventures to reproach her with having _abused his good -faith and confidence_." Having amended the letter, the lieutenant of -police himself carried it to Versailles. - -The years of captivity, far from humbling the prisoner and abasing his -pride, only made him the more arrogant; his audacity grew from day to -day, and he was not afraid of speaking to the lieutenants of police -themselves, who knew his history, about his fortune which had been -ruined, his brilliant career which had been cut short, his whole family -plunged into despair. At first the magistrate would shrug his shoulders; -insensibly he would be won over by these unwavering assertions, by this -accent of conviction; and he ends actually by believing in this high -birth, this fortune, this genius, in all which Danry had perhaps come to -believe himself. Then Danry takes a still higher tone: he claims not -only his freedom, but compensation, large sums of money, honours. But -one must not think that this sprang from a sordid sentiment unworthy of -him: "If I propose compensation, my lord, it is not for the sake of -getting money, it is only so that I may smooth away all the obstacles -which may delay the end of my long suffering." - -In return, he is very ready to give the lieutenant of police some good -advice--to indicate the means of advancement in his career, to show him -how to set about getting appointed secretary of state, to compose for -him the speech he is to make to the king at his first audience. He adds: -"This very time is extremely favourable to you; it is the auspicious -hour: profit by it. Before they take horse on the day of rejoicing for -the conclusion of peace, you ought to be a counsellor of state." - -He is very ready also to send to the king schemes conceived in his -prison for the welfare of the realm. Now it is a suggestion to give -sergeants and officers on the battlefield muskets instead of spontoons -and pikes, by which the French arms would be strengthened by 25,000 good -fusiliers. Now it is a suggestion for increasing postal facilities, -which would augment the resources of the Treasury by several millions -every year. He recommends the erection of public granaries in the -principal towns, and draws up plans of battle for giving unheard-of -strength to a column of men three deep. We might mention other and -better suggestions. These notions were drowned in a flood of words, an -unimaginable wealth of verbiage, with parallels drawn from the history -of all periods and every country. His manuscripts were illustrated with -pen and ink sketches. Danry copied and recopied them incessantly, sent -them to all and sundry in all sorts of forms, persuaded the sentinels -that these lofty conceptions intimately concerned the safety of the -state and would win him an immense fortune. Thus he induced these good -fellows to compromise their situation by carrying the papers secretly to -ministers, members of the Parlement, marshals of France; he threw them -from the windows of his room, and, wrapped in snowballs, from the top of -the towers. These memoirs are the work of a man whose open and active -mind, of incredible activity indeed, plans, constructs, invents without -cessation or repose. - -Among these bundles of papers we have discovered a very touching letter -from the prisoner's mother, Jeanneton Aubrespy, who wrote to her son -from Montagnac on June 14, 1759:-- - - "Do not do me the injustice of thinking that I have forgotten you, - my dear son, my loving son. Could I shut you out of my thoughts, - you whom I bear always in my heart? I have always had a great - longing to see you again, but to-day I long more than ever, I am - constantly concerned for you, I think of nothing but you, I am - wholly filled with you. Do not worry, my dear son; that is the only - favour I ask of you. Your misfortunes will come to an end, and - perhaps it is not far off. I hope that Madame de Pompadour will - pardon you; for that I am trying to win heaven and earth over to - your cause. The Lord is putting my submission and yours to a long - test, so as to make us better realize the worth of His favour. Do - not distress yourself, my son. I hope to have the happiness of - receiving you again, and of embracing you more tenderly than ever. - Adieu, my son, my dear son, my loving son, I love you, and I shall - love you dearly to the grave. I beg you to give me news of your - health. I am, and always shall be, your good mother, - -DAUBRESPI, _widow_." - - - -Is not this letter charming in its artless pathos? The son's reply is -equally touching; but on reading it again one feels that it was to pass -under the eyes of the lieutenant of police; on examining it closely, one -sees the sentiments grimacing between the lines. - -No one knew better than Danry how to play on the souls of others, to -awake in them, at his will, pity or tenderness, astonishment or -admiration. No one has surpassed him in the art, difficult in very -truth, of posing as a hero, a genius, and a martyr, a part that we shall -see him sustain for twenty years without faltering. - -In 1759 there entered upon the office of lieutenant of police a man who -was henceforth to occupy Danry's mind almost exclusively--Gabriel de -Sartine. He was a fine sceptic, of amiable character and pleasing -manners. He was loved by the people of Paris, who boasted of his -administrative abilities and his spirit of justice. He exerted himself -in his turn to render the years of captivity less cruel to Danry. "He -allowed me," writes the latter, "what no other State prisoner has ever -obtained, the privilege of walking along the top of the towers, in the -open air, to preserve my health." He cheered the prisoner with genial -words, and urged him to behave well and no longer to fill his letters -with insults. "Your fate," he told him, "is in your own hands." He -looked into Danry's scheme for the construction of public granaries, and -when he had read it said, "Really, there are excellent things, most -excellent things in it." He visited Danry in prison and promised to do -his utmost to obtain his liberation. He himself put into the hands of -Madame de Pompadour the _Grand Mémoire_ which Danry had drawn up for -her. In this memorial the prisoner told the favourite that in return for -a service he had rendered her in sending her a "hieroglyphic symbol" to -put her on her guard against the machinations of her enemies, she had -caused him to suffer unjustly for twelve years. Moreover, he would now -only accept his freedom along with an indemnity of 60,000 livres. He -added: "Be on your guard! When your prisoners get out and publish your -cruelties abroad, they will make you hateful to heaven and the whole -earth!" It is not surprising that this _Grand Mémoire_ had practically -no result. Sartine promised that he would renew his efforts on his -behalf. "If, unhappily, you should meet with some resistance to the -entreaties you are about to make for me," wrote Danry, "I take the -precaution of sending you a copy of the scheme I sent to the king." -(This was the memorial suggesting that muskets should be given to the -officers and sergeants.) "Now the king has been putting my scheme in -operation for five years or more, and he will continue to avail himself -of it every time we are at war." Sartine proceeded to Versailles, this -marvellous scheme in his pocket. He showed it to the ministers and -pleaded on behalf of this protégé of his who, from the depths of his -dungeon, was doing his country service. But on his return he wrote to -the major of the Bastille a note in regard to Danry, in which we read: -"They have not made use, as he believes, of his military scheme." - -Danry had asked several times to be sent to the colonies. In 1763 the -government was largely occupied with the colonization of La Désirade. We -find a letter of June 23, 1763, in which Sartine proposes to send Danry -to La Désirade "with an introduction to the commanding officer." But -nothing came of these proposals. - - * * * * * - -All his life, Danry sought to compass his ends by the aid of women. He -was well aware of all the tenderness and devotion there is in these -light heads; he knew that sentiment is always stronger in them than -reason: "I was always looking out for women, and wished to find young -women, for their gentle and loving soul is more susceptible of pity; -misfortune moves them, stirs in them a more lively interest; their -impressionability is less quickly dulled, and so they are capable of -greater efforts." - -While taking his walk on the towers of the Bastille in the fresh morning -air, he tried by means of gestures and signals to open relations with -the people of the neighbourhood. "One day I noticed two young persons -working alone in a room, whose countenances struck me as pretty and -gentle. I was not deceived. One of them having glanced in my direction, -I wafted her with my hand a salutation which I endeavoured to make -respectful and becoming, whereupon she told her sister, who instantly -looked at me too. I then saluted them both in the same manner, and they -replied to me with an appearance of interest and kindliness. From that -moment we set up a sort of correspondence between us." The girls were -two good-looking laundresses named Lebrun, the daughters of a wigmaker. -And our rogue, the better to stimulate the little fools to enthusiastic -service in his behalf, knocked at the door of their young hearts, -willing enough to fly open. He spoke to them of youth, misfortune, -love--and also of his fortune, prodigious, he said, the half of which he -offered them. Glowing with ardour, the girls spared for him neither -time, nor trouble, nor what little money they had. - -The prisoner had put them in possession of several of his schemes, among -others the military one, with letters for certain writers and persons of -importance, and in addition a "terrible" indictment of Madame de -Pompadour for the king, in which "her birth and her shame, all her -thefts and cruelties were laid bare." He begged the girls to have -several copies made, which they were then to send to the addresses -indicated. Soon large black crosses daubed on a neighbouring wall -informed the prisoner that his instructions had been carried out. Danry -seems no longer to have doubted that his woes were coming to an end, -that the gates of the Bastille were about to fly open before him, and -that he would triumphantly leave the prison only to enter a palace of -fortune: _Parta victoria!_[47] he exclaims in a burst of happiness. - -And so we come to one of the most extraordinary episodes in this strange -life. - -In December, 1763, the Marquise of Pompadour was taken seriously ill. -"An officer of the Bastille came up to my room and said to me: 'Sir, -write four words to the Marquise de Pompadour, and you may be sure that -in less than a week you will have recovered your freedom.' I replied to -the major that prayers and tears only hardened the heart of that cruel -woman, and that I would not write to her. However, he came back next day -with the same story, and I replied in the same terms as on the previous -day. Scarcely had he gone than Daragon, my warder, came into my room and -said: 'Believe the major when he tells you that within a week you will -be free: if he tells you so, depend upon it he is sure of it.' Next day -but one the officer came to me for the third time: 'Why are you so -obstinate?' I thanked him--it was Chevalier, major of the Bastille--for -the third time, telling him that I would sooner die than write again to -that implacable shrew. - -"Six or eight days after, my two young ladies came and kissed their -hands to me, at the same time displaying a roll of paper on which were -written in large characters the words: 'Madame de Pompadour is dead!' -The Marquise de Pompadour died on April 19, 1764, and two months -afterwards, on June 19, M. de Sartine came to the Bastille and gave me -an audience; the first thing he said was that we would say no more about -the past, but that at the earliest moment he would go to Versailles and -demand of the minister the justice which was my due." And we find, in -truth, among the papers of the lieutenant of police, the following note, -dated June 18, 1764: "M. Duval (one of the lieutenant's secretaries)--to -propose at the first inspection that Danry be liberated and exiled to -his own part of the country." - -Returning to his room, Danry reflected on these developments; for the -lieutenant of police to show so much anxiety for his liberation was -evidently a sign that he was afraid of him, and that his memorials had -reached their destination and achieved their end. But he would be a -great ass to be satisfied with a mere liberation: "100,000 livres" would -scarcely suffice to throw oblivion over the injustices with which he had -been overwhelmed. - -He revolved these thoughts in his head for several days. To accept -freedom at the hands of his persecutors would be to pardon the past, a -mistake he would never fall into. The door opened, the major entered, -bearing in his hand a note written by de Sartine: "You will tell County -Number 4 that I am working for his effectual liberation." The officer -went out; Danry immediately sat down at his table and wrote to the -lieutenant of police a letter replete with threats, insults, and -obscenity. The original is lost, but we have an abstract made by Danry -himself. He concluded with leaving to Sartine a choice: "he was either a -mere lunatic, or else had allowed himself to be corrupted like a villain -by the gold of the Marquis de Marigny, the Marquise de Pompadour's -brother." - -"When Sartine received my letter, he wrote an answer which the major -brought and read to me, in which these were his very words: that I was -wrong to impute to him the length of my imprisonment, that if he had had -his way I should long ago have been set free; and he ended by telling me -that there was Bedlam for the mad. On which I said to the major: 'We -shall see in a few days whether he will have the power to put me in -Bedlam.' He did not deprive me of my walk on the towers; nine days -after, he put me in the cells on bread and water." But Danry was not -easily put out. No doubt they were only meaning to put his assurance to -the test. He went down to his cell singing, and for several days -continued to manifest the most confident gaiety. - -From that moment the prisoner made himself insufferable to his -guardians. It was yells and violence from morning to night. He filled -the whole Bastille with bursts of his "voice of thunder." Major -Chevalier wrote to Sartine: "This prisoner would wear out the patience -of the saintliest monk"; again: "He is full of gall and bitterness, he -is poison pure and simple"; once more: "This prisoner is raving mad." - -The lieutenant of police suggested to Saint-Florentin, the minister, to -transfer Danry to the keep of Vincennes. He was conducted there on the -night of September 15, 1764. We are now entering on a new phase of his -life. We shall find him still more wretched than in the past, but -constantly swelling his demands and pretensions, and with reason, for he -is now, mark you, a nobleman! He had learnt from a sentinel of the -Bastille of the death of Henri Vissec de la Tude, lieutenant-colonel of -a dragoon regiment, who had died at Sedan on January 31, 1761. From that -day he determined that he was the son of that officer. And what were his -reasons? Vissec de la Tude was from his own part of the country, he was -a nobleman and rich, and he was dead. These arguments Danry considered -excellent. He was, however, in complete ignorance of all that concerned -his father and his new family; he did not know even the name "Vissec de -la Tude," of which he made "Masers de la Tude"; Masers was the name of -an estate belonging to Baron de Fontès, a relation of Henri de Vissec. -The latter was not a marquis, as Danry believed, but simply a chevalier; -he died leaving six sons, whilst Danry represents him as dying without -issue. It goes without saying that all that our hero relates about his -father in his _Memoirs_ is pure invention. The Chevalier de la Tude -never knew of the existence of the son of Jeanneton Aubrespy, and when -in later years Danry asked the children to recognize him as their -natural brother, his pretensions were rejected. Nevertheless our -gentleman will henceforth sign his letters and memoirs "Danry, or rather -Henri Masers d'Aubrespy," then "de Masers d'Aubrespy," then "de Masers -de la Tude." When Danry had once got an idea in his head, he never let -it go. He repeated it unceasingly until he had forced it upon the -conviction of all about him--pertinacity which cannot fail to excite our -admiration. In the patent of Danry's pension of 400 livres granted by -Louis XVI. in 1784, the king calls the son of poor Jeanneton "Vicomte -Masers de la Tude." - -As may well be imagined, the Vicomte de la Tude could not accept his -liberty on the same terms as Danry. The latter would have been satisfied -with 60,000 livres: the viscount demands 150,000 and the cross of St. -Louis to boot. So he writes to the lieutenant of police. Sartine was too -sensible a man to be long obdurate to the prisoner on account of these -extravagances. "I was transferred to the keep of Vincennes on the night -of September 15, 1764. About nine hours after, the late M. de Guyonnet, -king's lieutenant, came and saw me in the presence of the major and the -three warders, and said: 'M. de Sartine has instructed me to inform you, -on his behalf, that provided you behave yourself quietly for a short -time, he will set you free. You have written him a very violent letter, -and you must apologize for it.'" Danry adds: "When all is said and done, -M. de Sartine did treat me well." He granted him for two hours every day -"the extraordinary promenade of the moats." "When a lieutenant of -police," says Danry, "granted this privilege to a prisoner, it was with -the object of promptly setting him free." On November 23, 1765, Danry -was walking thus, in company with a sentinel, outside the keep. The fog -was dense. Turning suddenly towards his keeper, Danry said, "What do you -think of this weather?" "It's very bad." "Well, it's just the weather to -escape in." He took five paces and was out of sight. "I escaped from -Vincennes," writes Danry, "without trickery; an ox would have managed it -as well." But in the speech he delivered later in the National Assembly, -the matter took a new complexion. "Think," he cried, "of the unfortunate -Latude, in his third escape, pursued by twenty soldiers, and yet -stopping and disarming under their very eyes the sentinel who had taken -aim at him!" - - * * * * * - -When Latude was at large, he found himself without resources, as at his -first escape. "I escaped with my feet in slippers and not a sou in my -pocket; I hadn't a thing to bless myself with." He took refuge with his -young friends, the Misses Lebrun. - -In their keeping he found a part of his papers, plans and projects, -memorials and dissertations. He sent "a basketful" of these to Marshal -de Noailles, begging him to continue to honour him with his protection, -and imparting to him "four great discoveries he had just made; first, -the true cause of the tides; secondly, the true cause of mountains, but -for which the globe would be brought to a standstill and become -speedily vitrified; thirdly, the cause of the ceaseless turning of the -globe; fourthly, the cause of the saltness of sea-water." He wrote also -to the Duke de Choiseul, minister of war, in order to obtain a reward -for his military scheme; he wrote making overtures of peace to Sartine: -in return for an advance of 10,000 crowns of the 150,000 livres due to -him, he would overlook the past: "I was resolved," he says, "to stake -all on one cast." In reply, he received a letter naming a house where he -would find 1200 livres obtained for him by Dr. Quesnay. He proceeded to -the address indicated--and was there captured. - -He was at once taken back to Vincennes. He declares that he was about to -be set at liberty at the moment of his escape: and now a new detention -was commencing. We shall not relate in detail the life he was now to -lead. Materially he continued to be well treated, but his mind became -affected, his rages became more and more violent, reaching at last -paroxysms of fury. Here are some extracts from letters and memorials -sent to Sartine: "By all the devils, this is coming it too strong. It is -true, sir, that I'd defy the blackest devils in all hell to teach you -anything in the way of cruelty; and that's but poor praise for you." He -writes on another occasion: "The crime of every one of us is to have -seen through your villainies: we are to perish, are we? how delighted -you would be if some one told you that we had all strangled ourselves in -our cells!" Danry reminds the lieutenant of police of the tortures of -Enguerrand de Marigni, adding: "Remember that more than a thousand -wretches have been broken in the Place de Grève who had not committed -the hundredth part of your crimes."... "Not a single person would be -astonished to see you flayed alive, your skin tanned, and your carcase -thrown into the gutters for the dogs to eat."... "But Monsieur laughs -at everything, Monsieur fears neither God, nor king, nor devil, Monsieur -swills down his crimes like buttermilk!" - -In prison Latude wrote memoirs which he filled with calumnies on the -ministers and the court. These memoirs are composed in the most dramatic -style, with an inimitable accent of sincerity. It was known that the -prisoner found a thousand means of sending them outside the walls, and -it was feared that they might be circulated among the populace, whose -minds--the year is 1775--were beginning to ferment. Latude had just been -flung into a cell in consequence of a fresh outbreak against his -jailers. "On March 19, 1775, the king's lieutenant entered, accompanied -by the major and three warders, and said to me: 'I have obtained leave -to let you out of the cell, but on one condition: that you hand over -your papers.' - -"'Hand over my papers! I tell you, sir, I'd rather be done to death in -this cell than show the white feather so!' - -"'Your trunk is upstairs in your room: I've only to say the word and the -seals would be broken and your papers taken out.' - -"I replied: 'Sir, justice has formalities to which you are bound to -conform, and you are not allowed to commit such outrages.' - -"He took five or six steps out of the cell, and as I did not call him -back, he came back himself and said: 'Just hand them to me for ten days -to examine them, and I give you my word of honour that at the end of -that time I will have them returned to your room.' - -"I replied: 'I will not let you have them for two hours even.' - -"'All right,' he said; 'as you won't entrust them to me, you have only -to stay where you are.'" - -Latude relates in his _Memoirs_ with great indignation the story of a -flute he had made, on which he used to play, his sole diversion during -the long hours of solitude; his jailers had the barbarity to take it -from him. The governor of the fortress, out of compassion, offered to -restore it. "But it will only be on condition that you play by day only, -and not at night." At this stipulation, writes Latude in his _Rêveries_, -"I could not refrain from bantering him, saying, 'Why, don't you know, -sir, that forbidding a thing is just the way to make me eager for it?'" - -And so at Vincennes as at Paris they came to consider Danry as a madman. -Among the books given him for his amusement there were some dealing with -sorcery. These he read and re-read, and from that time onward he saw in -all the incidents of his life nothing but the perpetual intervention of -devils evoked by the witch Madame de Pompadour and her brother the -magician, the Marquis de Marigny. - -Sartine came again to see the prisoner on November 8, 1772. Danry begged -him to send a police officer to make a copy of a memorial he had drawn -up for his own justification; to send also an advocate to assist him -with his advice, and a doctor, to examine the state of his health. The -police officer arrived on the 24th. On the 29th, he wrote to the -lieutenant of police: "I have the honour to report that in pursuance of -your orders I proceeded to the château of Vincennes on the 24th curt., -to hear from Danry something which, he asserts, concerns the minister: -it is impossible to hear anything which concerns him less. He began by -saying that to write all he had to tell me I should have to remain for -three weeks with him. He was bound to tell me the story of 180 -sorceries, and I was to copy the story, according to him, from a heap of -papers he drew from a bag, the writing of which is undecipherable." - -We know from Danry himself what passed at the visit of the advocate. He -entered the prisoner's room about noon. Danry handed him two memorials -he had drawn up and explained their purport. "Instantly he cut me short, -saying, 'Sir, I have no belief whatever in witchcraft.' I did not give -in, but said, 'Sir, I cannot show you the devil in bodily shape, but I -am very certain I can convince you, by the contents of this memorial, -that the late Marquise de Pompadour was a witch, and that the Marquis de -Marigny, her brother, is at this very time still having dealings with -the devil.' - -"The advocate had read but a few pages when he stopped dead, put the -manuscript on the table, and said, as though he had been wakened out of -a deep sleep, 'Would you not like to get out of prison?' I replied: -'There's no doubt of that.' 'And do you intend to remain in Paris, or to -go to your home?' 'When I am free, I shall go home.' 'But have you any -means?' Upon this I took his hand and said: 'My dear sir, I beg you not -to take offence at what I am going to say.' 'Speak on,' he said, 'say -whatever you like, I shall not be offended.' 'Well then, I see very -clearly that the devil has already got hold of you.'" - -In the same year, Malesherbes made his celebrated inspection of the -prisons. "This virtuous minister came to see me at the beginning of -August, 1775, and listened to me with the most lively interest." The -historian who has the completest knowledge of everything relating to the -Bastille, François Ravaisson, believed that Malesherbes left the -wretched man in prison out of regard for his colleague Maurepas. "One -would have thought that Maurepas' first act on resuming office would -have been to release his old accomplice." This conjecture is destroyed -by a letter from Malesherbes to the governor of Vincennes: "I am busy, -sir, with the examination of the papers relating to your various -prisoners. Danry, Thorin, and Maréchal are quite mad, according to the -particulars furnished to me, and the two first gave indubitable marks -of madness in my presence." - -In consequence, Danry was transferred to Charenton on September 27, -1775, "on account of mental derangement, in virtue of a royal order of -the 23rd of the said month, countersigned by Lamoignon. The king will -pay for his keep." On entering his new abode, Latude took the precaution -to change his name a third time, and signed the register "Danger." - -In passing from the fortress of Vincennes to the hospital of Charenton, -Danry thought it was as well to rise still higher in dignity. So we see -him henceforth styling himself "engineer, geographer, and royal -pensioner at Charenton." - -His situation was sensibly changed for the better. He speaks of the -kindnesses shown him by the Fathers of La Charité.[48] He had companions -whose society pleased him. Halls were set apart for billiards, -backgammon, and cards. He had company at his meals and in his walks. He -met Allègre, his old fellow-prisoner, whom he came upon among the -dangerous lunatics in the dungeons; Allègre had been removed in 1763 -from the Bastille, where he was shattering and destroying everything. -His latest fancy was that he was God. As to Danry, he had taken so -kindly to his rôle as nobleman that to see his aristocratic and -well-to-do air, to hear his conversation, full of reminiscences of his -family and his early life, no one could have doubted that he actually -was the brilliant engineer officer he set up for, who had fallen in the -prime of life a victim to the intrigues of the favourite. He hobnobbed -with the aristocratic section of society at Charenton and struck up an -intimacy with one of his associates, the Chevalier de Moyria, son of a -lieutenant-colonel, and a knight of Saint-Louis. - -Meanwhile the Parlement, which sent a commission every year to inspect -the Charenton asylum--a commission before which Danry appeared on two -separate occasions--did not decide that he ought to be set at liberty. -But one fine day in September, 1776, the prior of the Fathers, who took -a quite exceptional interest in the lot of his pensioner, meeting him in -the garden, said to him abruptly: "We are expecting a visit from the -lieutenant of police; get ready a short and taking address to say to -him." The lieutenant of police, Lenoir, saw Danry, and listened to him -attentively, and as the prior's account of him was entirely favourable, -the magistrate promised him his liberty. "Then Father Prudentius, my -confessor, who was behind me, drew me by the arm to get me away, fearing -lest, by some imprudent word, I might undo the good that had been -decided on"--a charming incident, much to the honour of Father -Prudentius. - -But on consideration it appeared dangerous to fling so suddenly upon -society a man who would be at a loss how to live, having neither -relatives nor fortune, having no longer the means of gaining a -livelihood, and a man, moreover, whom there was only too much reason to -mistrust. Lenoir asked the prisoner if, once set at liberty, he would -find the wherewithal to assure his existence; if he had any property; if -he could give the names of any persons willing to go bail for him. - -What did this mean--_if_ he had any property, _if_ he could find -sureties? He, Masers de Latude! Why, his whole family, when the Marquise -de Pompadour had him put in the Bastille, was occupying a brilliant -position! Why, his mother, of whose death he had had the agony to hear, -had left a house and considerable estates! Latude took his pen, and -without hesitation wrote to M. Caillet, royal notary at Montagnac: "My -dear friend, I would bet ten to one you believe me dead; see how -mistaken you are!... You have but to say the word and before the -carnival is over we shall eat a capital leveret together." And he speaks -to his friend the notary of the fortune left by his mother, and of his -family, who all of them cannot fail to be interested in him. Latude -himself was not greatly astonished at receiving no reply to this -epistle: but it must have passed under the eyes of the lieutenant of -police, and what more did he want? - -Latude's new friend, the Chevalier de Moyria, had already been for some -time at liberty. The prisoner hastened to send him a copy of his letter -to the notary. "The reply is a long time coming, M. Caillet is dead, -doubtless." What is to become of him? These twenty-eight years of -captivity have endangered his fortune, have made him lose his friends; -how is he to find the remnant of his scattered family? Happily there -remains to him a friendship, a friendship still recent, but already -strong, in which he places his whole confidence. "Chevalier, it would -only need your intervention to deliver me, by inducing your good mother -to write to M. Lenoir." The Chevalier de Moyria sent an amiable reply. -Danry wrote another and more urgent letter, with such success that not -only the Chevalier's mother, but also an old friend of the Moyria -family, Mercier de Saint-Vigor, a colonel, and controller-general of the -queen's household, intervened, and made applications at Versailles. "On -June 5, 1777, King Louis XVI. restored to me my freedom; I have in my -pocket the warrant under his own hand!" - - * * * * * - -On leaving Charenton, Danry signed an undertaking to depart immediately -for Languedoc, an undertaking which he did not trouble to fulfil. Paris -was the only city in France where a man of his stamp could thrive. He -was now fifty-two years old, but was still youthful in appearance, full -of go and vigour; his hair, as abundant as it had been in youth, had not -become white. He soon found means of borrowing some money, and then we -see him opening a campaign, exerting himself to get in touch with the -ministers, gaining the protection of the Prince de Beauvau, distributing -memorials in which he claimed a reward for great services rendered, and -launched out into invectives against his oppressors, Sartine in -particular. Minister Amelot sent for him, and in tones of severity -notified him that he was to leave the city at once. Latude did not wait -for the command to be repeated. He had reached Saint-Bris, about a -hundred miles from the capital, when he was suddenly arrested by the -police officer Marais. Brought back to Paris, he was locked up in the -Châtelet on July 16, 1777, and on August 1 conducted to Bicêtre. The -first use he had made of his liberty was to introduce himself to a lady -of quality and extort money from her by menaces. The officer found a -considerable sum in his possession. - -Bicêtre was not a state prison like the Bastille and Vincennes, or an -asylum like Charenton; it was the thieves' prison. On entering, Danry -took the precaution of changing his name a fourth time, calling himself -Jedor. He is, moreover, careful in his _Memoirs_ to give us the reason -of this fresh metamorphosis: "I would not sully my father's name by -inscribing it on the register of this infamous place." From this day -there begins for him a truly wretched existence; huddled with criminals, -put on bread and water, his lodging is a cell. But his long martyrdom is -nearing its end: the hour of his apotheosis is at hand! - -Louis XVI. had now been on the throne for several years, and France had -become the most impressionable country in the world. Tears flowed at the -slightest provocation. Was it the sentimental literature, which Rousseau -made fashionable, that produced this moving result, or contrariwise, was -the literature successful because it hit the taste of the day? At all -events, the time was ripe for Latude. His recent unlucky experience was -not to dishearten him. On the contrary, it is with a greater energy, a -more poignant emotion, and cries still more heartrending, that he -resumes the story of his interminable sufferings. The victim of cruel -oppressors, of cowardly foes who have their own reasons for smothering -his voice, he will not bend his head under his abominable treatment; he -will remain proud, self-assured, erect before those who load him with -irons! - -On the birth of the Dauphin, Louis XVI. resolved to admit his wretched -prisoners to a share of his joy and to pronounce a great number of -pardons. A special commission, composed of eight counsellors of the -Châtelet and presided over by Cardinal de Rohan, sat at Bicêtre. Danry -appeared before it on May 17, 1782. His new judges, as he testifies, -heard his story with interest. But the decision of the commission was -not favourable to him. He was not so much surprised at this as might be -supposed: "The impure breath of vice," he wrote to the Marquis de -Conflans, "has never tainted my heart, but there are magistrates who -would let off guilty men with free pardons rather than expose themselves -to the merited reproach of having committed injustice of the most -revolting kind in keeping innocence for thirty-three years in irons." - -Giving rein to the marvellous activity of his brain, he composed at -Bicêtre new schemes, memorials, and accounts of his misfortunes. To the -Marquis de Conflans he sends a scheme for a hydraulic press, "the -homage of an unfortunate nobleman who has grown old in irons"; he -induces the turnkeys to carry memorials to all who may possibly interest -themselves in him. The first to take compassion on him was a priest, the -Abbé Legal, of the parish of St. Roch, and curate of Bicêtre. He visited -him, consoled him, gave him money, showed him attentions. Cardinal de -Rohan also took much interest in him, and sent him some assistance -through his secretary. We are coming at last to Madame Legros. This -wonderful story is so well known that we shall tell it briefly. A -drunken turnkey chanced to lose one of Latude's memorials at a corner of -the Rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois: it was picked up and -opened by a woman, a haberdasher in a small way. Her heart burned within -her as she read of these horrible sufferings, depicted in strokes of -fire. She inspired her husband with her own emotion; henceforth it was -to be the aim in life of these worthy people to effect the unhappy man's -deliverance, and Madame Legros devoted herself to the self-imposed task -with indefatigable ardour, courage, and devotion. "A grand sight," cries -Michelet, "to see this poor, ill-clad woman going from door to door, -paying court to footmen to win entrance into mansions, to plead her -cause before the great, to implore their support!" In many houses she -was well received. President de Gourgues, President de Lamoignon, -Cardinal de Rohan, aided her with their influence. Sartine himself took -steps on behalf of the unhappy man. Two advocates of the Parlement of -Paris, Lacroix and Comeyras, devoted themselves to his cause. Copies -were made of the prisoner's memorials and distributed in every -drawing-room; they penetrated even into the boudoir of the queen. All -hearts were stirred by the accents of this harrowing voice. - -The Marquis de Villette, who had become celebrated through the -hospitality he showed to Voltaire when dying, conceived a passionate -enthusiasm for Danry. He sent his steward to Bicêtre to offer him a -pension of 600 livres on the sole condition of the prisoner's leaving -his case entirely in the Marquis's hands. Latude received this singular -proposal with becoming dignity. "For two years a poor woman has been -devoting herself to my cause. I should be an ungrateful wretch if I did -not leave my fate in her hands." He knew that this pension would not -escape him, and it was not for 600 livres that he would have consented -to rob his story of the touching and romantic features it was -increasingly assuming. - -Further, the French Academy actually intervenes! D'Alembert is all fire -and flame. From this time a stream of visitors of the highest -distinction flows through the squalid prison. At length the king himself -is led to look into the affair. He has the documentary evidence brought -to him and examines it carefully. With what anxiety everyone awaits his -decision! But Louis XVI., now acquainted with the case, replies that -Latude will be released--_never_! At this decree, to all appearance -irrevocable, all the prisoner's friends lose heart, except Madame -Legros. The queen and Madame Necker are on her side. In 1783, Breteuil, -the queen's man, comes into power; on March 24, 1784, the release is -signed! The Vicomte de Latude receives a pension of 400 livres, but is -exiled to his own part of the country. New importunities, new -applications; at last they succeed: Latude is free to live in Paris! - -This is the grandest period in the life of a great man! Latude is soon -in occupation of a modest but decent and well-ordered suite of rooms on -the fourth floor. He lives with his two benefactors, M. and Madame -Legros, petted, spoilt in a thousand ways. The Duchess of Beauvau has -obtained for Madame Legros from Calonne, out of funds intended for the -support of distressed gentlefolk, a pension of 600 livres: the Duchess -of Kingston[49] grants a pension of the same amount. In addition to the -royal pension, Latude receives 500 livres a year from President Dupaty -and 300 from the Duke d'Ayen. Moreover, a public subscription is opened, -and the list is filled with the greatest names in France. An agreeable -competency is assured to the Legros couple and their adopted son. At its -sitting on March 24, the French Academy solemnly awarded the Montyon -prize to the valiant little haberdasher. "The Dame Legros came to -receive the medal amid the acclamations of the whole assembly." - -The name of Latude is on everyone's lips; he wins admiration and pity on -all sides. Ladies of the highest society are not above mounting to the -fourth story, accompanied by their daughters, to bring the poor man "aid -in money, with their tears." The hero has left a complacent description -of the throng: duchesses, marchionesses, grandees of Spain, wearers of -the cross of St. Louis, presidents of the Parlement, all these met at -his house. Sometimes there were six or eight persons in his room. -Everyone listened to his story and lavished on him marks of the most -affectionate compassion, and no one failed before going away "to leave a -mark of his sensibility." The wives of Marshals de Luxembourg and de -Beauvau, the Duchess de la Rochefoucauld, the Countess de Guimont, were -among the most zealous. "Indeed," says our hero, "it would be extremely -difficult for me to tell which of these countesses, marchionesses, -duchesses, and princesses had the most humane, the most compassionate -heart." - -Thus Latude became one of the lions of Paris: strangers flocked to his -lodging, hostesses ran off with him. At table, when he spoke, all voices -were hushed with an air of deference and respect; in the drawing-room -you would find him seated in a gilt chair near the fireplace where great -logs were blazing, and surrounded by a thick cluster of bright, silky, -rustling robes. The Chevalier de Pougens, son of the Prince de Conti, -pressed him to come and stay at his house; Latude graciously consented. -The American ambassador, the illustrious Jefferson, invited him to -dinner. - -Latude has himself described this enchanted life: "Since I left prison, -the greatest lords of France have done me the honour of inviting me to -eat with them, but I have not found a single house--except that of the -Comte d'Angevillier, where you could meet men of wit and learning in -scores, and receive all sorts of civilities on the part of the countess; -and that of M. Guillemot, keeper of the royal palaces, one of the most -charming families to be found in Paris--where you are more at your ease -than with the Marquis de Villette. - -"When a man has felt, as I have felt, the rage of hunger, he always -begins by speaking of his food. The Marquis de Villette possesses a cook -who is a match for the most skilful in his art: in a word, his table is -first-rate. At the tables of the dukes and peers and marshals of France -there is eternal ceremony, and everyone speaks like a book, whereas at -that of the Marquis de Villette, men of wit and learning always form the -majority of the company. All the first-class musicians have a cover set -at his table, and on at least three days of the week he gives a little -concert." - -On August 26, 1788, died one of the benefactresses of Latude, the -Duchess of Kingston, who did not fail to mention her protégé in her -will. We see him dutifully assisting at the sale of the lady's furniture -and effects. He even bought a few things, giving a _louis d' or_ in -payment. Next day, the sale being continued, the auctioneer handed the -coin back to Latude: it was bad. Bad! What! did they take the Vicomte de -Latude for a sharper? The coin bad! Who, he would like to know, had the -insolence to make "an accusation so derogatory to his honour and his -reputation?" Latude raised his voice, and the auctioneer threatened to -bundle him out of the room. The insolent dog! "Bundle out rogues, not -gentlemen!" But the auctioneer sent for the police, who put "the Sieur -de Latude ignominiously outside." He went off calmly, and the same day -summoned the auctioneer before the Châtelet tribunal, "in order to get a -reparation as authoritative as the defamation had been public." - -In the following year (1789) Latude made a journey into England. He had -taken steps to sue Sartine, Lenoir, and the heirs of Madame de Pompadour -in the courts in order to obtain the damages due to him. In England, he -drew up a memorandum for Sartine, in which he informed the late -lieutenant of police of the conditions on which he would withdraw his -actions. "M. de Sartine, you will give me, as compensation for all the -harm and damage you have made me suffer unjustly, the sum of 900,000 -livres; M. Lenoir, 600,000 livres; the heirs of the late Marquise de -Pompadour and Marquis de Menars, 100,000 crowns; in all, 1,800,000 -livres;" that is to say, about £160,000 in English money of to-day. - -[Illustration: LATUDE. - -_From the Painting by Vestier (Hôtel Carnavalet)._] - -The Revolution broke out. If the epoch of Louis XVI., with its mildness -and fellow-feeling, had been favourable to our hero, the Revolution -seems to have been ordained on purpose for him. The people rose against -the tyranny of kings: the towers of the Bastille were overthrown. -Latude, the victim of kings, the victim of the Bastille and arbitrary -warrants, was about to appear in all his glory. - -He hastened to throw into the gutter his powdered peruque and viscount's -frock; listen to the revolutionist, fierce, inflexible, indomitable, -_uncompromising_: "Frenchmen, I have won the right to tell you the -truth, and if you are free, you cannot but love to hear it. - -"For thirty-five years I meditated in dungeons on the audacity and -insolence of despots; with loud cries I was calling down vengeance, when -France in indignation rose up as one man in one sublime movement and -levelled despotism with the dust. The will to be free is what makes a -nation free; and you have proved it. But to preserve freedom a nation -must make itself worthy of it, and that is what remains for you to do!" - -In the Salon of 1789 there were two portraits of Latude with the famous -ropeladder. Below one of these portraits, by Vestier, a member of the -Royal Academy, these lines were engraved:-- - - Instruit par ses malheurs et sa captivité - A vaincre des tyrans les efforts et la rage, - Il apprit aux Français comment le vrai courage - Peut conquérir la liberté.[50] - -In 1787 the Marquis de Beaupoil-Saint-Aulaire had written, inspired by -Latude himself, the story of the martyr's captivity. Of this book two -editions appeared in the same year. In 1789 Latude published the -narrative of his escape from the Bastille, as well as his _Grand -Mémoire_ to the Marquise de Pompadour; finally, in 1790 appeared -_Despotism Unmasked, or the Memoirs of Henri Masers de Latude_, edited -by the advocate Thiéry. The book was dedicated to La Fayette. On the -first page we see a portrait of the hero, his face proud and energetic, -one hand on the ropeladder, the other extended towards the Bastille -which workmen are in the act of demolishing. "I swear," says the author -at the commencement, "that I will not relate one fact which is not -true." The work is a tissue of calumnies and lies; and what makes a most -painful impression on the reader is to see this man disowning his -mother, forgetting the privations she endured out of love for her son, -and ascribing the credit of what little the poor thing could do for her -child to a Marquis de la Tude, knight of St. Louis, and -lieutenant-colonel of the Orleans Dragoons! - -But the book vibrates with an incomparable accent of sincerity and of -that profound emotion which Latude knew so well how to infuse into all -those with whom he had to do. In 1793, twenty editions had been -exhausted, the work had been translated into several languages; the -journals had no praise strong enough for the boldness and genius of the -author; the _Mercure de France_ proclaimed that henceforth it was a -parent's duty to teach his children to read in this sublime work; a copy -was sent to all the departments, accompanied by a model of the Bastille -by the architect Palloy. With good reason could Latude exclaim in the -National Assembly: "I have not a little contributed to the Revolution -and to its consolidation." - -Latude was not the man to neglect opportunities so favourable. To begin -with, he sought to get his pension augmented, and presented to the -Constituent Assembly a petition backed by representative Bouche. But -Camus, "rugged Camus," president of the committee appointed to -investigate the matter, decided on rejection; and at the sitting of -March 13, 1791, deputy Voidel delivered a very spirited speech; his view -was that the nation had unhappy folk to succour more worthy of their -concern than a man whose life had begun with roguery and villainy. The -Assembly sided with him; not only was Latude's pension not increased, -but on consideration, the pension granted by Louis XVI. was altogether -withdrawn. - -Horror and infamy! "What madness has seized on the minds of the -representatives of the most generous nation in the world!... To slay a -hapless wretch the mere sight of whom awakens pity and warms into life -the most sluggish sensibility ... for death is not so terrible as the -loss of honour!" The valiant Latude will not abide the stroke of such an -insult. Ere long he has brought Voidel to retract; in the heart of the -Assembly he gains an influential supporter in the Marshal de Broglie. -The Constituent Assembly is replaced by the Legislative, and Latude -returns to the charge. He is admitted to the bar of the House on January -26, 1792; the matter is re-committed and gone into a second time on -February 25. We should like to be able to quote at length the speech -which Latude himself composed for his advocate; here is a portion of the -peroration:-- - -"That a man, without any outside assistance, should have been able to -escape three times, once from the Bastille and twice from Vincennes, -yes, gentlemen, I venture to say he could not have succeeded except by a -miracle, or else that Latude has more than extraordinary genius. Cast -your eyes on this ladder of rope and wood, and on all the other -instruments which Latude constructed with a mere knife, which you see -here in the centre of this chamber. I resolved to bring before your own -eyes this interesting object, which will for ever win admiration from -men of intelligence. Not a single stranger comes to Paris without going -to see this masterpiece of intelligence and genius, as well as his -generous deliverer, Madame Legros. We have resolved to give you, -gentlemen, the pleasure of seeing this celebrated woman, who -unremittingly for forty months set despotism at defiance, and vanquished -it by dint of virtue. Behold her there at the bar with M. de Latude, -behold that incomparable woman, for ever to be the glory and the -ornament of her sex!" - -It is not surprising that the Legislative Assembly was deeply moved by -this eloquent harangue and this exhibition of the lady, as touching as -unexpected. It unanimously voted Latude a pension of 2000 livres, -without prejudice to the pension of 400 livres previously awarded. -Henceforth Latude will be able to say: "The whole nation adopted me!" - -However, the little mishap in the Constituent Assembly was to be the -only check that Latude suffered in the course of his glorious martyr's -career. Presented to the Society of "Friends of the Constitution," he -was elected a member by acclamation, and the Society sent a deputation -of twelve members to carry the civic crown to Madame Legros. The leader -of the deputation said, in a voice broken by emotion, "This day is the -grandest day of my life." A deputation from the principal theatres of -Paris offered Latude free admission to all performances, "so that he -might go often and forget the days of his mourning." He was surrounded -by the highest marks of consideration; pleaders begged him to support -their cases before the tribunals with the moral authority bestowed on -him by his virtue. He took advantage of this to bring definitively -before the courts his claims against the heirs of the Marquise de -Pompadour. Citizen Mony argued the case for the first time before the -court of the sixth arrondissement on July 16, 1793; on September 11 the -case came again before the magistrates: Citizens Chaumette, Laurent, and -Legrand had been designated by the Commune of Paris as counsel for the -defence, and the whole Commune was present at the hearing. Latude -obtained 60,000 livres, 10,000 of which were paid him in cash. - -And now his life became more tranquil. Madame Legros continued to lavish -her care on him. The 50,000 livres remaining due to him from the heirs -of the Marquise were paid in good farm lands situated in La Beauce, the -profits of which he regularly drew. - -Let us hasten to add that France did not find in Latude an ungrateful -child. The critical situation in which the nation was then struggling -pained him deeply. He sought the means of providing a remedy, and in -1799 brought out a "Scheme for the valuation of the eighty departments -of France to save the Republic in less than three months," and a "Memoir -on the means of re-establishing the public credit and order in the -finances of France." - -When the estates of Madame de Pompadour were sequestrated, the farms -Latude had received were taken from him; but he induced the Directory to -restore them. He was less fortunate in his requisition for a licence for -a theatre and a gaming-house. But he found consolation. The subsidies he -went on extorting from right and left, the proceeds of his farms, the -sale of his books, and the money brought in by the exhibition of his -ropeladder, which was exhibited by a showman in the different towns of -France and England, provided him with a very comfortable income. - -The Revolution became a thing of the past. Latude hailed the dawning -glory of Bonaparte, and when Bonaparte became Napoleon, Latude made his -bow to the emperor. We have a very curious letter in which he marks out -for Napoleon I. the line of conduct he should pursue to secure his own -welfare and the good of France. It begins as follows:-- - -"SIRE,--I have been five times buried alive, and am well acquainted with -misfortune. To have a heart more sympathetic than the common run of men -it is necessary to have suffered great ills.... At the time of the -Terror I had the delightful satisfaction of saving the lives of -twenty-two poor wretches.... To petition Fouquet d'Etinville on behalf -of the royalists was to persuade him that I was one myself. When I -braved death in order to save the lives of twenty-two citizens, judge, -great Emperor, if my heart can do ought but take great interest in you, -the saviour of my beloved country." - -We are given some details of the last years of Latude's life in the -_Memoirs_ of his friend, the Chevalier de Pougens, and in the _Memoirs_ -of the Duchess d'Abrantès. The Chevalier tells us that at the age of -seventy-five years he still enjoyed good health; he was "active and gay, -and appeared to enjoy to the full the delights of existence. Every day -he took long walks in Paris without experiencing the least fatigue. -People were amazed to find _no trace_ of the cruel sufferings he had -undergone in the cells during a captivity of thirty-five years." His -popularity suffered no diminution under the Empire. Junot awarded him a -pension from funds at his disposal. One day the general presented him -to his wife, along with Madame Legros, whose side Latude never left. -"When he arrived," says the Duchess d'Abrantès, "I went to greet him -with a respect and an emotion that must have been truly edifying. I took -him by the hand, conducted him to a chair, and put a cushion under his -feet; in fact, he might have been my grandfather, whom I could not have -treated better. At table I placed him on my right. But," adds the -Duchess, "my enchantment was of short duration. He talked of nothing but -his own adventures with appalling loquacity." - -At the age of eighty, a few months before his death, Latude wrote in the -most familiar terms to his protector, the Chevalier de Pougens, a member -of the Institute: "Now I assure you in the clearest possible words, that -if within ten days of the present time, the 11th Messidor, you have not -turned up in Paris (the Chevalier was staying at his country estate), I -shall start the next day and come to you with the hunger of a giant and -the thirst of a cabby, and when I have emptied your cellar and eaten you -out of house and home you will see me play the second act of the comedy -of _Jocrisse_[51]; you will see me run off with your plates, and dishes, -and tankards, and bottles--empty, you may be sure--and fling all your -furniture out of the window!" - -On July 20, 1804, Latude compiled one more circular, addressed to the -sovereigns of Europe: the kings of Prussia, Sweden, and Denmark, the -Archduke Charles, brother of the Emperor; and to the President of the -United States. To each of them he sent a copy of his _Memoirs_, -accompanied by the famous scheme for replacing with muskets the pikes -with which the sergeants were armed. He explained to each of the -sovereigns that as the country he ruled was profiting by this child of -his genius, it was only just that he should reap some benefit. - -Jean Henri, surnamed Danry, alias Danger, alias Jedor, alias Masers -d'Aubrespy, alias De Masers de Latude, died of pneumonia at Paris, on -January 1, 1805, aged eighty years. - - - - -CHAPTER VII. - -THE FOURTEENTH OF JULY. - - -In the remarkable book entitled _Paris during the Revolution_, M. -Adolphe Schmidt writes: "All the purely revolutionary events, the events -of the Fourteenth of July, of October 5 and 6, 1789, were the work of an -obscure minority of reckless and violent revolutionists. If they -succeeded, it was only because the great majority of the citizens -avoided the scene of operations or were mere passive spectators there, -attracted by curiosity, and giving in appearance an enhanced importance -to the movement." Further on he says: "After the fall of the -Gironde,[52] Dutard expressed himself in these terms: 'If, out of 50,000 -Moderates, you succeed in collecting a compact body of no more than -3000, I shall be much astonished; and if out of these 3000 there are to -be found only 500 who are agreed, and courageous enough to express their -opinion, I shall be still more astonished. And these, in truth, must -expect to be Septembrised.'[53] 'Twelve maniacs, with their blood well -up, at the head of the Sansculotte section,' writes Dutard in another -report, 'would put to flight the other forty-seven sections of Paris.' -Mercier, after the fall of the Gironde, thus expresses himself in regard -to the reign of Terror: 'Sixty brigands deluged France with blood: -500,000 men within our walls were witnesses of their atrocities, and -were not brave enough to oppose them.'" - -To enable the reader to understand the extraordinary and improbable -event which is the subject of this chapter, it would be necessary to -begin by explaining the circumstances and describing the material and -moral state of things in which it happened; and that, unhappily, would -occupy much space. Let us take the two principal facts, see what they -led to, and then come to the events of the Fourteenth of July. - -For its task of governing France, the royal power had in its hands no -administrative instrument, or, at any rate, administrative instruments -of a very rudimentary character. It ruled through tradition and -sentiment. The royal power had been created by the affection and -devotion of the nation, and in this devotion and affection lay its whole -strength. - -What, actually and practically, were the means of government in the -hands of the king? "Get rid of _lettres de cachet_," observed -Malesherbes, "and you deprive the king of all his authority, for the -_lettre de cachet_ is the only means he possesses of enforcing his will -in the kingdom." Now, for several years past, the royal power had -practically renounced _lettres de cachet_. On the other hand, during the -course of the eighteenth century, the sentiments of affection and -devotion of which we have spoken had become enfeebled, or at least had -changed their character. So it was that on the eve of the Revolution the -royal power, which stood in France for the entire administration, had, -if the expression may be allowed, melted into thin air. - -Below the royal power, the lords in the country, the upper ten in the -towns, constituted the second degree in the government. The same remarks -apply here also. And unhappily it is certain that, over the greater part -of France, the territorial lords had forgotten the duties which their -privileges and their station imposed. The old attachment of the -labouring classes to them had almost everywhere disappeared, and in many -particulars had given place to feelings of hostility. - -Thus on the eve of '89 the whole fabric of the state had no longer any -real existence: at the first shock it was bound to crumble into dust. -And as, behind the fragile outer wall, there was no solid structure--no -administrative machine, with its numerous, diverse, and nicely-balanced -parts, like that which in our time acts as a buffer against the shocks -of political crises,--the first blow aimed at the royal power was bound -to plunge the whole country into a state of disorganization and -disorder from which the tyranny of the Terror, brutal, blood-stained, -overwhelming as it was, alone could rescue it. - -Such is the first of the two facts we desire to make clear. We come now -to the second. Ever since the year 1780, France had been almost -continually in a state of famine. The rapidity and the abundance of the -international exchanges which in our days supply us constantly from the -remotest corners of the world with the necessaries of life, prevent our -knowing anything of those terrible crises which in former days swept -over the nations. "The dearth," writes Taine, "permanent, prolonged, -having already lasted ten years, and aggravated by the very outbreaks -which it provoked, went on adding fuel to all the passions of men till -they reached a blaze of madness." "The nearer we come to the Fourteenth -of July," says an eye witness, "the greater the famine becomes." "In -consequence of the bad harvest," writes Schmidt, "the price of bread had -been steadily rising from the opening of the year 1789. This state of -things was utilized by the agitators who aimed at driving the people -into excesses: these excesses in turn paralyzed trade. Business ceased, -and numbers of workers found themselves without bread." - -A few words should properly be said in regard to brigandage under the -_ancien régime_. The progress of manners and especially the development -of executive government have caused it utterly to disappear. The -reader's imagination will supply all we have not space to say. He will -recollect the lengths of daring to which a man like Cartouche[54] could -go, and recall what the forest of Bondy[55] was at the gates of Paris. - -So grew up towards the end of the _ancien régime_ what Taine has so -happily called a spontaneous anarchy. In the four months preceding the -capture of the Bastille, one can count more than three hundred riots in -France. At Nantes, on January 9, 1789, the town hall was invaded, and -the bakers' shops pillaged. All this took place to the cries of "Vive le -roi!" At Bray-sur-Seine, on May 1, peasants armed with knives and clubs -forced the farmers to lower the price of corn. At Rouen, on May 28, the -corn in the market place was plundered. In Picardy, a discharged -carabineer put himself at the head of an armed band which attacked the -villages and carried off the corn. On all sides houses were looted from -roof to cellar. At Aupt, M. de Montferrat, defending himself, was "cut -into little pieces." At La Seyne, the mob brought a coffin in front of -the house of one of the principal burgesses; he was told to prepare for -death, and they would do him the honour to bury him. He escaped, and his -house was sacked. We cull these facts haphazard from among hundreds of -others. - -The immediate neighbourhood of Paris was plunged in terror. The batches -of letters, still unpublished, preserved in the National Archives throw -the most vivid light on this point. Bands of armed vagabonds scoured the -country districts, pillaging the villages and plundering the crops. -These were the "Brigands," a term which constantly recurs in the -documents, and more and more frequently as we approach the 14th of July. -These armed bands numbered three, four, five hundred men. At Cosne, at -Orleans, at Rambouillet, it was the same story of raids on the corn. In -different localities of the environs of Paris, the people organized -themselves on a military basis. Armed burghers patrolled the streets -against the "brigands." From all sides the people rained on the king -demands for troops to protect them. Towns like Versailles, in dread of -an invasion by these ruffians, implored the king for protection: the -letters of the municipal council preserved in the National Archives are -in the highest degree instructive. - -At this moment there had collected in the outskirts of Paris those -troops whose presence was in the sequel so skilfully turned to account -by the orators of the Palais-Royal. True, the presence of the troops -made them uneasy. So far were the soldiers from having designs against -the Parisians that in the secret correspondence of Villedeuil we find -the court constantly urging that they should be reserved for the -safeguarding of the adjoining districts, which were every day exposed to -attack, and for the safe conduct of the convoys of corn coming up to -Versailles and Paris. Bands mustered around the capital. In the first -weeks of May, near Villejuif, a troop of from five to six hundred -ruffians met intending to storm Bicêtre and march on Saint-Cloud. They -came from distances of thirty, forty, and fifty leagues, and the whole -mass surged around Paris and was swallowed up there as into a sewer. -During the last days of April the shopmen saw streaming through the -barriers "a terrific number of men, ill clad and of sinister aspect." By -the first days of May, it was noticed that the appearance of the mob had -altogether changed. There was now mingled with it "a number of strangers -from all the country parts, most of them in rags, and armed with huge -clubs, the mere aspect of them showing what was to be feared." In the -words of a contemporary, "one met such physiognomies as one never -remembered having seen in the light of day." To provide occupation for a -part of these ill-favoured unemployed, whose presence everybody felt to -be disquieting, workshops were constructed at Montmartre, where from -seventeen to eighteen thousand men were employed on improvised tasks at -twenty sous a day. - -Meanwhile the electors chosen to nominate deputies to the National -Assembly had been collecting. On April 22, 1789, Thiroux de Crosne, the -lieutenant of police, speaking of the tranquillity with which the -elections were being carried on, added: "But I constantly have my eye on -the bakers." - -On April 23, de Crosne referred to the irritation which was showing -itself among certain groups of workmen in the Suburb Saint-Antoine -against two manufacturers, Dominique Henriot, the saltpetre-maker, and -Réveillon, the manufacturer of wall-papers. Henriot was known, not only -for his intelligence, but for his kindliness; in years of distress he -had sacrificed a portion of his fortune for the support of the workmen; -as to Réveillon, he was at this date one of the most remarkable -representatives of Parisian industry. A simple workman to begin with, he -was in 1789 paying 200,000 livres a year in salaries to 300 workers; -shortly before, he had carried off the prize founded by Necker for the -encouragement of useful arts. Henriot and Réveillon were said to have -made offensive remarks against the workmen in the course of the recent -electoral assemblies. They both denied, however, having uttered the -remarks attributed to them, and there is every reason to believe that -their denials were genuine. - -During the night of April 27 and the next day, howling mobs attacked the -establishments of Henriot and Réveillon, which were thoroughly -plundered. Commissary Gueullette, in his report of May 3, notes that a -wild and systematic devastation was perpetrated. Only the walls were -left standing. What was not stolen was smashed into atoms. The -"brigands"--the expression used by the Commissary--threw a part of the -plant out of the windows into the street, where the mob made bonfires of -it. Part of the crowd were drunk; nevertheless they flung themselves -into the cellars, and the casks were stove in. When casks and bottles -were empty, the rioters attacked the flasks containing colouring -matter; this they absorbed in vast quantities, and reeled about with -fearful contortions, poisoned. When these cellars were entered next day, -they presented a horrible spectacle, for the wretches had come to -quarrelling and cutting each other's throats. "The people got on to the -roofs," writes Thiroux de Crosne, "whence they rained down upon the -troops a perfect hailstorm of tiles, stones, &c.; they even set rolling -down fragments of chimneys and bits of timber; and although they were -fired upon several times and some persons were killed, it was quite -impossible to master them." - -The riot was not quelled by the troops until 10 o'clock that night; more -than a hundred persons were left dead in the street. M. Alexandre Tuetey -has devoted some remarkable pages to Réveillon's affair; he has -carefully studied the interrogatories of rioters who were arrested. The -majority, he says, had been drunk all day. Réveillon, as is well known, -only found safety by taking refuge in the Bastille. He was the only -prisoner whom the Bastille received throughout the year 1789. - -In the night following these bacchanalian orgies, the agents of the -Marquis du Châtelet, colonel of the Gardes Françaises, having crept -along one of the moats, "saw a crowd of brigands" collected on the -further side of the Trône gate. Their leader was mounted on a table, -haranguing them. - -We come upon them again in the report of Commissary Vauglenne, quoted by -M. Alexandre Tuetey. "On April 29, Vauglenne took the depositions of -bakers, confectioners, and pork butchers of the Marais, who had been -robbed by veritable bands of highwaymen, who proceed by burglary and -violence; they may possibly be starving men, but they look and act -uncommonly like gentlemen of the road." - -Meanwhile, in the garden of the Palais-Royal, Camille Desmoulins was -haranguing groups of the unemployed and ravenous outcasts, who were -pressing round him with wide glaring eyes. Desmoulins vociferates: "The -beast is in the trap; now to finish him!... Never a richer prey has ever -been offered to conquerors! Forty thousand palaces, mansions, châteaux, -two-fifths of the wealth of France will be the prize of valour. Those -who have set up as our masters will be mastered in their turn, the -nation will be purged!" It is easy to understand that in Paris the alarm -had become as acute as in the country; everyone was in terror of the -"brigands." On June 25 it was decided to form a citizen militia for the -protection of property. "The notoriety of these disorders," we read in -the minutes of the electors, "and the excesses committed by several mobs -have decided the general assembly to re-establish without delay the -militia of Paris." But a certain time was necessary for the organization -of this civil guard. On June 30, the doors of the Abbaye, where some -Gardes Françaises had been locked up, some for desertion, others for -theft, were broken in by blows from hatchets and hammers. The prisoners -were led in triumph to the Palais-Royal, where they were fêted in the -garden. The extent of the disorders was already so great that the -government, powerless to repress them, had perforce to grant a general -pardon. From that day there was no longer any need to capture the -Bastille, the _ancien régime_ was lost. - -The disturbances at the Palais-Royal, the rendezvous of idlers, light -women, and hot-headed fools, were becoming ever more violent. They began -to talk of setting fire to the place. If some honest citizen plucked up -courage to protest he was publicly whipped, thrown into the ponds, and -rolled in the mud. - -On July 11, Necker was dismissed from the ministry and replaced by -Breteuil. At this time Necker was very popular; Breteuil was not, though -he ought to have been, particularly in the eyes of supporters of a -revolutionary movement. Of all the ministers of the _ancien régime_, and -of all the men of his time, Breteuil was the one who had done most for -the suppression of _lettres de cachet_ and of state prisons. It was he -who had closed Vincennes and the Châtimoine tower of Caen, who had got -the demolition of the Bastille decided on, who had set Latude at -liberty, and how many other prisoners! who had drawn up and made -respected, even in the remotest parts of the kingdom, those admirable -circulars which will immortalize his name, by which he ordered the -immediate liberation of all prisoners whose detention was not absolutely -justified, and laid down such rigorous formalities for the future, that -the arbitrary character of _lettres de cachet_ may be said to have been -destroyed by them. Nevertheless the orators of the Palais-Royal -succeeded in persuading many people that the advent of Breteuil to the -ministry presaged a "St. Bartholomew of patriots." The agitation became -so vehement, the calumnies against the court and the government were -repeated with so much violence, that the court, in order to avoid the -slightest risk of the outbreak of a "St. Bartholomew," ordered all the -troops to be withdrawn and Paris to be left to itself. - -Meanwhile, Camille Desmoulins was continuing to thunder forth: "I have -just sounded the people. My rage against the despots was turned to -despair. I did not see the crowds, although keenly moved and dismayed, -strongly enough disposed to insurrection.... I was rather lifted on to -the table than mounted there myself. Scarcely was I there than I saw -myself surrounded by an immense throng. Here is my short address, which -I shall never forget: 'Citizens! there is not a moment to lose. I come -from Versailles; M. Necker is dismissed; this dismissal is the alarm -bell of a St. Bartholomew of patriots; this evening all the Swiss and -German battalions will march from the Champ de Mars to cut our throats. -Only one resource remains to us: we must fly to arms!'" - -The Parisians were in an abject state of fright, but it was not the -Swiss and German battalions which terrified them. The author of the -_Memorable Fortnight_, devoted heart and soul as he was to the -revolutionary movement, acknowledges that during the days from the 12th -to the 14th of July, all respectable people shut themselves up in their -houses. And while the troops and decent people were retiring, the dregs -were coming to the surface. During the night of July 12, the majority of -the toll gates, where the town dues were collected, were broken open, -plundered, and set on fire. "Brigands," armed with pikes and clubs, -scoured the streets, threatening the houses in which the trembling and -agitated citizens had shut themselves. Next day, July 13, the shops of -the bakers and wine merchants were rifled. "Girls snatched the earrings -from women who went by; if the ring resisted, the ear was torn in two." -"The house of the lieutenant of police was ransacked, and Thiroux de -Crosne had the utmost difficulty in escaping from the bands armed with -clubs and torches. Another troop, with murderous cries, arrived at the -Force, where prisoners for debt were confined: the prisoners were set -free. The Garde-Meuble was ransacked. One gang broke in with their axes -the door of the Lazarists, smashed the library, the cupboards, the -pictures, the windows, the physical laboratory, dived into the cellar, -stove in the wine-casks and got gloriously drunk. Twenty-four hours -afterwards some thirty dead and dying were found there, men and women, -one of the latter on the point of childbirth. In front of the house the -street was full of débris and of brigands, who held in their hands, some -eatables, others a pitcher, forcing wayfarers to drink and filling for -all and sundry. Wine flowed in torrents." Some had possessed themselves -of ecclesiastical robes, which they put on, and in this attire yelled -and gesticulated down the street. In the minute books of the electors we -read at this date: "On information given to the committee that the -brigands who had been dispersed showed some disposition to reassemble -for the purpose of attacking and pillaging the Royal Treasury and the -Bank, the committee ordered these two establishments to be guarded." On -the same day, they luckily succeeded in disarming more than a hundred -and fifty of these roisterers, who, drunk with wine and brandy, had -fallen asleep inside the Hôtel de Ville. Meanwhile the outskirts of -Paris were no safer than the city itself, and from the top of the towers -of the Bastille they could see the conflagrations which were started in -various quarters. - -The organization of the citizen militia against these disorders was -becoming urgent. When evening came, the majority of the districts set -actively to work. Twelve hundred good citizens mustered in the Petit -Saint-Antoine district. It was a motley crew: tradesmen and artisans, -magistrates and doctors, writers and scholars, cheek by jowl with -navvies and carpenters. The future minister of Louis XVI., Champion de -Villeneuve, filled the post of secretary. The twelve hundred citizens, -as we read in the minutes, "compelled to unite by the too well founded -alarm inspired in all the citizens by the danger which seems to threaten -them each individually, and by the imminent necessity of taking prompt -measures to avert its effects, considering that a number of -individuals, terrified perhaps by the rumours which doubtless -evil-disposed persons have disseminated, are traversing, armed and in -disorder, all the streets of the capital, and that the ordinary town -guard either mingles with them or remains a passive spectator of the -disorder it cannot arrest; considering also that the prison of the Force -has been burst into and opened for the prisoners, and that it is -threatened to force open in the same way the prisons which confine -vagabonds, vagrants, and convicts ... in consequence, the assembled -citizens decide to organize themselves into a citizen militia. Every man -will carry while on duty whatever arms he can procure, save and except -pistols, which are forbidden as dangerous weapons.... There will always -be two patrols on duty at a time, and two others will remain at the -place fixed for headquarters." Most of the other districts imitated the -proceedings of the Petit-Saint-Antoine. They sent delegates to the Hôtel -des Invalides to ask for arms. The delegates were received by Besenval, -who would have been glad to grant them what they requested; but he must -have proper instructions. He writes in his _Memoirs_ that the delegates -were in a great state of fright, saying that the "brigands" were -threatening to burn and pillage their houses. The author of the -_Memorable Fortnight_ dwells on the point that the militia of Paris was -formed in self-defence against the excesses of the brigands. Speaking of -the minute book of the Petit-Saint-Antoine district, an excellent -authority, M. Charavay, writes: "The burgesses of Paris, less alarmed -at the plans of the court than at the men to whom the name of _brigands_ -had already been given, organized themselves into a militia to resist -them: that was their only aim. The movement which on the next day swept -away the Bastille might perhaps have been repressed by the National -Guard if its organization had had greater stability." The fact could not -have been better put. - -The Hôtel de Ville was attacked, and one of the electors, Legrand, only -cleared it of the hordes who were filling it with their infernal uproar -by ordering six barrels of powder to be brought up, and threatening to -blow the place up if they did not retire. - -During the night of July 13, the shops of the bakers and wine-sellers -were pillaged. The excellent Abbé Morellet, one of the Encyclopædists, -who, as we have seen, was locked up in the Bastille under Louis XV., -writes: "I spent a great part of the night of the 13th at my windows, -watching the scum of the population armed with muskets, pikes, and -skewers, as they forced open the doors of the houses and got themselves -food and drink, money and arms." Mathieu Dumas also describes in his -_Souvenirs_ these ragged vagabonds, several almost naked, and with -horrible faces. During these two days and nights, writes Bailly, Paris -ran great risk of pillage, and was only saved by the National Guard. - -The proceedings of these bandits and the work of the National Guard are -described in a curious letter from an English doctor, named Rigby, to -his wife. "It was necessary not only to give arms to those one could -rely on, but to disarm those of whom little protection could be expected -and who might become a cause of disorder and harm. This required a good -deal of skill. Early in the afternoon we began to catch a glimpse here -and there among the swarms of people, where we saw signs of an -irritation which might soon develop into excesses, of a man of decent -appearance, carrying a musket with a soldierly air. These slowly but -surely increased in number; their intention was evidently to pacify and -at the same time to disarm the irregular bands. They had for the most -part accomplished their task before nightfall. Then the citizens who had -been officially armed occupied the streets almost exclusively: they were -divided into several sections, some mounting guard at certain points, -others patrolling the streets, all under the leadership of captains. -When night came, only very few of those who had armed themselves the -evening before could be seen. Some, however, had refused to give up -their arms, and during the night it was seen how well founded had been -the fears they had inspired, for they started to pillage. But it was too -late to do so with impunity. The looters were discovered and seized, and -we learnt next morning that several of these wretches, taken redhanded, -had been executed." Indeed, the repressive measures of the citizens were -not wanting in energy. Here and there brigands were strung up to the -lamp-posts, and then despatched, as they hung there, with musket shots. - -The author of the _Authentic History_, who left the best of the -contemporary accounts of the taking of the Bastille which we possess, -says rightly enough: "The riot began on the evening of July 12." There -was thus a combination of disorders and "brigandage" in which the -capture of the Bastille, though it stands out more prominently than the -other events, was only a part, and cannot be considered by itself. - -The morning of the Fourteenth dawned bright and sunny. A great part of -the population had remained up all night, and daylight found them still -harassed with anxiety and alarm. To have arms was the desire of all; the -citizens and supporters of order, so as to protect themselves; the -brigands, a part of whom had been disarmed, in order to procure or -recover the means of assault and pillage. There was a rush to the -Invalides, where the magazines of effective arms were. This was the -first violent action of the day. The mob carried off 28,000 muskets and -twenty-four cannon. And as it was known that other munitions of war were -deposited in the Bastille, the cry of "To the Invalides!" was succeeded -by the cry "To the Bastille!" - -We must carefully distinguish between the two elements of which the -throng flocking to the Bastille was composed. On the one hand, a horde -of nameless vagabonds, those whom the contemporary documents invariably -style the "brigands"; and, on the other hand, the respectable -citizens--these certainly formed the minority--who desired arms for the -equipment of the civil guard. The sole motive impelling this band to -the Bastille was the wish to procure arms. On this point all documents -of any value and all the historians who have studied the matter closely -are in agreement. There was no question of liberty or of tyranny, of -setting free the prisoners or of protesting against the royal authority. -The capture of the Bastille was effected amid cries of "Vive le roi!" -just as, for several months past in the provinces, the granaries had -been plundered. - -About 8 o'clock in the morning, the electors at the Hôtel de Ville -received some inhabitants of the Suburb Saint-Antoine who came to -complain that the district was threatened by the cannon trained on it -from the towers of the Bastille. These cannon were used for firing -salutes on occasions of public rejoicing, and were so placed that they -could do no harm whatever to the adjacent districts. But the electors -sent some of their number to the Bastille, where the governor, de -Launey, received the deputation with the greatest affability, kept them -to lunch, and at their request withdrew the cannon from the embrasures. -To this deputation there succeeded another, which, however, was quite -unofficial, consisting of three persons, with the advocate Thuriot de la -Rosière at the head. They were admitted as their predecessors had been. -Thuriot was the eloquent spokesman, "in the name of the nation and the -fatherland." He delivered an ultimatum to the governor and harangued the -garrison, consisting of 95 Invalides and 30 Swiss soldiers. Some -thousand men were thronging round the Bastille, vociferating wildly. The -garrison swore not to fire unless they were attacked. De Launey said -that without orders he could do no more than withdraw the cannon from -the embrasures, but he went so far as to block up these embrasures with -planks. Then Thuriot took his leave and returned to the Hôtel de Ville, -the crowd meanwhile becoming more and more threatening. - -[Illustration: THE CAPTURE OF THE BASTILLE. - -_From an anonymous contemporary painting now in the Hôtel Carnavalet._] - -"The entrance to the first courtyard, that of the barracks, was open," -says M. Fernand Bournon in his admirable account of the events of this -day; "but de Launey had ordered the garrison to retire within the -enclosure, and to raise the outer drawbridge by which the court of the -governor was reached, and which in the ordinary way used to be lowered -during the day. Two daring fellows dashed forward and scaled the roof of -the guard-house, one of them a soldier named Louis Tournay: the name of -the other is unknown. They shattered the chains of the drawbridge with -their axes, and it fell." - -It has been said in a recent work, in which defects of judgment and -criticism are scarcely masked by a cumbrous parade of erudition, that -Tournay and his companion performed their feat under the fire of the -garrison. At this moment the garrison did not fire a single shot, -contenting themselves with urging the besiegers to retire. "While M. de -Launey and his officers contented themselves with threats, these two -vigorous champions succeeded in breaking in the doors and in lowering -the outer drawbridge; then the horde of brigands advanced in a body and -dashed towards the second bridge, which they wished to capture, firing -at the troops as they ran. It was then for the first time that M. de -Launey, perceiving his error in allowing the operations at the first -bridge to be managed so quietly, ordered the soldiers to fire, which -caused a disorderly stampede on the part of the rabble, which was more -brutal than brave; and it is at this point that the calumnies against -the governor begin. Transposing the order of events, it has been -asserted that he had sent out a message of peace, that the people had -advanced in reliance on his word, and that many citizens were -massacred." This alleged treachery of de Launey, immediately hawked -about Paris, was one of the events of the day. It is contradicted not -only by all the accounts of the besieged, but by the besiegers -themselves, and is now rejected by all historians. - -A wine-seller named Cholat, aided by one Baron, nicknamed La Giroflée, -had brought into position a piece of ordnance in the long walk of the -arsenal. They fired, but the gun's recoil somewhat seriously wounded the -two artillerymen, and they were its only victims. As these means were -insufficient to overturn the Bastille, the besiegers set about devising -others. A pretty young girl named Mdlle. de Monsigny, daughter of the -captain of the company of Invalides at the Bastille, had been -encountered in the barrack yard. Some madmen imagined that she was -Mdlle. de Launey. They dragged her to the edge of the moat, and gave the -garrison to understand by their gestures that they were going to burn -her alive if the place was not surrendered. They had thrown the unhappy -child, who had fainted, upon a mattress, to which they had already set -light. M. de Monsigny saw the hideous spectacle from a window of the -towers, and, desperately rushing down to save his child, he was killed -by two shots. These were tricks in the siege of strongholds of which -Duguesclin would never have dreamed. A soldier named Aubin Bonnemère -courageously interposed and succeeded in saving the girl. - -A detachment of Gardes Françaises, coming up with two pieces of -artillery which the Hôtel de Ville had allowed to be removed, gave a -more serious aspect to the siege. But the name of Gardes Françaises must -not give rise to misapprehension: the soldiers of the regular army under -the _ancien régime_ must not be compared with those of the present day. -The regiment of Gardes Françaises in particular had fallen into a -profound state of disorganization and degradation. The privates were -permitted to follow a trade in the city, by this means augmenting their -pay. It is certain that in the majority of cases the trade they followed -was that of the bully. "Almost all the soldiers in the Guards belong to -this class," we read in the _Encyclopédie méthodique_, "and many men -indeed only enlist in the corps in order to live on the earnings of -these unfortunates." The numerous documents relating to the Gardes -Françaises preserved in the archives of the Bastille give the most -precise confirmation to this statement. We see, for example, that the -relatives of the engraver Nicolas de Larmessin requested a _lettre de -cachet_ ordering their son to be locked up in jail, where they would pay -for his keep, "because he had threatened to enlist in the Gardes -Françaises." - -From the fifteen cannon placed on the towers, not a single shot was -fired during the siege. Within the château, three guns loaded with grape -defended the inner drawbridge; the governor had only one of them fired, -and that only once. Not wishing to massacre the mob, de Launey -determined to blow up the Bastille and find his grave among the ruins. -The Invalides Ferrand and Béquart flung themselves upon him to prevent -him from carrying out his intention. "The Bastille was not captured by -main force," says Elie, whose testimony cannot be suspected of -partiality in favour of the defenders; "it surrendered before it was -attacked, on my giving my word of honour as a French officer that all -should escape unscathed if they submitted." - -We know how this promise was kept, in spite of the heroic efforts of -Elie and Hulin, to whom posterity owes enthusiastic homage. Is the mob -to be reproached for these atrocious crimes? It was a savage horde, the -scum of the population. De Launey, whose confidence and kindness had -never faltered, was massacred with every circumstance of horror. "The -Abbé Lefèvre," says Dusaulx, "was an involuntary witness of his last -moments: 'I saw him fall,' he told me, 'without being able to help him; -he defended himself like a lion, and if only ten men had behaved as he -did at the Bastille, it would not have been taken.'" His murderers -slowly severed his head from his trunk with a penknife. The operation -was performed by a cook's apprentice named Desnot, "who knew, as he -afterwards proudly said, how to manage a joint." The deposition of this -brute should be read. It has been published by M. Guiffrey in the _Revue -historique_. To give himself courage, Desnot had gulped down brandy -mixed with gunpowder, and he added that what he had done was done in the -hope of obtaining a medal. - -"We learnt by-and-by," continues Dusaulx, "of the death of M. de -Losme-Salbray, which all good men deplored." De Losme had been the good -angel of the prisoners during his term of office as major of the -Bastille: there are touching details showing to what lengths he carried -his kindliness and delicacy of feeling. At the moment when the mob was -hacking at him, there happened to pass the Marquis de Pelleport, who had -been imprisoned in the Bastille for several years; he sprang forward to -save him: "Stop!" he cried, "you are killing the best of men." But he -fell badly wounded, as also did the Chevalier de Jean, who had joined -him in the attempt to rescue the unfortunate man from the hands of the -mob. The adjutant Miray, Person the lieutenant of the Invalides, and -Dumont, one of the Invalides, were massacred. Miray was led to the -Grève, where the mob had resolved to execute him. Struck with fists and -clubs, stabbed with knives, he crawled along in his death agony. He -expired, "done to death with pin-pricks," before arriving at the place -of execution. The Invalides Asselin and Béquart were hanged. It was -Béquart who had prevented de Launey from blowing up the Bastille. "He -was gashed with two sword-strokes," we read in the _Moniteur_, "and a -sabre cut had lopped off his wrist. They carried the hand in triumph -through the streets of the city--the very hand to which so many citizens -owed their safety." "After I had passed the arcade of the Hôtel de -Ville," says Restif de la Bretonne, who has left so curious a page about -the 14th of July, "I came upon some cannibals: one--I saw him with my -own eyes--brought home to me the meaning of a horrible word heard so -often since: he was carrying at the end of a _taille-cime_[56] the -bleeding entrails of a victim of the mob's fury, and this horrible -top-knot caused no one to turn a hair. Farther on I met the captured -Invalides and Swiss: from young and pretty lips--I shudder at it -still--came screams of 'Hang them! Hang them!'" - -Further, they massacred Flesselles, the provost of the guilds, accused -of a treacherous action as imaginary as that of de Launey. They cut the -throat of Foulon, an old man of seventy-four years, who, as Taine tells -us, had spent during the preceding winter 60,000 francs in order to -provide the poor with work. They assassinated Berthier, one of the -distinguished men of the time. Foulon's head was cut off; they tore -Berthier's heart from his body to carry it in procession through -Paris--charming touch!--in a bouquet of white carnations. For the fun -was growing fast and furious. De Launey's head was borne on a pike to -the Palais Royal, then to the new bridge, where it was made to do -obeisance three times to the statue of Henri IV., with the words, -"Salute thy master!" At the Palais Royal, two of the conquerors had -merrily set themselves down at a dining-table in an entresol. As we -garnish our tables with flowers, so these men had placed on the table a -trunkless head and gory entrails; but as the crowd below cried out for -them, they shot them gaily out of the window. - -Those who had remained in front of the Bastille had dashed on in quest -of booty. As at the pillage of the warehouses of Réveillon and Henriot, -and of the convent of the Lazarists, the first impulse of the conquerors -was to bound forward to the cellar. "This rabble," writes the author of -the _Authentic History_, "were so blind drunk that they made in one body -for the quarters of the staff, breaking the furniture, doors, and -windows. All this time their comrades, taking the pillagers for some of -the garrison, were firing on them." - -No one gave a thought to the prisoners, but the keys were secured and -carried in triumph through Paris. The doors of the rooms in which the -prisoners were kept had to be broken in. The wretched men, terrified by -the uproar, were more dead than alive. These victims of arbitrary power -were exactly seven in number. Four were forgers, Béchade, Laroche, La -Corrège, and Pujade; these individuals had forged bills of exchange, to -the loss of two Parisian bankers: while their case was being dealt with -in regular course at the Châtelet, they were lodged in the Bastille, -where they consulted every day with their counsel. Then there was the -young Comte de Solages, who was guilty of monstrous crimes meriting -death; he was kept in the Bastille out of regard for his family, who -defrayed his expenses. Finally there were two lunatics, Tavernier and de -Whyte. We know what immense progress has been made during the past -century in the methods of treating lunatics. In those days they locked -them up. Tavernier and de Whyte were before long transferred to -Charenton, where assuredly they were not so well treated as they had -been at the Bastille. - -Such were the seven martyrs who were led in triumphant procession -through the streets, amid the shouts of a deeply moved people. - -Of the besiegers, ninety-eight dead were counted, some of whom had met -their death through the assailants' firing on one another. Several had -been killed by falling into the moat. Of this total, only nineteen were -married, and only five had children. These are details of some interest. - -There was no thought of burying either the conquerors or the conquered. -At midnight on Wednesday the 15th, the presence of the corpses of the -officers of the Bastille, still lying in the Place de Grève, was -notified to the commissaries of the Châtelet. In his admirable work M. -Furnand Bournon has published the ghastly report that was drawn up on -that night. It is a fitting crown to the work of the great day: "We, the -undersigned commissaries, duly noted down the declaration of the said -Sieur Houdan, and having then gone down into the courtyard of the -Châtelet (whither the corpses had just been carried), we found there -seven corpses of the male sex, the first without a head, clothed in a -coat, vest, breeches, and black silk stockings, with a fine shirt, but -no shoes; the second also without a head, clothed in a vest of red -stuff, breeches of nankeen with regimental buttons, blue silk stockings -with a small black pattern worked in; the third also headless, clothed -in a shirt, breeches, and white cotton stockings; the fourth also -headless, clothed in a blood-stained shirt, breeches, and black -stockings; the fifth clad in a shirt, blue breeches, and white gaiters, -with brown hair, apparently about forty years old, and having part of -his forearm cut off and severe bruises on his throat; the sixth clothed -in breeches and white gaiters, with severe bruises on his throat; and -the seventh, clothed in a shirt, breeches, and black silk stockings, -disfigured beyond recognition." - -Meanwhile the majority of the victors, the first moments of intoxication -having passed, were hiding themselves like men who had committed a -crime. The disorder in the city was extreme. "The commissioners of the -districts," writes the Sicilian ambassador, "seeing the peril in which -the inhabitants were placed before this enormous number of armed men, -including brigands and men let out of prison on the previous days, -formed patrols of the National Guard. They proclaimed martial law, or -rather, they issued one solitary law declaring that whoever robbed or -set fire to a house would be hanged. Indeed, not a day passed without -five and even as many as ten persons suffering this penalty. To this -salutary expedient we owe our lives and the safety of our houses." - -More than one conqueror of the Bastille was hanged in this way, which -was a great pity, for two days later his glorious brow might have been -crowned with laurels and flowers! - -It has been said that the Bastille was captured by the people of Paris. -But the number of the besiegers amounted to no more than a thousand, -among whom, as Marat has already brought to our notice, there were many -provincials and foreigners. As to the Parisians, they had come in great -numbers, as they always do, to see what was going on. We have this too -on the testimony of Marat. "I was present at the taking of the -Bastille," writes the Chancellor de Pasquier also: "what has been called -the 'fight' was not serious, and of resistance there was absolutely -none. A few musket shots were fired to which there was no reply, and -four or five cannon shots. We know the results of this boasted victory, -which has brought a shower of compliments upon the heads of the -so-called conquerors: the truth is that this great fight did not give a -moment's uneasiness to the numerous spectators who had hurried up to see -the result. Among them there was many a pretty woman; they had left -their carriages at a distance in order to approach more easily. I was -leaning on the end of the barrier which closed in the garden skirting -Beaumarchais' garden in the direction of the Place de la Bastille. By my -side was Mdlle. Contat, of the Comédie Française: we stayed to the end, -and I gave her my arm to her carriage. As pretty as any woman could be, -Mdlle. Contat added to the graces of her person an intelligence of the -most brilliant order." - -By next day there was quite another story. The Bastille had been -"stormed" in a formidable and heroic assault lasting a quarter of an -hour. The guns of the assailants had made a breach in its walls. These, -it is true, were still standing intact; but that did not signify, the -guns had made a breach, unquestionably! The seven prisoners who had been -set free had been a disappointment, for the best will in the world could -not make them anything but scoundrels and lunatics; some one invented an -eighth, the celebrated Comte de Lorges, the white-headed hero and -martyr. This Comte de Lorges had no existence; but that fact also is -nothing to the purpose: he makes an admirable and touching story. There -was talk of instruments of torture that had been discovered: "an iron -corslet, invented to hold a man fast by all his joints, and fix him in -eternal immobility:" it was really a piece of knightly armour dating -from the middle ages, taken from the magazine of obsolete arms which was -kept at the Bastille. Some one discovered also a machine "not less -destructive, which was brought to the light of day, but no one could -guess its name or its special use"; it was a secret printing-press -seized in the house of one François Lenormand in 1786. Finally, while -digging in the bastion, some one came upon the bones of Protestants who -had once been buried there, the prejudices of the time not allowing -their remains to be laid in the consecrated ground of the cemetery: the -vision of secret executions in the deepest dungeons of the Bastille was -conjured up in the mind of the discoverers, and Mirabeau sent these -terrible words echoing through France: "The ministers were lacking in -foresight, they forgot to eat the bones!" - -The compilation of the roll of the conquerors of the Bastille was a -laborious work. A great number of those who had been in the thick of the -fray did not care to make themselves known: they did not know but that -their laurel-crowned heads might be stuck aloft! It is true that these -bashful heroes were speedily replaced by a host of fine fellows -who--from the moment when it was admitted that the conquerors were -heroes, deserving of honours, pensions, and medals--were fully persuaded -that they had sprung to the assault, and in the very first rank. The -final list contained 863 names. - -Victor Fournel in a charming book has sung the epic, at once ludicrous -and lachrymose, of the men of the 14th of July. The book, which ought to -be read, gives a host of delightful episodes it is impossible to -abridge. In the sequel these founders of liberty did not shine either -through the services they rendered to the Republic, or through their -fidelity to the immortal principles. The Hulins--Hulin, however, had -done nobly in trying to save de Launey--the Palloys, the Fourniers, the -Latudes, and how many others! were the most servile lackeys of the -Empire, and those of them who survived were the most assiduous servants -of the Restoration. Under the Empire, the conquerors of the Bastille -tried to secure the Legion of Honour for the whole crew. They went about -soliciting pensions even up to 1830, and at that date, after forty-three -years, there were still 401 conquerors living. In 1848 the conquerors -made another appearance. There was still mention of pensions for the -conquerors of the Bastille in the budget of 1874--let us save the -ladder, the ladder of Latude! - -This is the amusing side of their story. But there is a painful side -too: their rivalries with the Gardes Françaises, who charged them with -filching the glory from them, and with the "volunteers of the Bastille." -The heroes were acquainted with calumny and opprobrium. There were, too, -deadly dissensions among their own body. There were the true conquerors, -and others who, while they were true conquerors, were nevertheless not -true: there were always "traitors" among the conquerors, as well as -"patriots." On July 1, 1790, two of the conquerors were found beaten to -death near Beaumarchais' garden, in front of the theatre of their -exploits. Next day there was a violent quarrel between four conquerors -and some soldiers. In December two others were assassinated near the -Champs de Mars. Early in 1791 two were wounded, and a third was -discovered with his neck in a noose, in a ditch near the military -school. Such were the nocturnal doings on the barriers. - -It remains to explain this amazing veering round of opinion, this -legend, of all things the least likely, which transformed into great men -the "brigands" of April, June, and July, 1789. - -The first reason is explained in the following excellent passage from -_Rabagas_[57]:-- - - _Carle._--But how then do you distinguish a riot from a revolution? - - _Boubard._--A riot is when the mob is defeated ... they are all - curs. A revolution is when the mob is the stronger: they are all - heroes! - -During the night of July 14, the Duke de la Rochefoucauld woke Louis -XVI. to announce to him the capture of the Bastille. "It's a revolt -then," said the king. "Sire," replied the duke, "it is a revolution." - -The day on which the royal power, in its feebleness and irresolution, -abandoned Paris to the mob, was the day of its abdication. The Parisians -attempted to organize themselves into a citizen militia in order to -shoot down the brigands. The movement on the Bastille was a stroke of -genius on the part of the latter--instinctive, no doubt, but for all -that a stroke of genius. The people now recognized its masters, and with -its usual facility it hailed the new régime with adulation. "From that -moment," said a deputy, "there was an end of liberty, even in the -Assembly; France was dumb before thirty factionaries." - -What rendered the national enthusiasm for the conquerors more easy was -precisely all those legends to which credence was given, in all -sincerity, by the most intelligent people in France--the legends on the -horrors of the Bastille and the cruelties of arbitrary power. For fifty -years they had been disseminated throughout the kingdom, and had taken -firm root. The pamphlets of Linguet and Mirabeau, the recent stupendous -success of the _Memoirs of Latude_, had given these stories renewed -strength and vigour. Compelled to bow before the triumphant mob, people -preferred to regard themselves--so they silenced their conscience--as -hailing a deliverer. There was some sincerity in this movement of -opinion, too. The same districts which on July 13 took arms against the -brigands could exclaim, after the crisis had passed: "The districts -applaud the capture of a fortress which, regarded hitherto as the seat -of despotism, dishonoured the French name under a popular king." - -In his edition of the _Memoirs of Barras_, M. George Duruy has well -explained the transformation of opinion. "In the _Memoirs_, the capture -of the Bastille is merely the object of a brief and casual mention. -Barras only retained and transmits to us one single detail. He saw -leaving the dungeons the 'victims of arbitrary power, saved at last from -rack and torture and from living tombs.' Such a dearth of information is -the more likely to surprise us in that Barras was not only a spectator -of the event, but composed, in that same year 1789, an account of it -which has now been discovered. Now his narrative of 1789 is as -interesting as the passage in the _Memoirs_ is insignificant. The -impression left by these pages, written while the events were vividly -pictured in his mind, is, we are bound to say, that the famous capture -of the Bastille was after all only a horrible and sanguinary saturnalia. -There is no word of heroism in this first narrative: nothing about -'victims of arbitrary power' snatched from 'torture and living tombs'; -but on the other hand, veritable deeds of cannibalism perpetrated by the -victors. That is what Barras saw, and what he recorded on those pages -where, at that period of his life, he noted down day by day the events -of which he was a witness. Thirty years slip by. Barras has sat on the -benches of the 'Montagne.'[58] He has remained an inflexible -revolutionist. He gathers his notes together in view of _Memoirs_ he -intends to publish. At this time, the revolutionist version of the -capture of the Bastille is officially established. It is henceforth -accepted that the Bastille fell before an impulse of heroism on the part -of the people of Paris, and that its fall brought to light horrible -mysteries of iniquity. This legend, which has so profoundly distorted -the event, was contemporary with the event itself, a spontaneous fruit -of the popular imagination. And Barras, having to speak of the capture -in his _Memoirs_, discovers his old narrative among his papers, and -reads it, I imagine, with a sort of stupefaction. What! the capture of -the Bastille was no more than that!--and he resolutely casts it aside." - -In the provinces, the outbreak had a violent counterpart. "There -instantly arose," writes Victor Fournel, "a strange, extraordinary, -grotesque panic, which swept through the greater part of France like a -hurricane of madness, and which many of us have heard our grand-fathers -tell stories about under the name of the 'day of the brigands' or 'the -day of the fear.' It broke out everywhere in the second fortnight of -July, 1789. Suddenly, one knew not whence, an awful rumour burst upon -the town or village: the brigands are here, at our very gates: they are -advancing in troops of fifteen or twenty thousand, burning the standing -crops, ravaging everything! Dust-stained couriers appear, spreading the -terrible news. An unknown horseman goes through at the gallop, with -haggard cheeks and dishevelled hair: 'Up, to arms, they are here!' Some -natives rush up: it is only too true: they have seen them, the bandits -are no more than a league or two away! The alarm bell booms out, the -people fly to arms, line up in battle order, start off to reconnoitre. -In the end, nothing happens, but their terrors revive. The brigands have -only turned aside: every man must remain under arms." In the frontier -provinces, there were rumours of foreign enemies. The Bretons and -Normans shook in fear of an English descent: in Champagne and Lorraine -a German invasion was feared. - -Along with these scenes of panic must be placed the deeds of violence, -the assassinations, plunderings, burnings, which suddenly desolated the -whole of France. In a book which sheds a flood of light on these facts, -Gustave Bord gives a thrilling picture of them. The châteaux were -invaded, and the owner, if they could lay hands on him, was roasted on -the soles of his feet. At Versailles the mob threw themselves on the -hangman as he was about to execute a parricide, and the criminal was set -free: the state of terror in which the town was plunged is depicted in -the journals of the municipal assembly. On July 23, the governor of -Champagne sends word that the rising is general in his district. At -Rennes, at Nantes, at Saint-Malo, at Angers, at Caen, at Bordeaux, at -Strasburg, at Metz, the mob engaged in miniature captures of the -Bastille more or less accompanied with pillage and assassination. Armed -bands went about cutting down the woods, breaking down the dikes, -fishing in the ponds.[59] The disorganization was complete. - -Nothing could more clearly show the character of the government under -the _ancien régime:_ it was wholly dependent on traditions. Nowhere was -there a concrete organization to secure the maintenance of order and -the enforcement of the king's decrees. France was a federation of -innumerable republics, held together by a single bond, the sentiment of -loyalty every citizen felt towards the crown. One puff of wind sent the -crown flying, and then disorder and panic bewilderment dominated the -whole nation. The door was open to all excesses, and the means of -checking them miserably failed. Under the _ancien régime_, devotion to -the king was the whole government, the whole administration, the whole -life of the state. And thus arose the necessity for the domination of -the Terror, and the legislative work of Napoleon. - -THE END. - - - - -INDEX - - -Allègre, Latude's fellow prisoner, 154, 185-192, 217. - -Ameilhon, city librarian, 55. - -Argenson, D', 60, 72, 95, 175, 182. - -Arsenal library, 55, 56. - -Atrocities of the mob, 258-266. - -Avedick, Armenian patriarch, 133. - - -Barras, 272. - -Bastille, its situation, 47; - appearance, 48; - repute, 49, 50; - archives, 50-56; - origin, 57; - site, 58; - construction, 59, 60; - additions to, 61; - appearance in later days, 61, 62; - early uses, 63; - becomes state prison, 63, 64; - prisoners, 65; - its administration, 66; - gradual transformation, 67; - character of prisoners, 68, 69; - secretary, 70; - office of lieutenant of police, 71; - his duties, 71, 72; - becomes like modern prisons, 77, 78; - abolition of torture, 78; - duration of prisoners' detention, 80; - expenses, 81; - plans for altering, 81-83; - a _prison de luxe_, 85; - treatment of prisoners, 86; - the rooms, 87; - manner of prisoners' entrance, 88, 89; - cells, 92, 93; - tower rooms, 93, 94; - furniture, 95, 96; - examination of prisoners, 96, 97; - indemnified if innocent, 98, 99; - allowed companions, 100, 101; - prison fare, 102-107; - clothes, 107, 108; - books, 108, 109; - exercise, 109; - diversions, 109, 110; - funerals, 110, 111; - liberation, 111, 112; - the Iron Mask, 114-146; - men of letters, 147-165; - capture, 238-272. - -Berryer, 175, 176, 178, 184, 188, 189, 193. - -Besmaus, de, 70. - -Binguet, 171, 179. - -Bread riots, 242, 243. - -Breteuil, 78, 248. - -Brigands, 241, 245, 250. - -Burgaud, 135. - - -Campan, Madame de, 144, 145. - -Carutti's theory of Iron Mask, 134. - -Cellamare conspiracy, 72, 73. - -Character of French government and society, 239-241. - -Chevalier, major, 49, 51, 120, 121, 187, 189, 194. - -Citizen militia, 251-253. - -Clothes of prisoners, 107, 108. - -Crosne, de, lieutenant of police, 244-246. - - -D'Aubrespy, Jeanneton, 169, 201. - -Dauger suggested as Iron Mask, 135. - -Desmoulins, 247, 249. - -Diderot, 165. - -Diversions of prisoners, 109, 110. - -Du Junca's journal, 69, 89, 90, 114-116, 122. - -Dusaulx, 51. - - -Encyclopædia, 80. - -Estrades, Abbé d', 138-142. - - -Food of prisoners, 102-107. - -Funerals, 110. - - -Games of prisoners, 101, 102. - -Gleichen, baron, 130. - -Griffet, Father, 120. - - -Heiss, Baron, first to suggest true solution of Iron Mask, 136. - -Henriot, 245. - -Houdon, sculptor, 82. - - -July 14th, 255-276. - -Jung's theory of Iron Mask, 134. - - -Kingston, Duchess of, 225, 227. - - -La Beaumelle, 152-155. - -Lagrange-Chancel, 132. - -La Reynie, 71. - -Latude, 168-237. - -Launay, Mdlle. de, _see_ Staal, Madame de. - -Launey, de, governor, 256, 258, 260. - -Lauzun, 91. - -Legros, Madame de, 223-226, 232, 233. - -Lenoir, lieutenant of police, 186. - -_Lettres de cachet_, 240. - -Lieutenancy of police created, 97. - -Linguet, 163-165. - -Loiseleur's theory of Iron Mask, 134. - -Loquin's theory of Iron Mask, 133. - -Losme, de, 261. - -Louis XIV. and Iron Mask, 137-140. - -Louis XV. and Iron Mask, 144. - -Louis XVI. and Iron Mask, 144. - -Louvois, 70, 141. - - -Maisonrouge, king's lieutenant, 73-76. - -Malesherbes, 78, 156, 216. - -Man in the Iron Mask, documents, 114-125; - legends, 125-136; - true solution, 136-146. - -Marmontel, 158-163. - -Mattioli, the Iron Mask, 136-146. - -Maurepas, 144, 173-175. - -Mirabeau, 166, 167. - -Morellet, 155-158, 253. - -Moyria, de, 218-220. - - -Necker, 248. - - -Palatine, Madame, 125. - -Palteau, M. de, 118, 119. - -Papon's theory of Iron Mask, 127. - -Parlement, 76, 77. - -Pensions to prisoners, 98, 99. - -Pompadour, Madame de, 173, 206. - -Pontchartrain, 69. - -Puget, king's lieutenant, 83. - - -Quesnay, Dr., 175, 177, 178. - - -Ravaisson, librarian, 54, 55, 134. - -Register of St. Paul's church, 117, 142, 143. - -Regnier's lines, 59. - -Renneville's meals, 103, 104. - -Réveillon, 245, 246. - -Ricarville, companion of the Iron Mask, 123, 124. - -Richelieu, Cardinal, 63-66. - -Richelieu, Duke de, 76, 129, 130. - -Rigby, Dr., 253, 254. - -Risings in the provinces, 273. - -Rochebrune, commissary, 195. - -Rohan, Cardinal de, 222. - - -Sade, Marquis de, 95. - -Saint-Mars, governor, 87, 115-119, 127, 142. - -Saint-Marc, detective, 169, 176, 180, 183, 192. - -Sartine, de, 49, 202, 203, 207, 210, 215. - -Sauvé, Madame de, her dress, 108. - -Solages, de, 84. - -Staal, Madame de, 73-76, 94, 95, 102. - - -Taulès, de, 132. - -Tavernier, 106. - -Theories on Iron Mask, 125-136. - -Thuriot de la Rosière, 256. - -Tirmont, companion of Iron Mask, 123, 124. - - -Vieux-Maisons, Madame de, 128. - -Villette, Marquis de, 224. - -Vinache's library, 109. - -Vincennes, 165-167, 180. - -Voltaire, 99, 126, 128, 129, 148-152. - -LONDON: - -GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, LD. - -ST. JOHN'S HOUSE, CLERKENWELL, E.C. - - * * * * * - -Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber: - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[1] The castle of Tours, 147 miles south-west of Paris, which Louis XI. -made his favourite residence. See Scott's _Quentin Durward_.--T. - -[2] Jean Balue (1471-1491), chaplain to Louis XI. For traitorously -divulging the king's schemes to his enemy, the Duke of Burgundy, he was -for eleven years shut up in the castle of Loches, in an iron-bound -wooden cage.--T. - -[3] A French author (1624-1693) who was involved in the fall of Louis -XIV.'s dishonest finance minister, Fouquet, in 1661, and was imprisoned -for five years in the Bastille, amusing himself with reading the Fathers -of the Church and taming a spider. See Kitchin's _History of France_, -iii. 155-157.--T. - -[4] Antoine de Caumont, duc de Lauzun (1633-1723), a courtier of Louis -XIV., whose favours to the Duke made Louvois, the minister, his bitter -enemy. He was twice imprisoned in the Bastille, the second time at the -instance of Madame de Montespan. He commanded the French auxiliaries of -James II. in Ireland. See Macaulay's _History_, Chaps. IX., XII., -XV.--T. - -[5] A game played with a sort of box, in the top of which are cut holes -of equal size, and with metal discs or balls, the object being to pitch -the balls into the holes from a distance. A similar game may be seen at -any English country fair.--T. - -[6] The famous president of the Cour des Aides and Minister of the -Interior, renowned for his consistent support of the people against -oppression. He was banished in 1771 for remonstrating against the abuses -of law; but returning to Paris to oppose the execution of Louis XVI., he -was guillotined in 1794.--T. - -[7] Antonio del Giudice, prince de Cellamare (1657-1733), the Spanish -ambassador, was the instigator of a plot against the Regent in 1718. See -Kitchin, _ib._ iii. 474.--T. - -[8] The Hôtel des Invalides, residence of pensioned soldiers, &c. still -a well-known building of Paris.--T. - -[9] A château, four miles east of Paris, notable as the place where St. -Louis, the royal lawgiver of France, dispensed justice. The _donjon_ -still exists, serving now as a soldier's barracks.--T. - -[10] One of the first prisons on the system of solitary confinement in -cells erected in Paris. It dates from 1850.--T. - -[11] The Abbé de Buquoy (1653-1740) owed his imprisonment originally to -having been found in company with dealers in contraband salt when the -_gabelle_, or salt-tax, compelled the French people to buy salt, whether -they wanted it or not, at a price _two thousand times_ its true value. -He was a man of very eccentric views, one of which was that woman was -man's chief evil, and that was why, when the patriarch Job was stripped -of children, flocks, herds, &c., his wife was left to him!--T. - -[12] The madhouse, eight miles east of Paris.--T. - -[13] A château originally outside Paris, now included in the city -itself, once used as a hospital and jail, now a hospital for aged and -indigent poor and for lunatics. The first experiments with the -guillotine were tried there.--T. - -[14] See _infra_, p. 83. - -[15] The title rôle in a comedy by Henri Mounier, entitled _Grandeur et -décadence de M. Joseph Prudhomme_ (1852). He is a writing-master, very -vain, given (like Mr. Micawber) to tall talk and long-winded periods. He -has become typical of "much cry and little wool." As an officer of the -National Guard he says, "This sabre constitutes the finest day in my -life! I accept it, and if ever I find myself at the head of your -phalanxes, I shall know how to use it in defence of our -institutions--and, if need arise, to fight for them!"--T. - -[16] In the early days of the Revolution, Paris was divided into -sections or wards, and as the _pike_ had played a great part in the -recent disturbances, one of the wards was known as the "Pike" -section.--T. - -[17] A disciple of the Marquis de Sade (see p. 35), a notorious -debauchee, whose book _Justine_ was a disgusting mixture of brutality -and obscenity.--T. - -[18] The pseudonym of Beffroy de Reigny (1757-1811), author of farces, -and of a _Précis historique de la prise de la Bastille_.--T. - -[19] The name given to the constitutional struggles of the nobles and -the Parlement of Paris against Mazarin and the royal power (1648-1654). -The name is derived from _fronde_, a sling. A wit of the Parlement, one -Bachaumont, "told the lawyers of that august body that they were like -schoolboys playing in the town ditches with their slings, who run away -directly the watchman appears, and begin again when his back is turned." -See Kitchin, iii. pp. 102-128.--T. - -[20] See _Monte-Cristo_.--T. - -[21] Delivered to the French Association for the Advancement of Science -in 1893. - -[22] The battle fought on August 10, 1557, in which Egmont with a -combined force of Spaniards, Flemish, and English (sent by Queen Mary) -routed Constable Montmorency and the finest chivalry of France. It was -in commemoration of this victory that Philip II. built the palace of the -Escurial, shaped like a gridiron because the battle was fought on St. -Lawrence's day.--T. - -[23] The following unpublished letter from Pontchartrain to Bernaville, -intimating his probable nomination as governor of the Bastille, shows -exactly what Louis XIV.'s government demanded of the head of the great -state prison:- - -"Versailles, September 28, 1707. - - "I have received your letter of yesterday. I can only repeat what I - have already written: to pay constant attention to what goes on in - the Bastille; to neglect none of the duties of a good governor; to - maintain order and discipline among the soldiers of the garrison, - seeing that they keep watch with all the necessary exactitude, and - that their wages are regularly paid; to take care that the - prisoners are well fed and treated with kindness, preventing them, - however, from having any communication with people outside and from - writing letters; finally, to be yourself especially prompt in - informing me of anything particular that may happen at the - Bastille. You will understand that in following such a line of - action you cannot but please the king, and perhaps induce him to - grant you the post of governor; on my part, you may count on my - neglecting no means of representing your services to His Majesty in - the proper light. - -"I am, &c., - -"PONTCHARTRAIN." - - - - - -[24] The appellation of the eldest brother of the reigning king.--T. - -[25] Under the _ancien régime_, there being no Minister of the Interior -(Home Secretary), each of the ministers (the War Minister, Minister for -Foreign Affairs, &c.) had a part of France under his charge. The -Minister of Paris was usually what we should call the Lord -Chamberlain.--T. - -[26] The court which up to the time of the Revolution was the seat of -justice, presided over by the Provost of Paris. It held its sittings in -the castle known as the Châtelet.--T. - -[27] A judicial, not a legislative body. It was constantly in antagonism -to the king.--T. - -[28] The famous Encyclopædia edited by D'Alembert and Diderot. It -occupied twenty years of the life of the latter, and went through many -vicissitudes; its free criticism of existing institutions provoking the -enmity of the government. Voltaire was one of its largest -contributors.--T. - -[29] This raised Linguet's indignation. "The consideration of this -enormous expense has given to some ministers, among others to M. Necker, -a notion of reform; if this should come to anything, it would be very -disgraceful to spring from no other cause. 'Suppress the Bastille out of -economy!' said on this subject, a few days ago, one of the youngest and -most eloquent orators of England." - -[30] The Hôtel Carnavalet, museum in Paris, where a large number of -documents and books are preserved relating to the history of the -city.--T. - -[31] It may be noted that the different escapes contributed to the -gradual tightening of the rules of the Bastille. After the escape of the -Comte de Bucquoy, such ornaments as the prisoners could attach cords to -were at once removed, and knives were taken from them; after the escape -of Allègre and Latude, bars of iron were placed in the chimneys, and so -forth. - -[32] The second of the four principal officers of the Bastille. The -officers were: (1) the governor; (2) the king's lieutenant; (3) the -major; (4) the adjutant. There was also a doctor, a surgeon, a -confessor, &c. The garrison consisted of Invalides.--T. - -[33] The most surprising instance is that of an Englishman, who returned -spontaneously from England to become a prisoner in the Bastille. "On -Thursday, May 22, 1693, at nightfall, M. de Jones, an Englishman, -returned from England, having come back to prison for reasons concerning -the king's service. He was located outside the château, in a little room -where M. de Besmaus keeps his library, above his office, and he is not -to appear for some days for his examination, and is to be taken great -care of."--Du Junca's Journal. - -[34] This was not the Lauzun already mentioned, but his nephew, Armand -Louis de Gontaut, duke de Biron (1747-1793), who was notorious -throughout Europe for his gallantries.--T. - -[35] An official of the royal council, whose function originally was to -examine and report on petitions to the king. He became a sort of -superior magistrate's clerk.--T. - -[36] "1751, March 2. I have received a letter from Dr. Duval (secretary -to the lieutenant of police), in which he tells me that M. Berryer -(lieutenant of police) is struck with the cost of the clothes supplied -to the prisoners for some time past; but, as you know, I only supply -things when ordered by M. Berryer, and I try to supply good clothes, so -that they may last and give the prisoners satisfaction."--Letter from -Rochebrune, commissary to the Bastille, to Major Chevalier. - -[37] These extracts are translated literally, in order to preserve the -clumsy constructions of the unlettered official.--T. - -[38] Step-sister of Louis XIV. The following extracts from her -correspondence show how, even in circles that might have been expected -to be well informed, the legend had already seized on people's -imaginations:-- - -"Marly, October 10, 1711. A man remained long years in the Bastille, and -has died there, masked. At his side he had two musketeers ready to kill -him if he took off his mask. He ate and slept masked. No doubt there was -some reason for this, for otherwise he was well treated and lodged, and -given everything he wished for. He went to communion masked; he was very -devout and read continually. No one has ever been able to learn who he -was." - -"Versailles, October 22, 1711. I have just learnt who the masked man -was, who died in the Bastille. His wearing a mask was not due to -cruelty. He was an English lord who had been mixed up in the affair of -the Duke of Berwick (natural son of James II.) against King William. He -died there so that the king might never know what became of him." - -[39] The insurgents who rose for the king against the Revolutionists in -Brittany: see Balzac's famous novel. The movement smouldered for a great -many years.--T. - -[40] The Gregorian calendar was abolished by the National Convention in -1793, who decreed that September 22, 1792, should be regarded as the -first day of a new era. The year was divided into twelve months, with -names derived from natural phenomena. Nivose (snowy) was the fourth of -these months. Thus, the period mentioned in the text includes from -December 21, 1800, to January 19, 1801.--T. - -[41] Since M. Funck-Brentano's book was published, his conclusions have -been corroborated by Vicomte Maurice Boutry in a study published in the -_Revue des Etudes historiques_ (1899, p. 172). The Vicomte furnishes an -additional proof. He says that the Duchess de Créquy, in the third book -of her _Souvenirs_, gives a _résumé_ of a conversation on the Iron Mask -between Marshal de Noailles, the Duchess de Luynes, and others, and -adds: "The most considerable and best informed persons of my time always -thought that the famous story had no other foundation than the capture -and captivity of the Piedmontese Mattioli."--T. - -[42] "I have seen these ills, and I am not twenty yet." - -[43] These verses were, of course, in Latin.--T. - -[44] Palissot was a dramatist and critic who in his comedy _Les -Philosophes_ had bitterly attacked Rousseau, Diderot, and the -Encyclopædists generally.--T. - -[45] The old prison of Paris. It was the debtors' prison, famous also -for the number of actors who were imprisoned there under the _ancien -régime_. It was demolished in 1780.--T. - -[46] "Not unto us, O Lord, but unto Thy name give glory! - -"Know our heart and search out our ways." - -[47] "The victory is won!"--T. - -[48] Charenton was under the direction of a religious order known as the -_Frères de la Charité_, who undertook the care of sick and weak-minded -poor.--T. - -[49] This was Elizabeth Chudleigh (1720-1788), the notorious beauty who -privately married the Hon. Augustus Hervey, afterwards Earl of Bristol, -separated from him after three years, and became the mistress of the -second Duke of Kingston, whom she bigamously married. After his death -she was tried by the House of Lords for bigamy, and fled to France to -escape punishment. Her gallantries and eccentricities were the talk of -Europe.--T. - -[50] Instructed by his misfortunes and his captivity how to vanquish the -efforts and the rage of tyrants, he taught the French how true courage -can win liberty. - -[51] Jocrisse is the stock French type of the booby, and as such is a -character in many comedies. He breaks a plate, for instance; his master -asks him how he managed to be so clumsy, and he instantly smashes -another, saying, "_Just like that!_" His master asks him to be sure and -wake him early in the morning; Jocrisse answers: "Right, sir, depend on -me; _but of course you'll ring_!"--T. - -[52] The Girondists (so called from Gironde, a district of Bordeaux) -were the more sober republican party in the Assembly, who were forced by -circumstances to join the Jacobins against Louis XVI. With their fall -from power in the early summer of 1792 the last hope of the monarchy -disappeared.--T. - -[53] Referring to the horrible massacres of September, 1792, when about -1400 victims perished.--T. - -[54] The French Dick Turpin. Of good education, he formed when quite a -youth a band of robbers, and became the terror of France. Like Turpin, -he is the subject of dramas and stories.--T. - -[55] A forest near Paris, on the line to Avricourt. It was a famous -haunt of brigands. There is a well-known story of a dog which attacked -and killed the murderer of its master there.--T. - -[56] Literally "cut-top": we have no equivalent in English.--T. - -[57] A five-act comedy by Victorien Sardou. - -[58] The nickname given to the Jacobins, the extreme revolutionists, who -sat on the highest seats on the left in the National Assembly.--T. - -[59] Which were the strict preserves of the aristocrats: to fish in them -was as great a crime as to shoot a landlord's rabbit was, a few years -ago, in England.--T. - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Legends of the Bastille, by Frantz Funck-Brentano - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEGENDS OF THE BASTILLE *** - -***** This file should be named 43231-8.txt or 43231-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/2/3/43231/ - -Produced by Chris Curnow, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Legends of the Bastille - -Author: Frantz Funck-Brentano - -Translator: George Maidment - -Release Date: July 16, 2013 [EBook #43231] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEGENDS OF THE BASTILLE *** - - - - -Produced by Chris Curnow, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<p class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="356" height="550" alt="bookcover" title="" /> -</p> - -<div class="bbox"> -<p class="cb"><span class="sans">DOWNEY & CO.’S</span><br /> -<i>NEW PUBLICATIONS</i>.</p> - -<p><span class="sans"><b>MEDICINE AND THE MIND.</b></span> Translated from the French of <span class="smcap">Maurice de -Fleury</span> by <span class="smcap">S. 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Crown 8vo. With Cover -designed by <span class="smcap">H. Mitchell</span>. 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p> -</div> - -<p class="cb">LEGENDS OF THE BASTILLE</p> - -<p><a name="front" id="front"></a></p> - -<p class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_006_lg.png"> -<img class="enlargeimage" -src="images/enlarge-image.jpg" -alt="enlarge-image" -title="enlarge-image" -width="18" -height="14" /> -</a><br /><img src="images/i_006_sml.png" width="550" height="325" alt="Model of the Bastille, carved in one of the Stones of the -Fortress. - -One of these models, made by the instructions of the architect Palloy, -was sent to the chief-town of every department in France." /> -<br /> -<span class="caption">Model of the Bastille, carved in one of the Stones of the -Fortress.<br /> - -<i>One of these models, made by the instructions of the architect Palloy, -was sent to the chief-town of every department in France.</i></span> -</p> - -<h1><span style="margin-right: 10%;">Legends of</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 12%;">the Bastille</span></h1> - -<p class="cbc"><small>BY</small><br /> -<big>FRANTZ FUNCK-BRENTANO</big><br /> -<br /><br /> -<i>WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY VICTORIEN SARDOU</i><br /> -<br /><br /> -AUTHORISED TRANSLATION BY<br /> -<big>GEORGE MAIDMENT</big><br /> -<br /><br /> -WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS<br /> -<br /><br /> -LONDON<br /> -DOWNEY & CO. <span class="smcap">Limited</span><br /> -1899</p> - -<div class="blockquot1"> -<p class="c">BIBLIOGRAPHY</p> - -<p class="hang"><i>Legendes et Archives de la Bastille.</i> Paris: Hachette et Cie., -1898; second edition, 1899. Crowned by the French Academy.</p> - -<p class="hang"><i>Die Bastille in der Legende und nach historischen Documenten.</i> -German translation by Oscar Marschall von Bieberstein. Breslau: -Schottlaender, 1899.</p> -</div> - -<h2><a name="TRANSLATORS_PREFACE" id="TRANSLATORS_PREFACE"></a>TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE</h2> - -<p class="nind">I<small>N</small> his own entertaining way, Mr. Andrew Lang has recently been taking -the scientific historian to task, and giving him a very admirable lesson -on “history as she ought to be wrote.†But though the two professors to -whom he mainly addresses himself are Frenchmen, it would be doing an -injustice to France to infer that she is the <i>alma mater</i> of the modern -dryasdust. The exact contrary is the case: France is rich in historical -writers like the Comte d’Haussonville, M. de Maulde la Clavière, M. -Gaston Boissier, to name only a few, who know how to be accurate without -being dull.</p> - -<p>M. Funck-Brentano, whom I have the honour of introducing here to the -English public, belongs to the same class. Of literary parentage and -connections—his uncle is Professor Lujo Brentano, whose work on the -English trade gilds is a standard—he entered in his twentieth year the -École des Chartes, the famous institution which trains men in the -methods of historical research. At the end of his three years’ course, -he was appointed to succeed François Ravaisson in the work of -classifying the archives of the Bastille in the Arsenal Library,—a work -which occupied him for more than ten years. One fruit of it is to be -seen in the huge catalogue of more than one thousand pages, printed -under official auspices and awarded the Prix Le Dissez de Penanrum by -the Académie des Sciences morales et politiques. Another is the present -work, which has been crowned by the French Academy. Meanwhile M. -Funck-Brentano had been pursuing his studies at the Sorbonne and at -Nancy, and his French thesis for the doctorate in letters was a volume -on the origins of the Hundred Years’ War, which obtained for him the -highest possible distinction for a work of erudition in France, the -Grand Prix Gobert. This volume he intends to follow up with two others, -completing a social rather than a military history of the war, and this -no doubt he regards as his <i>magnum opus</i>. He is known also as a lecturer -in Belgium and Alsace as well as in Paris, and being general secretary -of the Société des Etudes historiques and deputy professor of history at -the College of France as well as sub-librarian of the Arsenal Library, -he leads a busy life.</p> - -<p>Trained in the rigorous methods of the École des Chartes and inspired by -the examples of Fustel de Coulanges and M. Paul Meyer, M. Funck-Brentano -has developed a most interesting and conscientious method of his own. He -depends on original sources, and subjects these to the most searching -critical tests; but this is a matter of course: his individuality -appears in regard to the publication of the results of his researches. -When he has discoveries of importance to communicate, he gives them to -the world first in the form of articles or studies in reviews of -standing, thus preparing public opinion, and at the same time affording -opportunities for the search-light of criticism to play on his work. -Some of the chapters of this book thus appeared in the various <i>revues</i>, -and have subsequently gone through a severe process of pruning and -amending. It is now eleven years since the first appearance, in the -pages of the <i>Revue des deux Mondes</i>, of the study of Latude which, in a -much altered shape, now forms one of the most interesting portions of -this book. The coming autumn will see the publication in France of a -striking work by M. Funck-Brentano on the amazing poison-dramas at Louis -XIV.’s court, and of this book also the several sections have been -appearing at intervals for several years past.</p> - -<p>The present work, as I have already said, is the fruit of many years of -research. Its startling revelations, so well summarized in M. Victorien -Sardou’s Introduction, have revolutionized public opinion in France, and -in particular the solution of the old problem of the identity of the Man -in the Iron Mask has been accepted as final by all competent critics. -The <i>Athenæum</i>, in reviewing the book in its French form the other day, -said that it must be taken cautiously as an ingenious bit of special -pleading, and that the Bastille appears in M. Funck-Brentano’s pages in -altogether too roseate hues, suggesting further that no such results -could be obtained without prejudice from the same archives as those on -which Charpentier founded his <i>La Bastille dévoilée</i> in 1789. This -criticism seems to me to ignore several important points. Charpentier’s -book, written in the heat of the revolutionary struggle, is not a -history, but a political pamphlet, which, in the nature of the case, was -bound to represent the Bastille as a horror. Moreover, Charpentier could -only have depended superficially on the archives, which, as M. -Funck-Brentano shows, were thrown into utter disorder on the day of the -capture of the Bastille. The later writer, on the other hand, approached -the subject when the revolutionary ardours had quite burnt out, and with -the independent and dispassionate mind of a trained official. He spent -thirteen years in setting the rediscovered archives in order, after his -predecessor Ravaisson had already spent a considerable time at the same -work. He was able, further (as Charpentier certainly was not), to -complete and check the testimony of the archives by means of the memoirs -of prisoners—the Abbé Morellet, Marmontel, Renneville, Dumouriez, and a -host of others. In these circumstances it would be surprising if his -conclusions were not somewhat different from those of Charpentier a -hundred years ago.</p> - -<p>The gravamen of the <i>Athenæun’s</i> objection is that M. Funck-Brentano’s -description of the treatment of prisoners in the Bastille applies only -to the favoured few, the implication being that M. Funck-Brentano has -shut his eyes to the cases of the larger number. But surely the reviewer -must have read the book too rapidly. M. Funck-Brentano shows, by means -of existing and accessible documents, that the fact of being sent to the -Bastille at all was itself, in the eighteenth century at least, a mark -of favour. Once at the Bastille, the prisoner, whoever he might be, was -treated without severity, unless he misbehaved. Prisoners of no social -importance, such as Renneville, Latude (a servant’s love-child), -Tavernier (son of a house-porter), were fed and clothed and cared for -much better than they would have been outside the prison walls. A young -man named Estival de Texas, who was being exiled to Canada because he -was a disgrace to his family, wrote to the minister of Paris on June 22, -1726, from the roadstead of La Rochelle: “Your lordship is sending me to -a wild country, huddled with mean wretches, and condemned to a fare very -different from what your lordship granted me in the Bastille.†Here was -a friendless outcast looking back regretfully on his prison fare! On -February 6, 1724, one of the king’s ministers wrote to the lieutenant -of police: “I have read to the duke of Bourbon the letter you sent me -about the speeches of M. Quéhéon, and his royal highness has instructed -me to send you an order and a <i>lettre de cachet</i> authorizing his removal -to the Bastille. But as he thinks that this is <i>an honour the fellow -little deserves</i>, he wishes you to postpone the execution of the warrant -for three days, in order to see if Quéhéon will not take the hint and -leave Paris as he was commanded.†It is on such documents as these, -which are to be seen in hundreds at the Arsenal Library in Paris, that -M. Funck-Brentano has founded his conclusions. Anyone who attacks him on -his own ground is likely to come badly off.</p> - -<p>With M. Funck-Brentano’s permission, I have omitted the greater part of -his footnotes, which are mainly references to documents inaccessible to -the English reader. On the other hand, I have ventured to supply a few -footnotes in explanation of such allusions as the Englishman not reading -French (and the translation is intended for no others) might not -understand. On the same principle I have attempted rhymed renderings of -two or three scraps of verse quoted from Regnier and Voltaire, to whom I -make my apologies. The proofs have had the advantage of revision by M. -Funck-Brentano, who is, however, in no way responsible for any -shortcomings. The Index appears in the English version alone.</p> - -<p>The portrait of Latude and the views of the Bastille are reproduced from -photographs of the originals specially taken by M. A. Bresson, of 40 Rue -de Passy, Paris.</p> - -<p class="r"> -<span class="smcap">George Maidment.</span><br /> -</p> - -<p><i>August, 1899.</i></p> - -<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> - -<tr><td align="right" colspan="3"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> - -<tr><td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Introduction</span> </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_001">1</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td colspan="3" align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Archives</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_047">47</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td colspan="3" align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">History of the Bastille</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_057">57</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td colspan="3" align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Life in the Bastille</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_085">85</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td colspan="3" align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Man in the Iron Mask</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_114">114</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td colspan="3" align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Men of Letters in the Bastille</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_147">147</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right" class="smcap">I.</td><td class="smcap"><a href="#Voltaire">VOLTAIRE</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_148">148</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right" class="smcap">II.</td><td class="smcap"><a href="#Beaumelle">LA BEAUMELLE</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_152">152</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right" class="smcap">III.</td><td class="smcap"><a href="#Morellet">THE ABBÉ MORELLE</a>T</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_155">155</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right" class="smcap">IV.</td><td class="smcap"><a href="#Marmontel">MARMONTEL</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_158">158</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right" class="smcap">V.</td><td class="smcap"><a href="#Linguet">LINGUET</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_163">163</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right" class="smcap">VI.</td><td class="smcap"><a href="#Diderot">DIDEROT</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_165">165</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right" class="smcap">VII.</td><td class="smcap"><a href="#Mirabeau">THE MARQUIS DE MIRABEAU</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_166">166</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td colspan="3" align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Latude</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_168">168</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td colspan="3" align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Fourteenth of July</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_238">238</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Index: -<a href="#A">A</a>, -<a href="#B">B</a>, -<a href="#C">C</a>, -<a href="#D">D</a>, -<a href="#E">E</a>, -<a href="#F">F</a>, -<a href="#G">G</a>, -<a href="#H">H</a>, -<a href="#J">J</a>, -<a href="#K">K</a>, -<a href="#L">L</a>, -<a href="#M">M</a>, -<a href="#N">N</a>, -<a href="#P">P</a>, -<a href="#Q">Q</a>, -<a href="#R">R</a>, -<a href="#S">S</a>, -<a href="#T">T</a>, -<a href="#V">V</a></span> - </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_277">277</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<h2><a name="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS" id="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS"></a>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> - -<tr><td>Model of the Bastille</td><td align="right"><a href="#front"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Facsimile of Du Junca’s note regarding the -entry of the Iron Mask </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><i>Facing page</i> <a href="#page_115">115</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Facsimile of Du Junca’s note regarding the -death of the Iron Mask </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="ditto">"</span> <a href="#page_116">116</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Facsimile of the Iron Mask’s burial certificate "</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="ditto">"</span> <a href="#page_142">142</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Facsimile of the cover of Latude’s explosive -box </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="ditto">"</span> <a href="#page_173">173</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Facsimile of Latude’s writing with blood on -linen </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="ditto">"</span> <a href="#page_188">188</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Portrait of Latude </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="ditto">"</span> <a href="#page_229">229</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>The Capture of the Bastille </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="ditto">"</span> <a href="#page_257">257</a></td></tr> - -</table> - -<p><a name="page_001" id="page_001"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION"></a>INTRODUCTION</h2> - -<p class="nind">A<small>T</small> the great Exhibition of 1889 I visited, in company with some friends, -the reproduction of the Bastille, calculated to give all who saw it—and -the whole world must have seen it—an entirely false impression.</p> - -<p>You had barely cleared the doorway when you saw, in the gloom, an old -man enveloped in a long white beard, lying on the “sodden straw†of -tradition, rattling his chains and uttering doleful cries. And the guide -said to you, not without emotion, “You see here the unfortunate Latude, -who remained in this position, with both arms thus chained behind his -back, for thirty-five years!â€</p> - -<p>This information I completed by adding in the same tone: “And it was in -this attitude that he so cleverly constructed the ladder, a hundred and -eighty feet long, which enabled him to escape.<a name="page_002" id="page_002"></a>â€</p> - -<p>The company looked at me with surprise, the guide with a scowl, and I -slipped away.</p> - -<p>The same considerations that prompted my intervention have suggested to -M. Funck-Brentano this work on the Bastille, in which he has set the -facts in their true light, and confronted the legends which everyone -knows with the truth of which many are in ignorance.</p> - -<p>For in spite of all that has been written on the subject by Ravaisson, -in the introduction to his <i>Archives of the Bastille</i>, by Victor -Fournel, in his <i>Men of the Fourteenth of July</i>, and by other writers, -the popular idea of the internal administration of the Bastille in 1789 -holds by the description of Louis Blanc: “Iron cages, recalling -Plessis-les-Tours<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> and the tortures of Cardinal La -Balue!<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a>—underground dungeons, the loathsome haunts of toads, lizards, -enormous rats, spiders—the whole furniture consisting of one huge stone -covered with a little straw,<a name="page_003" id="page_003"></a> where the prisoner breathed poison in the -very air.... Enveloped in the shades of mystery, kept in absolute -ignorance of the crime with which he was charged, and the kind of -punishment awaiting him, he ceased to belong to the earth!â€</p> - -<p>If this Bastille of melodrama ever had any existence, the Bastille of -the eighteenth century bore the least possible resemblance to it. In -1789, these dungeons on the ground floor of the fortress, with windows -looking on the moats, were no longer reserved, as under Louis XV., for -prisoners condemned to death, dangerous madmen, or prisoners who had -been insolent, obstreperous, or violent; nor for warders guilty of -breaches of discipline. At the time of Necker’s first ministry, the use -of these dungeons had been abolished altogether.</p> - -<p>The prisoner, put through an interrogation in the early days of his -detention, was never left in ignorance of the “delinquency†with which -he was charged, and had no reason to be concerned about the kind of -punishment awaiting him; for there had been neither torture nor -punishment of any kind at the Bastille for a hundred years.</p> - -<p>Instead of a dungeon or a cage of iron, every<a name="page_004" id="page_004"></a> prisoner occupied a room -of fair size, its greatest defect being that it was rather poorly -lighted by a narrow window, secured by bars, some of them projecting -inwards. It was sufficiently furnished; and there was nothing to hinder -the prisoner from getting in more furniture from outside. Moreover, he -could procure whatever clothing and linen he desired, and if he had no -means to pay for them, money was supplied. Latude complained of -rheumatism, and furs were at once given him. He wanted a dressing-gown -of “red-striped calamancoâ€; the shops were ransacked to gratify him. A -certain Hugonnet complained that he had not received the shirts “with -embroidered ruffles†which he had asked for. A lady named Sauvé wanted a -dress of white silk spotted with green flowers. In all Paris there was -only a white dress with green stripes to be found, with which it was -hoped that she would be satisfied.</p> - -<p>Every room was provided with a fireplace or a stove. Firewood was -supplied, and light; the prisoner could have as many candles as he -pleased. Paper, pens, and ink were at his disposal; though he was -deprived of them temporarily if he made bad<a name="page_005" id="page_005"></a> use of them, like Latude, -who scribbled all day long only to heap insults in his letters on the -governor and the lieutenant of police. He could borrow books from the -library, and was at liberty to have books sent in from outside. La -Beaumelle had six hundred volumes in his room. He might breed birds, -cats, and dogs—by no means being reduced to taming the legendary spider -of Pellisson,<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> which figures also in the story of Lauzun,<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> and, -indeed, of all prisoners in every age. Instruments of music were -allowed. Renneville played the fiddle, and Latude the flute. There were -concerts in the prisoners’ rooms and in the apartments of the governor.</p> - -<p>Every prisoner could work at embroidery, at the turning lathe, or the -joiner’s bench, at pleasure. All whose conduct was irreproachable were -allowed to come and go, to pay each other visits, to play at<a name="page_006" id="page_006"></a> -backgammon, cards, or chess in their rooms; at skittles, bowls, or -<i>tonneau</i><a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> in the courtyard. La Rouërie asked for a billiard table for -himself and his friends, and he got it.</p> - -<p>The prisoners were permitted to walk on the platform of the fortress, -from which they could see the people passing up and down the Rue -Saint-Antoine and the vicinity, and watch the animated crowds on the -boulevard at the hours when fashionable people were accustomed to take -their drives. By the aid of telescopes and big letters written on boards -they were able to communicate with the people of the neighbourhood, and, -like Latude, to keep up a secret correspondence with the grisettes of -the district. Michelet, with too obvious a design, declares that under -Louis XVI. the regulations of the prison were more severe than under -Louis XV., and that this promenade on the platform was done away with. -There is not a word of truth in it. The promenade was forbidden only to -those prisoners who, like the Marquis de Sade, took advantage of it to -stir up<a name="page_007" id="page_007"></a> riots among the passers-by; and from the accession of Louis -XVI. and the visitation of Malesherbes,<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> the rule of the prison grew -milder day by day.</p> - -<p>Certain of the prisoners were invited to dine with the governor, and to -walk in his gardens, in excellent company. Some were allowed to leave -the fortress, on condition of returning in the evening; others were even -allowed to remain out all night!</p> - -<p>Those who had servants could have them in attendance if the servants -were willing to share their captivity. Or they had room-mates, as was -the case with Latude and Allègre.</p> - -<p>In regard to food, the prisoners are unanimous in declaring that it was -abundant and good. “I had five dishes at dinner,†says Dumouriez, “and -five at supper, without reckoning dessert.†The Provost de Beaumont -declared that he had quitted the Bastille with regret, because there he -had been able to eat and drink to his heart’s content. Poultier -<a name="page_008" id="page_008"></a>d’Elmotte says: “M. de Launey had many a friendly chat with me, and -sent me what dishes I wished for.†Baron Hennequin, a hypochondriac who -found fault with everything, confesses nevertheless that they gave him -more meat than he could eat. The Abbé de Buquoy affirms that he fared -sumptuously, and that it was the king’s intention that the prisoners -should be well fed. The splenetic Linguet owns, in his pamphlet, that he -had three good meals a day, and that meat was supplied to him in such -quantities that his suspicions were aroused: “They meant to poison me!†-he says. But he omits to say that de Launey sent him every morning the -menu for the day, on which he marked down with his own hand the dishes -he fancied, “choosing always the most dainty, and in sufficient -quantities to have satisfied five or six epicures.â€</p> - -<p>In Louis XIV.’s time, Renneville drew up the following list of dishes -served to him: “Oysters, prawns, fowls, capons, mutton, veal, young -pigeons; forcemeat pies and patties; asparagus, cauliflower, green peas, -artichokes; salmon, soles, pike, trout, every kind of fish whether -fresh-water or salt; pastry, and fruits in their season.†We find Latude -complaining that the fowls given him were not stuffed!<a name="page_009" id="page_009"></a> M. -Funck-Brentano tells the amusing story of Marmontel’s eating by mistake -the dinner intended for his servant, and finding it excellent.</p> - -<p>Mdlle. de Launay, afterwards Madame de Staal, who was imprisoned for -complicity in the Cellamare<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> plot, relates that on the first evening -of her sojourn in the Bastille, she and her maid were both terrified by -the strange and prolonged sound, beneath their feet, of a mysterious -machine, which conjured up visions of an instrument of torture. When -they came to inquire, they found that their room was over the kitchen, -and the terrible machine was the roasting-jack!</p> - -<p>The prisoners were not only allowed to receive visits from their -relations and friends, but to keep them to dinner or to make up a -rubber. Thus Madame de Staal held receptions in the afternoon, and in -the evening there was high play. “And this time,†she says, “was the -happiest in my life.â€</p> - -<p>Bussy-Rabutin received the whole court, and all his friends—especially -those of the fair sex. M. de Bonrepos—an assumed name—was so -comfortable<a name="page_010" id="page_010"></a> in the Bastille that when he was directed to retire to the -Invalides,<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> he could only be removed by force.</p> - -<p>“I there spent six weeks,†says Morellet, “so pleasantly, that I chuckle -to this day when I think of them.†And when he left, he exclaimed: “God -rest those jolly tyrants!â€</p> - -<p>Voltaire remained there for twelve days, with a recommendation from the -lieutenant of police that he should be treated with all the -consideration “due to his genius.â€</p> - -<p>The objection may be raised that these cases are all of great lords or -men of letters, towards whom the government of those days was -exceptionally lenient. (How delightful to find writers put on the same -footing with peers!) But the objection is groundless.</p> - -<p>I have referred to Renneville and Latude, prisoners of very little -account. The one was a spy; the other a swindler. In the three-volume -narrative left us by Renneville, you hear of nothing but how he kept -open house and made merry with his companions. They gambled and smoked, -ate and drank, fuddled and fought, gossiped with their neighbours<a name="page_011" id="page_011"></a> of -both sexes, and passed one another pastry and excellent wine through the -chimneys. How gladly the prisoners in our jails to-day would accommodate -themselves to such a life! Renneville, assuredly, was not treated with -the same consideration as Voltaire; but, frankly, would you have wished -it?</p> - -<p>As to Latude—who was supplied with dressing-gowns to suit his -fancy—the reader will see from M. Funck-Brentano’s narrative that no -one but himself was to blame if he did not dwell at Vincennes<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> or in -the Bastille on the best of terms—or even leave his prison at the -shortest notice, by the front gate, and with a well-lined pocket.</p> - -<p>For that was one of the harsh measures of this horrible Bastille—to -send away the poor wretches, when their time was expired, with a few -hundred livres in their pockets, and to compensate such as were found to -be innocent! See what M. Funck-Brentano says of Subé, who, for a -detention of eighteen days, received 3000 livres (£240 to-day), or of -others, who, after an imprisonment of two years, were consoled with an -annual pension of 2400 francs<a name="page_012" id="page_012"></a> of our reckoning. Voltaire spent twelve -days in the Bastille, and was assured of an annual pension of 1200 -livres for life. What is to be said now of our contemporary justice, -which, after some months of imprisonment on suspicion, dismisses the -poor fellow, arrested by mistake, with no other indemnity than the -friendly admonition: “Go! and take care we don’t catch you again!â€</p> - -<p>Some wag will be sure to say that I am making out the Bastille to have -been a palace of delight. We can spare him his little jest. A prison is -always a prison, however pleasant it may be; and the best of cheer is no -compensation for the loss of liberty. But there is a wide difference, it -will be granted, between the reality and the notion generally -held—between this “hotel for men of letters,†as some one called it, -and the hideous black holes of our system of solitary confinement. I -once said that I should prefer three years in the Bastille to three -months at Mazas.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> I do not retract.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Linguet and Latude, unquestionably, were the two men whose habit of -drawing the long bow has done<a name="page_013" id="page_013"></a> most to propagate the fables about the -Bastille, the falsity of which is established by incontrovertible -documents. Party spirit has not failed to take seriously the interested -calumnies of Linguet, who used his spurious martyrdom to advertise -himself, and the lies of Latude, exploiting to good purpose a captivity -which he had made his career.</p> - -<p>Let us leave Linguet, who, after having so earnestly urged the -demolition of the Bastille, had reason to regret it at the Conciergerie -at the moment of mounting the revolutionary tumbril, and speak a little -of the other, this captive who was as ingenious in escaping from prison, -when locked up, as in hugging his chains when offered the means of -release.</p> - -<p>For the bulk of mankind, thirty-five years of captivity was the price -Latude paid for a mere practical joke: the sending to Madame de -Pompadour of a harmless powder that was taken for poison. The punishment -is regarded as terrific: I do not wonder at it. But if, instead of -relying on the gentleman’s own fanfaronades, the reader will take the -trouble to look at the biography written by M. Funck-Brentano and amply -supported by documents,<a name="page_014" id="page_014"></a> he will speedily see that if Latude remained in -prison for thirty-five years, it was entirely by his own choice; and -that his worst enemy, his most implacable persecutor, the author of all -his miseries was—himself.</p> - -<p>If, after the piece of trickery which led to his arrest, he had followed -the advice of the excellent Berryer, who counselled patience and -promised his speedy liberation, he might have got off with a few months -of restraint at Vincennes, where his confinement was so rigorous that he -had only to push the garden gate to be free!</p> - -<p>That was the first folly calculated to injure his cause, for the new -fault was more serious than the old. He was caught; he was locked in the -cells of the Bastille: but the kind-hearted Berryer soon removed him. -Instead of behaving himself quietly, however, our man begins to grow -restless, to harangue, to abuse everybody, and on the books lent him to -scribble insulting verses on the Pompadour. But they allow him an -apartment, then give him a servant, then a companion, Allègre. And then -comes the famous escape. One hardly knows which to wonder at the most: -the ingenuity of the<a name="page_015" id="page_015"></a> two rogues, or the guileless management of this -prison which allows them to collect undisturbed a gimlet, a saw, a -compass, a pulley, fourteen hundred feet of rope, a rope ladder 180 feet -long, with 218 wooden rungs; to conceal all these between the floor and -the ceiling below, without anyone ever thinking to look there; and, -after having cut through a wall four and a half feet thick, to get clear -away without firing a shot!</p> - -<p>They were not the first to get across those old walls. Renneville -mentions several escapes, the most famous being that of the Abbé de -Buquoy.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> But little importance seems to have been attached to them.</p> - -<p>With Allègre and Latude it was a different matter. The passers-by must -have seen, in the early morning, the ladder swinging from top to bottom -of the wall, and the escape was no longer a secret. The Bastille is -discredited. It is possible, then, to escape from<a name="page_016" id="page_016"></a> it. The chagrined -police are on their mettle. There will be laughter at their expense. The -fugitives are both well known, too. They will take good care to spread -the story of their escape, with plenty of gibes against the governor, -the lieutenant of police, the ministry, the favourite, the king! This -scandal must be averted at any cost; the fugitives must be caught!</p> - -<p>And we cannot help pitying these two wretches who, after a flight so -admirably contrived, got arrested so stupidly: Allègre at Brussels, -through an abusive letter written to the Pompadour; Latude in Holland, -through a letter begging help from his mother.</p> - -<p>Latude is again under lock and key, and this time condemned to a -stricter confinement. And then the hubbub begins again: outcries, -demands, acts of violence, threats! He exasperates and daunts men who -had the best will in the world to help him. He is despatched to the -fortress of Vincennes, and promised his liberty if he will only keep -quiet. His liberation, on his own showing, was but a matter of days. He -is allowed to walk on the bank of the moat. He takes advantage of it to -escape again!<a name="page_017" id="page_017"></a></p> - -<p>Captured once more, he is once more lodged at Vincennes, and the whole -business begins over again. But they are good enough to consider him a -little mad, and after a stay at Charenton,<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> where he was very well -treated, he at last gets his dismissal, with the recommendation to -betake himself to his own part of the country quietly. Ah, that would -not be like Latude! He scampers over Paris, railing against De Sartine, -De Marigny; hawking his pamphlets; claiming 150,000 livres as -damages!—and, finally, extorting money from a charitable lady by -menaces!</p> - -<p>This is the last straw. Patience is exhausted, and he is clapped into -Bicêtre<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> as a dangerous lunatic. Imagine his fury and disgust!</p> - -<p>Let us be just. Suppose, in our own days, a swindler, sentenced to a few -months’ imprisonment, insulting the police, the magistrates, the court, -the president; sentenced on this account to a longer term, escaping -once, twice, a third time; always<a name="page_018" id="page_018"></a> caught, put in jail again, sentenced -to still longer terms: then when at last released, after having done his -time, scattering broadcast insulting libels against the chief of police, -the ministers, the parliament, and insisting on the President of the -Republic paying him damages to the tune of 150,000 francs; to crown it -all, getting money out of some good woman by working on her fears! You -will agree with me that such a swaggering blade would not have much -difficulty in putting together thirty-five years in jail!</p> - -<p>But these sentences would of course be public, and provide no soil for -the growth of those legends to which closed doors always give rise. Yet -in all that relates to the causes and the duration of the man’s -imprisonment, his case would be precisely that of Latude—except that -for him there would be no furs, no promenading in the gardens, no -stuffed fowls for his lunch!</p> - -<p>Besides some fifty autograph letters from Latude, addressed from Bicêtre -to his good angel, Madame Legros, in which he shows himself in his true -character, an intriguing, vain, insolent, bragging, insupportable -humbug, I have one, written to M. de Sartine, which Latude published as -a pendant to the<a name="page_019" id="page_019"></a> pamphlet with which he hoped to move Madame de -Pompadour to pity, and in which every phrase is an insult. This letter -was put up at public auction, and these first lines of it were -reproduced in the catalogue:—</p> - -<p>“I am supporting with patience the loss of my best years and of my -fortune. I am enduring my rheumatism, the weakness of my arm, and a ring -of iron around my body for the rest of my life!â€</p> - -<p>A journalist, one of those who learn their history from Louis Blanc, had -a vision of Latude for ever riveted by a ring of iron to a pillar in -some underground dungeon, and exclaimed with indignation: “A ring of -iron! How horrible!â€</p> - -<p>And it was only a linen band!</p> - -<p>That fabulous iron collar is a type of the whole legend of the -unfortunate Latude!</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Everything connected with the Bastille has assumed a fabulous character.</p> - -<p>What glorious days were those of the 13th and 14th of July, as the -popular imagination conjures them up in reliance on Michelet, who, in a -vivid, impassioned, picturesque, dramatic, admirable style,<a name="page_020" id="page_020"></a> has -written, not the history, but the romance of the French Revolution!</p> - -<p>Look at his account of the 13th. He shows you all Paris in revolt -against Versailles, and with superb enthusiasm running to arms to try -issues with the royal army. It is fine as literature. Historically, it -is pure fiction.</p> - -<p>The Parisians were assuredly devoted to the “new ideas,†that is, the -suppression of the abuses and the privileges specified in the memorials -of the States General; in a word, to the reforms longed for by the whole -of France. But they had no conception of gaining them without the -concurrence of the monarchy, to which they were sincerely attached. That -crowd of scared men running to the Hôtel de Ville to demand arms, who -are represented by the revolutionary writers as exasperated by the -dismissal of Necker and ready to undermine the throne for the sake of -that Genevan, were much less alarmed at what was hatching at Versailles -than at what was going on in Paris. If they wished for arms, it was for -their own security. The dissolution of the National Assembly, which was -regarded as certain, was setting all minds in a ferment, and -ill-designing<a name="page_021" id="page_021"></a> people took advantage of the general uneasiness and -agitation to drive matters to the worst extremities, creating disorder -everywhere. The police had disappeared; the streets were in the hands of -the mob. Bands of ruffians—among them those ill-favoured rascals who -since the month of May had been flocking, as at a word of command, into -Paris from heaven knows where, and who had already been seen at work, -pillaging Réveillon’s<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> establishment—roamed in every direction, -insulting women, stripping wayfarers, looting the shops, opening the -prisons, burning the barriers. On July 13 the electors of Paris resolved -on the formation of a citizen militia for the protection of the town, -and the scheme was adopted on the same day by every district, with -articles of constitution, quoted by M. Funck-Brentano, which specify the -intentions of the signatories. It was expressly in self-defence against -the “Brigands,†as they were called, that the citizen militia was -formed: “To protect the citizens,†ran the minutes of the -Petit-Saint-Antoine district, “against the dangers which threaten them -each individually.†“In a word,†says M. Victor Fournel,<a name="page_022" id="page_022"></a> “the -dominating sentiment was fear. Up till the 14th of July, the Parisian -middle-classes showed far more concern at the manifold excesses -committed by the populace after Necker’s dismissal than at the schemes -of the court.†And M. Jacques Charavay, who was the first to publish the -text of the minutes in question, says not a word too much when he draws -from them this conclusion: “The movement which next day swept away the -Bastille might possibly have been stifled by the National Guard, if its -organization had had greater stability.â€</p> - -<p>All that was wanting to these good intentions was direction, a man at -the helm, and particularly the support of Besenval. But his conduct was -amazing! He left Versailles with 35,000 men and an order signed by the -king—obtained not without difficulty—authorizing him “to repel force -by force.†Now let us see a summary of his military operations:—</p> - -<p>On the 13th, towards four o’clock in the afternoon, a skirmish of the -German regiment on the Place Vendôme, where it came into collision with -the “demonstration‗as we should say to-day—which was displaying busts -of Necker and the Duke of Orleans, and dispersed it.<a name="page_023" id="page_023"></a></p> - -<p>At six o’clock, a march of the same horse soldiers to the -swinging-bridge of the Tuileries, where they had five or six chairs -thrown at their head; and the massacre, by M. de Lambesc, of the -legendary grey-beard who, an hour after, was describing his tragic end -at the Palais-Royal!</p> - -<p>At nine o’clock, a military promenade of the same regiment along the -boulevards. A volley from the Gardes Françaises slew two of their -number, and the regiment beat a retreat without returning fire, to the -great surprise of M. de Maleissye, officer of the Guards. For, by his -own confession, if the cavalry had charged, it would easily have routed -the Gardes Françaises “in the state of drunkenness in which they then -were.â€</p> - -<p>And Besenval, terrified at such a resistance, assembled all his troops, -shut himself up with them in the Champ de Mars, and did not move another -step!</p> - -<p>We ask ourselves, “Was he a fool? or was he a traitor?†He was a fool, -for he thought he had “three hundred thousand men†in front of him, took -every excited person for a rebel, and did not understand that out of -every hundred Parisians<a name="page_024" id="page_024"></a> there were ninety who were relying on him to -bring the mutineers to reason.</p> - -<p>He had no confidence in his troops, he said.</p> - -<p>It was rather for them to have no confidence in him, and to lose heart -utterly at such a spectacle of cowardice. But he was slandering them. -One solitary regiment showed disloyalty. And if he had only given the -Swiss the word to march, their conduct on August 10 gives ample proof -that they could have been depended on.</p> - -<p>“And then,†says he again, “I was fearful of letting loose civil war!â€</p> - -<p>Indeed! And so a soldier going to suppress a revolt is not to run the -risk of fighting!</p> - -<p>Last reason of all: “I requested orders from Versailles—and did not get -them!â€</p> - -<p>What, then, had he in his pocket?</p> - -<p>Finally, after having sent word to Flesselles and De Launey to maintain -their position till he arrived, and after having allowed the arms of the -Invalides to be looted under his eyes without a single effort to save -them, he waited till the Bastille was taken before making up his mind to -leave the Champ de Mars, and to return quietly to<a name="page_025" id="page_025"></a> Versailles with his -35,000 men, who had not fired a shot!</p> - -<p>Ah! those were the days for rioting!</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>“On July 13,†says Michelet, “Paris was defending herself.†(Against -whom?) “On the 14th, she attacked! A voice wakened her and cried, ‘On, -and take the Bastille!’ And that day was the day of the entire People!â€</p> - -<p>Admirable poetry; but every word a lie!</p> - -<p>Listen to Marat, who is not open to suspicion, and who saw things at -closer quarters. “The Bastille, badly defended, was captured by a -handful of soldiers and a gang of wretches for the most part Germans and -provincials. The Parisians, those everlasting star-gazers, came there -out of curiosity!â€</p> - -<p>In reality, Michelet’s “entire people†reduces itself to a bare thousand -assailants, of whom three hundred at most took part in the fight: Gardes -Françaises and deserters of all arms, lawyers’ clerks, and citizens who -had lost their heads: fine fellows who thought themselves engaged in -meritorious work in rushing on these inoffensive walls; bandits -attracted by the riot which promised them theft and murder<a name="page_026" id="page_026"></a> with -impunity. And a number of mere spectators—spectators above all!</p> - -<p>“I was present,†says Chancellor Pasquier, “at the taking of the -Bastille. What is called the fight was not serious. The resistance was -absolutely nil. The truth is, that this grand fight did not cause an -instant’s alarm to the spectators, who had flocked up to see the result. -Among them there were many ladies of the greatest elegance. In order to -get more easily to the front they had left their carriages at a -distance. By my side was Mdlle. Contat, of the Comédie Française. We -stayed to see the finish, and then I escorted her on my arm to her -carriage in the Place Royale.â€</p> - -<p>“The Bastille was not taken; truth must be told, it surrendered.†It is -Michelet himself who makes this statement, and he adds: “what ruined it -was its own evil conscience!â€</p> - -<p>It would be too simple to acknowledge that it was the incapacity of its -governor.</p> - -<p>There is no connoisseur in old prints but is acquainted with those -last-century views which represent the taking of the Bastille. The -platform of the fortress bristles with cannon all firing<a name="page_027" id="page_027"></a> together, -“belching forth death,‗without the slightest attention on the part of -the assailants, for all the balls from this artillery, passing over -their heads, would only kill inoffensive wayfarers without so much as -scratching a single one of the besiegers!</p> - -<p>And the Bastille did not fire a single shot in self-defence!</p> - -<p>In the morning, at the request of Thuriot de la Rozière, De Launey had -readily consented to the withdrawal of the fifteen cannon of the -platform from their embrasures, and had blocked up the embrasures with -planks. Of the three guns which later on he ranged batterywise before -the entrance gate, not one was effective, and the discharge attributed -to one of them came from a piece of ordnance on the wall.</p> - -<p>He placed such absolute reliance on succour from Besenval that, on -evacuating the arsenal and getting the whole garrison together into the -Bastille—eighty-two Invalides and M. de Flue’s thirty-two Swiss—he had -forgotten to increase his stock of provisions. Now, the Bastille had no -reserve of provisions. Every morning, like a good housewife, it received -the goods ordered the night before,<a name="page_028" id="page_028"></a> brought by the different purveyors; -on this day, they were intercepted. So it happened that at three o’clock -in the afternoon the garrison was without its usual rations, and the -Invalides, who had been for a week past going in and out of all the inns -in the neighbourhood, and were disposed to open the doors to their good -friends of the suburbs, used the scantiness of their rations as a -pretext for mutiny, for refusing to fight, and for muddling the brains, -never very clear, of the unhappy De Launey.</p> - -<p>“On the day of my arrival,†says De Flue, “I was able to take this man’s -measure from the absolutely imbecile preparations which he made for the -defence of his position. I saw clearly that we should be very poorly led -in case of attack. He was so struck with terror at the idea of it that, -when night came on, he took the shadows of trees for enemies! Incapable, -irresolute, devoting all his attention to trifles and neglecting -important duties—such was the man.â€</p> - -<p>Abandoned by Besenval, instead of cowing his Invalides into obedience by -his energy, and maintaining his position to famishing point behind walls -over which the balls of the besiegers flew without<a name="page_029" id="page_029"></a> killing more than -one man, De Launey lost his head, made a feint of firing the powder -magazine, capitulated, and opened his gates to men who, as Chateaubriand -says, “could never have cleared them if he had only kept them shut.â€</p> - -<p>If this poor creature had done his duty, and Besenval had done his, -things would have had quite a different complexion. That is not to say -that the Revolution would have been averted—far from it! The Revolution -was legitimate, desirable, and, under the generous impulse of a whole -nation, irresistible. But it would have followed another bent, and would -have triumphed at a slighter cost, with less ruin and less bloodshed. -The consequences of the 14th of July were disastrous. The mere words, -“The Bastille is taken!†were the signal for the most frightful -disorders throughout France. It seemed as though those old walls were -dragging down with them in their fall all authority, all respect, all -discipline; as though the floodgates were being opened to every kind of -excess. Peasants went about in bands, ravaging, pillaging, firing the -châteaux, the burghers’ houses, and burning alive those who fell into -their hands. The soldiers<a name="page_030" id="page_030"></a> mutinied, insulted their chiefs, and fell to -carousing with the malefactors whom they set free. There was not a town -or village where the mob did not put on menacing airs, where decent -people were not molested by the brawlers of the clubs and the -street-corners. Such violence led to a rapid reaction, and there were -numerous defections—of men who, on the very eve of the outbreak, among -the magistracy, the army, the clergy, the nobility, though sympathizing -with the new ideas, abruptly cut themselves loose from the movement, -like the good Duke de la Rochefoucauld, who exclaimed, “Liberty is not -entered by such a door as this!†Hovering between the desire and the -fear of granting the promised reforms, urged on one side to resistance, -on the other to submission, and more than ever destitute of all -political acumen and all will power, the king went to Paris, and, -bending before the revolt, approved of the assassination of his most -faithful servants—and took, on that fatal day, his first step towards -the scaffold! Henceforth, under the pressure of the populace, to whom -its first success had shown the measure of its strength, and who became -every day more exacting, more threatening,<a name="page_031" id="page_031"></a> the Revolution was to go on -in its perverse course, stumbling at every step, until it came to the -orgy of ’93, which, properly speaking, was only the systematizing of -brigandage. Malouet was right indeed: what we symbolize in our festival -of the 14th of July is not the rising sun, the dawn of Liberty; it is -the first lurid lightning flash of the Terror!</p> - -<p>Doctor Rigby, after having walked up and down the whole afternoon in the -Jardin Monceau without the least idea of what was going on in the Suburb -Saint-Antoine, returned in the evening to his house near the -Palais-Royal. He saw the mob reeling in drunkenness. Men and women were -laughing, crying, and embracing one another: “The Bastille is taken! At -last we are free!†And not the least enthusiastic were those very men of -the citizen militia who, ready yesterday to fight the insurrection, were -to-day hailing its triumph! The first sabre brandished by the first -national guard was in point of fact that of Joseph Prudhomme!<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p> - -<p><a name="page_032" id="page_032"></a></p> - -<p>All at once this delirious crowd shudders, parts asunder with cries of -horror!</p> - -<p>Down the Rue Saint-Honoré comes a yelling mob of wine-soaked -malefactors, bearing along, at the ends of two pikes, the still bleeding -heads of De Launey and De Flesselles!</p> - -<p>And the silly folk, so madly rejoiced by the fall of an imaginary -tyranny which has not even the wits to defend itself, go their several -ways, struck dumb with consternation.</p> - -<p>For here the Real is making its entrance!</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Do not fancy that because the Bastille has opened its gates, the legends -which give it so cruel a name are going to vanish into thin air, like -the phantoms of an ancient château when light is let in.</p> - -<p>While Michelet’s “entire Paris†is making short work of the Invalides -who surrendered the place; cutting in pieces the man who prevented its -blowing up; slaughtering Major de Losme, the friend and<a name="page_033" id="page_033"></a> benefactor of -the prisoners; torturing the hapless De Launey, who, from the Bastille -to the Hôtel de Ville, stabbed, slashed, hacked with sabres and pikes -and bayonets, is finally decapitated by the aid of a short knife—an -episode which Michelet skilfully slurs over—while all the criminals of -the district, crowding along in the wake of the combatants, are rushing -to the official buildings, looting, smashing, throwing into the moats -furniture, books, official papers, archives, the remnants of which will -be collected with such difficulty—some good people are saying to -themselves: “But come now, there are some prisoners! Suppose we go and -set them free?â€</p> - -<p>Here let us see what Louis Blanc has to say:—</p> - -<p>“Meanwhile the doors of the cells†(he insists on the cells) “were burst -in with a mighty effort; the prisoners were free! Alas! for three of -them it was too late! The first, whose name was the Comte de Solages, a -victim for seven years of the incomprehensible vengeance of an -implacable father, found neither relatives who would consent to -acknowledge him, nor his property, which had become the prey of covetous -collateral heirs! The second was called Whyte. Of what crime was he -guilty, accused, of,<a name="page_034" id="page_034"></a> at any rate, suspected? No one has ever known! The -man himself was questioned in vain. In the Bastille he had lost his -reason. The third, Tavernier, at the sight of his deliverers, fancied he -saw his executioners coming, and put himself on the defensive. Throwing -their arms round his neck they undeceived him; but next day he was met -roaming through the town, muttering wild and whirling words. He was -mad!â€</p> - -<p>As many wilful errors as there are words!</p> - -<p>The Comte de Solages was an execrable libertine, confined at the request -of his family for “atrocious and notorious crimes.†His relatives -nevertheless had the humanity to take him in after his deliverance, and -it was with them that he died in 1825.</p> - -<p>Whyte and Tavernier did not go mad in the Bastille. They were in the -Bastille because they were mad; and the second was, further, implicated -in an assassination. Finding shelter with a perruquier of the -neighbourhood, he set about smashing all his host’s belongings, which -necessitated his banishment to Charenton, where Whyte soon rejoined him. -It was not worth the trouble of changing their quarters!<a name="page_035" id="page_035"></a></p> - -<p>Four other prisoners who were set free, Corrège, Béchade, Pujade, and -Laroche, were imprisoned for forgery. And so Louis Blanc is careful -silently to pass them over!</p> - -<p>Ten days before, another victim of tyranny had been groaning in -irons—the Marquis de Sade, who, from the height of the platform, used -to provoke the passers-by with the aid of a speaking trumpet. De Launey -was compelled to transfer him to Vincennes, thus depriving the victors -of the glory of liberating the future author of <i>Justine</i>. The Republic -took its revenge in making him later secretary of the “Pike†ward,<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> -an office for which he was marked out by his virtues!</p> - -<p>But of all these prisoners the most celebrated, the most popular, the -man whose misfortunes all Paris deplored, was the famous Comte de -Lorges, who, according to the biographical sketch devoted to him by the -unknown author of his deliverance, had been shut up for thirty-two -years. The story must be read in the pamphlet of Citizen Rousselet, -conqueror of the Bastille: “The tide of humanity penetrates into<a name="page_036" id="page_036"></a> ways -narrowed by mistrust. An iron door opens: what does one see? Is this a -man? Good heavens! this old man loaded with irons! the splendour of his -brow, the whiteness of his beard hanging over his breast! What majesty! -the fire still flashing from his eyes seems to shed a gentle light in -this lugubrious abode!â€</p> - -<p>Surprised at seeing so many armed men, he asks them if Louis XV. is -still alive. They set him free, they lead him to the Hôtel de Ville.</p> - -<p>For fifteen days all Paris went to visit the black dungeon in which this -unhappy wretch had been shut up for so many years without other light -than that which escaped “from his eyesâ€! A stone from that dungeon had a -place in the Curtius Museum. His portrait was published. A print -represents him at the moment when his chains were broken, seated on a -chair in his cell, a pitcher of water by his side!</p> - -<p>And this hapless greybeard—he was never seen! He never existed!</p> - -<p>In reality there were in the Bastille, on the 14th of July, only seven -prisoners—two madmen, a <i>Sadique</i>,<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a><a name="page_037" id="page_037"></a> and four forgers. But about -their number and their right to imprisonment Michelet remains dumb: to -discuss that would spoil his epic! And he excels in making the most of -everything that can support his case, and in ignoring everything that -damages it. And so he contents himself with speaking of the two who had -“gone madâ€!—a prevarication worthy of Louis Blanc, nay, unworthy even -of him!</p> - -<p>The conquerors were somewhat surprised at the small number of victims, -more surprised still to find them comfortably installed in rooms, some -of which were furnished with arm-chairs in Utrecht velvet! The author of -<i>The Bastille Unmasked</i> exclaims: “What! No corpses! No skeletons! No -men in chains!†“The taking of the Bastille,†said “Cousin Jacques,â€<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> -“has opened the eyes of the public on the kind of captivity experienced -there.â€</p> - -<p>But in this he was greatly mistaken. Legends die hard! A Bastille -without cells, dungeons, cages of iron! Public opinion did not admit -that it could have been deceived on that point.</p> - -<p>“Several prisoners,†says the <i>History of Remarkable<a name="page_038" id="page_038"></a> Events</i>, “were set -at liberty; but some, and perhaps the greater number, had already died -of hunger, because men could not find their way about this monstrous -prison. Some of these prisoners confined within four walls received food -only through holes cut in the wall. A party of prisoners was found -starved to death, because their cells were not discovered till several -days had elapsed!â€</p> - -<p>Another pamphlet on the underground cells discovered in the Bastille, -resuscitating an old fable which had already done duty for the Cardinal -de Richelieu, shows us a prisoner taken from his cell and led by the -governor into “a room which had nothing sinister in its appearance. It -was lit by more than fifty candles. Sweet-scented flowers filled it with -a delicious perfume. The tyrant chatted amicably with his prisoner.... -Then he gave the horrible signal: a bascule let into the floor opened, -and the wretched man disappeared, falling upon a wheel stuck with razors -and set in motion by invisible hands.†And the author winds up with this -magnificent reflection:—“Such a punishment, so basely contrived, is not -even credible—and yet it<a name="page_039" id="page_039"></a> was at Paris, in that beautiful and -flourishing city, that this took place!â€</p> - -<p>Dorat-Cubières, who was one of the literary disgraces of the eighteenth -century, goes further! He saw, with his own eyes, one of those dens -where the captive, shut up with enough bread to last him a week, had -thereafter nothing else to subsist on but his own flesh. “In this den,†-he says, “we came upon a horrible skeleton, the sight of which made me -shrink back with horror!â€</p> - -<p>And the popular picture-mongers did not fail to propagate these -insanities. I have an engraving of the time nicely calculated to stir -sensitive hearts. Upon the steps of a gloomy cellar the conquerors are -dragging along a man whom his uniform shows to be one of the defenders -of the Bastille, and are pointing out to him an old man being carried -away, another being cut down from the ceiling where he is hanging by the -arms; yet others lying on a wheel furnished with iron teeth, chained to -it, twisted into horrible contortions by abominable machines; and in a -recess behind a grating appears the skeleton—which Dorat-Cubières never -saw!</p> - -<p>The non-existence of these dungeons and holes<a name="page_040" id="page_040"></a> with skeletons was too -great a shock to settled beliefs. This Bastille <i>must</i> contain concealed -below ground some unknown cells where its victims were moaning! And -naturally enough, when one bent down the ear, one heard their despairing -appeals! But after having pierced through vaults, sunk pits, dug, -sounded everywhere, there was no help for it but to give up these -fancies, though—an agreeable thing to have to say!—with regret.</p> - -<p>They fell back then on instruments of torture. For though the rack had -been abolished for a hundred years, how was it possible to conceive of -the Bastille without some slight instruments of torture?</p> - -<p>They had no difficulty in finding them—“chains,†says Louis Blanc, -“which the hands of many innocent men had perhaps worn, machines of -which no one could guess the use: an old iron corslet which seemed to -have been invented to reduce man to everlasting immobility!â€</p> - -<p>As a matter of fact, these chains belonged to two statuettes of -prisoners which stood on either side of the great clock in the -courtyard. The machines, the use of which no one could guess, were the -fragments<a name="page_041" id="page_041"></a> of a clandestine printing-press that had been pulled to -pieces. And the iron corslet was a piece of fifteenth-century armour!</p> - -<p>Skeletons, too, were missing, though indeed some bones were found in the -apartment of the surgeon of the fortress; but the utmost bad faith could -not but be compelled to acknowledge that these were anatomical -specimens. Happily for the legend, a more serious discovery was made: -“two skeletons, chained to a cannon-ball,†as the register of the -district of Saint-Louis la Culture declared.</p> - -<p>They both came to light in the rubbish dug out during the construction -of the bastion afterwards turned into a garden for the governor. “One,†-says the report of Fourcroy, Vicq-d’Azyr, and Sabatier, instructed to -examine them, “was found turned head downwards on the steps of a steep -staircase, entirely covered with earth, and appears to be that of a -workman who had fallen by accident down this dark staircase, where he -was not seen by the men working at the embankment. The other, carefully -buried in a sort of ditch, had evidently been laid there a long time -previously, before there was any idea of filling up the bastion.<a name="page_042" id="page_042"></a>â€</p> - -<p>As to the cannon-ball, it must have dated back to the Fronde.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p> - -<p>But skeletons were necessary! They had found some: they might as well -profit by them!</p> - -<p>The demolisher of the Bastille, that charlatan Palloy, exhibited them to -the veneration of the faithful in a cellar by the light of a funereal -lamp, after which they were honoured with a magnificent funeral, with -drums, clergy, a procession of working men, between two lines of -National Guards, from the Bastille to the Church of St. Paul. And -finally, in the graveyard adjoining the church, they raised to them, -amid four poplars, a monument of which a contemporary print has -preserved the likeness.</p> - -<p>After such a ceremony, dispute if you dare the authenticity of the -relics!</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>The memory of the Man in the Iron Mask is so closely bound up with the -story of the Bastille that M.<a name="page_043" id="page_043"></a> Funck-Brentano could not neglect this -great enigma about which for two hundred years so much ink has been -spilt. He strips off this famous mask—which, by the way, was of -velvet—and shows us the face which the world has been so anxious to -see: the face of Mattioli, the confidant of the Duke of Mantua and the -betrayer of both Louis XIV. and his own master.</p> - -<p>M. Funck-Brentano’s demonstration is so convincing as to leave no room -for doubt. But one dare not hope that the good public will accept his -conclusions as final. To the public, mystery is ever more attractive -than the truth. There is a want of prestige about Mattioli; while about -a twin brother of Louis XIV.—ah, <i>there</i> is something that appeals to -the imagination!</p> - -<p>And then there are the guides, the showmen, to reckon with—those -faithful guardians of legends, whose propaganda is more aggressive than -that of scholars. When you reflect that every day, at the Isles of -Saint-Marguerite, the masked man’s cell is shown to visitors by a good -woman who retails all the traditional fables about the luxurious life of -the prisoner, his lace, his plate, and the attentions<a name="page_044" id="page_044"></a> shown him by M. -de Saint-Mars, you will agree that a struggle with this daily discourse -would be hopeless. And you would not come off with a whole skin!</p> - -<p>I was visiting the Château d’If before the new buildings were erected. -The show-woman of the place, another worthy dame, pointed out to us the -ruined cells of the Abbé Faria and Edmond Dantès.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> And the spectators -were musing on the story as they contemplated the ruins.</p> - -<p>“It seems to me,†I said, “that these cells are rather near one another, -but surely Alexandre Dumas put them a little farther apart!â€</p> - -<p>“Oh, well!†replied the good creature, withering me with a glance of -contempt, “if, when I’m relating gospel truth, the gentleman begins -quoting a novelist—!â€</p> - -<p>To come nearer home. Follow, one of these days, a batch of Cook’s -tourists at Versailles, shown round by an English cicerone. You will see -him point out the window from which Louis XVI. issued, on a flying -bridge, to reach his scaffold, erected in the marble court! The guide is -no fool. He knows well enough that the Place de la Concorde would<a name="page_045" id="page_045"></a> not -appeal to the imagination of his countrymen; while it is quite natural -to them to draw a parallel in their minds between the scaffold of Louis -XVI. at Versailles and that of Charles I. at Whitehall.</p> - -<p>And the conclusion of the whole matter is this: that whatever may be -said or written, nothing will prevail against the popular beliefs that -the Bastille was “the hell of living men,†and that it was taken by -storm. Legends are the history of the people, especially those which -flatter their instincts, prejudices, and passions. You will never -convince them of their falsity.</p> - -<p>M. Funck-Brentano must also expect to be treated as a “reactionary,†for -such is, to many people, any one who does not unreservedly decry the -<i>ancien régime</i>. It had, assuredly, its vices and abuses, which the -Revolution swept away—to replace them by others, much more tolerable, -to be sure; but that is no reason for slandering the past and painting -it blacker than it really was. The fanatical supporters of the -Revolution have founded in its honour a sort of cult whose intolerance -is often irritating. To hear them you would fancy that before its birth -there was nothing but darkness, ignorance, iniquity,<a name="page_046" id="page_046"></a> and wretchedness! -And so we are to give it wholehearted admiration, and palliate its -errors and its crimes; even gilding, as Chateaubriand said, the iron of -its guillotine. These idolaters of the Revolution are very injudicious. -By endeavouring to compel admiration for all that it effected, good and -ill without distinction, they provoke the very unreasonable inclination -to regard its whole achievement with abhorrence. It could well dispense -with such a surplusage of zeal, for it is strong enough to bear the -truth; and its work, after all, is great enough to need no justification -or glorification by means of legends.</p> - -<p class="r"> -<span class="smcap">Victorien Sardou.</span><br /> -</p> - -<p><a name="page_047" id="page_047"></a></p> - -<h1>LEGENDS OF THE BASTILLE</h1> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.<br /><br /> -<small>THE ARCHIVES.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind">“T<small>HE</small> Bastille,†wrote Sainte-Foix, “is a castle which, without being -strong, is one of the most formidable in Europe, and about it I shall -say nothing.†“Silence is safer than speech on that subject,†was the -saying in Paris.</p> - -<p>At the extremity of the Rue Saint-Antoine, as one entered the suburb, -appeared the eight lofty towers, sombre, massive, plunging their -moss-grown feet into pools of muddy water. Their walls were pierced at -intervals with narrow, iron-barred windows: they were crowned with -battlements. Situated not far from the Marais, the blithe and wealthy -quarter, and quite near to the Suburb Saint-Antoine, where industry -raised its perpetual hum, the Bastille, charged with gloom and silence, -formed an impressive contrast.</p> - -<p>The common impression it made is conveyed by Restif<a name="page_048" id="page_048"></a> de la Bretonne in -his <i>Nights of Paris</i>: “It was a nightmare, that awesome Bastille, on -which, as I passed each evening along the Rue Saint-Gilles, I never -dared to turn my eyes.â€</p> - -<p>The towers had an air of mystery, harsh and melancholy, and the royal -government threw mystery like a cloud around them. At nightfall, when -the shutters were closed, a cab would cross the drawbridge, and from -time to time, in the blackness of night, funeral processions, vague -shadows which the light of a torch set flickering on the walls, would -make their silent exit. How many of those who had entered there had ever -been seen again? And if perchance one met a former prisoner, to the -first question he would reply that on leaving he had signed a promise to -reveal nothing of what he had seen. This former prisoner had, as a -matter of fact, never seen anything to speak of. Absolute silence was -imposed upon the warders. “There is no exchanging of confidences in this -place,†writes Madame de Staal, “and the people you come across have all -such freezing physiognomies that you would think twice before asking the -most trifling question.†“The first article of their code,†says -Linguet, “is the impenetrable mystery which envelops all their -operations.â€</p> - -<p>We know how legends are formed. Sometimes you see them open out like -flowers brilliant under the sun’s bright beams, you see them blossom -under the glorious radiance that lights up the life of heroes. The man -himself has long gone down into the tomb; the legend<a name="page_049" id="page_049"></a> survives; it -streams across the ages, like a meteor leaving its trail of light; it -grows, broadens out, with ever-increasing lustre and glow: in this light -we see Themistocles, Leonidas, Alexander, Cæsar, Charlemagne, Napoleon.</p> - -<p>Or may be, on the contrary, the legend is born in some remote corner, -covered with shade and silence. There men have lived their lives, there -it has been their lot to suffer. Their moans have risen in solitude and -confinement, and the only ears that heard them were harder than their -stone walls. These moans, heard by no compassionate soul, the great -resounding soul of the people catches up, swelling them with all its -might. Soon, among the mass of the people, there passes a blast -irresistible in its strength, like the tempest that upheaves the -restless waves. Then is the sea loosed from its chains: the tumultuous -breakers dash upon the affrighted shore: the sea-walls are all swept -away!</p> - -<p>In a letter written by Chevalier, the major of the Bastille, to Sartine, -the chief of the police, he spoke of the common gossip on the Bastille -that was going about. “Although utterly false,†he said, “I think it -very dangerous on account of its dissemination through the kingdom, and -that has now been going on for several years.†No attention was paid to -Chevalier’s warning. Mystery continued to be the rule at the Bastille -and in all that related to it. “The mildness of manners and of the -government,†writes La Harpe, “had caused needlessly harsh measures in -great part to disappear. They lived<a name="page_050" id="page_050"></a> on in the imagination of the -people, augmented and strengthened by the tales which credulity and hate -seize upon.†Ere long the <i>Memoirs</i> of Latude and of Linguet appeared. -Latude concealed his grievous faults, to paint his long sufferings in -strokes of fire. Linguet, with his rare literary talent, made of the -Bastille a picture dark in the extreme, compressing the gist of his -pamphlet into the sentence: “Except perhaps in hell, there are no -tortures to approach those of the Bastille.†At the same period, the -great Mirabeau was launching his powerful plea against <i>lettres de -cachet</i>, “arbitrary orders.†These books produced a mighty -reverberation. The Revolution broke out like a clap of thunder. The -Bastille was disembowelled. The frowning towers crumbled stone by stone -under the picks of the demolishers, and, as if they had been the -pedestal of the <i>ancien régime</i>, that too toppled over with a crash.</p> - -<p>One of the halls of the Bastille contained, in boxes carefully arranged, -the entire history of the celebrated fortress from the year 1659, at -which date the foundation of this precious store of archives had been -begun. There were collected the documents concerning, not only the -prisoners of the Bastille, but all the persons who had been lodged -there, either under sentence of exile, or simply arrested within the -limits of the generality of Paris in virtue of a <i>lettre de cachet</i>.</p> - -<p>The documents in this store-room had been in charge of archivists, who -throughout the eighteenth century had laboured with zeal and -intelligence at putting in order<a name="page_051" id="page_051"></a> papers which, on the eve of the -Revolution, were counted by hundreds of thousands. The whole mass was -now in perfect order, classified and docketed. The major of the château, -Chevalier, had even been commissioned to make these documents the basis -of a history of the prisoners.</p> - -<p>The Bastille was taken. In the disorder, what was the fate of the -archives? The ransacking of the papers continued for two days, writes -Dusaulx, one of the commissioners elected by the Assembly for the -preservation of the archives of the Bastille. “When, on Thursday the -16th, my colleagues and myself went down into the sort of cellar where -the archives were, we found the boxes in very orderly arrangement on the -shelves, but they were already empty. The most important documents had -been carried off: the rest were strewn on the floor, scattered about the -courtyard, and even in the moats. However, the curious still found some -gleanings there.†The testimony of Dusaulx is only too well confirmed. -“I went to see the siege of the Bastille,†writes Restif de la Bretonne; -“when I arrived it was all over, the place was taken. Infuriated men -were throwing papers, documents of great historical value, from the top -of the towers into the moats.†Among these papers, some had been burnt, -some torn, registers had been torn to shreds and trailed in the mud. The -mob had invaded the halls of the château: men of learning and mere -curiosity hunters strove eagerly to get possession of as many of these -documents as possible, in<a name="page_052" id="page_052"></a> which they thought they were sure to find -startling revelations. “There is talk of the son of a celebrated -magistrate,†writes Gabriel Brizard, “who went off with his carriage -full of them.†Villenave, then twenty-seven years of age and already a -collector, gathered a rich harvest for his study, and Beaumarchais, in -the course of a patriotic ramble through the interior of the captured -fortress, was careful to get together a certain number of these papers.</p> - -<p>The papers purloined from the archives on the day of the capture and the -day following became dispersed throughout France and Europe. A large -packet came into the hands of Pierre Lubrowski, an attaché in the -Russian embassy. Sold in 1805, with his whole collection, to the Emperor -Alexander, the papers were deposited in the Hermitage Palace. To-day -they are preserved in the Imperial Library at St. Petersburg.</p> - -<p>Fortunately, the custody of the captured fortress was entrusted on July -15 to the company of arquebusiers, which received orders to prevent the -removal of any more papers. On July 16 one of the members present at a -sitting of the Electoral Assembly, sprang forward to the table and -cried, “Ah, gentlemen, let us save the papers! It is said that the -papers of the Bastille are being plundered; let us hasten to collect the -remnants of these old title-deeds of an intolerable despotism, so that -we may inspire our latest posterity with their horror!†There was -rapturous applause. A committee was nominated, consisting of Dusaulx, De -Chamseru,<a name="page_053" id="page_053"></a> Gorneau, and Cailleau. Let us follow the style of the period: -“Before the Bastille the commissioners received a triumphant reception. -Amid the cheers of the people, who had been informed of their mission, -ten distinguished men of letters besought them to lead the commissioners -into the heart of that famous fortress, so long detested.†When they got -into the Bastille, the commissioners were not long in perceiving that -they were a little behind the fair: “Many boxes were empty, and there -was an immense heap of papers in complete disorder.â€</p> - -<p>The question of the papers of the Bastille grew day by day -extraordinarily popular. The Electoral Assembly had just appointed -commissioners to collect them; La Fayette, commander of the National -Guards, imposed a similar duty on the St. Elizabeth district; Bailly, -the mayor of Paris, delegated Dusaulx to the same office. In the -Constituent Assembly, the Comte de Châtenay-Lanty proposed that the -municipality of Paris should be instructed to get together the papers -found at the Bastille, so that they might be arranged, and that extracts -from them might be printed and published, “in order to keep for ever -alive in the hearts of Frenchmen, by means of this reading, the -detestation of arbitrary orders and the love of libertyâ€! This book was -to be the preface to the constitution. Finally, the district of St. Roch -took the initiative in calling upon the electors to restore to the -nation the papers carried off from the Bastille by Beaumarchais.</p> - -<p>In the sitting of July 24, the Electoral Assembly<a name="page_054" id="page_054"></a> passed a resolution -enjoining such citizens as were in possession of papers from the -Bastille to bring them back to the Hôtel de Ville. The appeal was -responded to, and the restitutions were numerous.</p> - -<p>When the pillage and destruction had been stopped and possession had -been regained of a part of the stolen documents, the papers were -consigned to three different depositories; but it was not long before -they were deposited all together in the convent of St. Louis la Culture. -At length, on November 2, 1791, the Commune of Paris resolved to have -the precious documents placed in the city library. The decision was so -much the more happy in that the transfer, while placing the papers under -the guardianship of trained men and genuine librarians, did not -necessitate removal, since the city library at that date occupied the -same quarters as the archives of the Bastille, namely, the convent of -St. Louis la Culture.</p> - -<p>To the revolutionary period succeeded times of greater calm. The -archives of the Bastille, after being the object of so much discussion, -and having occupied the Constituent Assembly, the Electoral Assembly, -the Paris Commune, the press, Mirabeau, La Fayette, Bailly, all Paris, -the whole of France, fell into absolute oblivion. They were lost from -sight; the very recollection of them was effaced. In 1840, a young -librarian named François Ravaisson discovered them in the Arsenal -library at the bottom of a veritable dungeon. How had they got stranded -there?<a name="page_055" id="page_055"></a></p> - -<p>Ameilhon, the city librarian, had been elected on April 22, 1797, keeper -of the Arsenal library. Anxious to enrich the new depository of which he -had become the head, he obtained a decree handing over the papers of the -Bastille to the Arsenal library. The librarians recoiled in dismay -before this invasion of documents, more than 600,000 in number and in -the most admired disorder. Then, having put their heads together, they -had the papers crammed into a dusty back-room, putting off the sorting -of them from day to day. Forty years slipped away. And if it happened -that some old antiquary, curious and importunate, asked to be allowed to -consult the documents he had heard spoken of in his youth, he was -answered—no doubt in perfect good faith—that they did not know what he -was talking about.</p> - -<p>In 1840 François Ravaisson had to get some repairs done in his kitchen -at the Arsenal library. The slabs of the flooring were raised, when -there came to view, in the yawning hole, a mass of old papers. It -happened by the merest chance that, as he drew a leaf out of the heap, -Ravaisson laid his hand on a <i>lettre de cachet</i>. He understood at once -that he had just discovered the lost treasure. Fifty years of laborious -effort have now restored the order which the victors of the 14th of July -and successive removals had destroyed. The archives of the Bastille -still constitute, at the present day, an imposing collection, in spite -of the gaps made by fire and pillage in 1789, for ever to be regretted. -The administration of the Arsenal library has acquired copies of<a name="page_056" id="page_056"></a> the -documents coming from the Bastille which are preserved at St. -Petersburg. The archives of the Bastille are now open to inspection by -any visitor to the Arsenal library, in rooms specially fitted up for -them. Several registers had holes burnt in them on the day of the -capture of the Bastille, their binding is scorched black, their leaves -are yellow. In the boxes the documents are now numbered, and they are -daily consulted by men of letters. The catalogue has been compiled and -published recently, through the assiduity of the minister of public -instruction.</p> - -<p>It is by the light of these documents, of undeniable genuineness and -authority, that the black shade which so long brooded over the Bastille -has at length been dispelled. The legends have melted away in the clear -light of history, as the thick cloak of mist with which night covers the -earth is dissipated by the morning sun; and enigmas which mankind, -wearied of fruitless investigations, had resigned itself to declare -insoluble, have now at last been solved.<a name="page_057" id="page_057"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.<br /><br /> -<small>HISTORY OF THE BASTILLE.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind">J<small>ULIUS</small> C<small>ÆSAR</small> describes a structure three stories high which his -legionaries used rapidly to erect in front of towns they were besieging. -Such was the remote origin of the “bastides†or “bastilles,†as these -movable fortresses were called in the Middle Ages. Froissart, speaking -of a place that was being invested, says that “bastides were stationed -on the roads and in the open country†in such a manner that the town -could get no food supplies. It was not long before the designation was -applied to the fixed towers erected on the ramparts for the defence of -the towns, and more particularly to those which were constructed at the -entrance gates.</p> - -<p>In 1356, the chroniclers mention some important works that had been done -on the circumvallations of Paris. These were constructions interrupting -the wall at intervals, and so placed as to protect either an entrance -gate or the wall itself. The special designations of <i>eschiffles</i>, -<i>guérites</i>, or <i>barbacanes</i> were applied to such of these buildings as -rose between two gates of the city,<a name="page_058" id="page_058"></a> while the <i>bastilles</i> or <i>bastides</i> -were those which defended the gates. The first stone of the edifice -which for more than four centuries was to remain famous under the name -of the Bastille was laid on April 22, 1370, by the mayor of Paris in -person, Hugh Aubriot, the object being to strengthen the defences of the -city against the English. To reproach the king, Charles V., with the -construction of a cruel prison would be almost as reasonable as to -reproach Louis-Philippe with the construction of the fortress of Mont -Valérien. We borrow these details from M. Fernand Bournon’s excellent -work on the Bastille in the <i>Histoire générale de Paris</i>.</p> - -<p>“The Bastille,†writes M. Bournon, “at the time of its capture on July -14, 1789, was still identical, except in some trifling particulars, with -the work of the architects of the fourteenth century.†The Place de la -Bastille of the present day does not correspond exactly to the site of -the fortress. Mentally to restore that site it is necessary to take away -the last houses of the Rue Saint-Antoine and the Boulevard Henri IV.; -the ground they occupy was then covered with the château and its glacis. -The round towers, however, must have extended considerably in advance of -the line of the houses and have encroached upon the pavement. The plan -reproducing the site exactly is to-day marked by lines of white stones, -by means of which all Parisians may get some notion of it if they go to -the Place de la Bastille.</p> - -<p>M. Augé de Lassus, who drew so largely upon the works of M. Bournon and -ourselves for his lecture on the<a name="page_059" id="page_059"></a> Bastille,<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> will permit us in our -turn to borrow from him the description he gave of the Bastille, so far -as its construction is concerned. Prints of the commonest kind which -have circulated in thousands, the more recent reconstruction which in -1889 gave Paris so much entertainment, have familiarized us with the -aspect of the Bastille, whose eight circular towers, connected by -curtains of equal height, give us the impression of a box all of a -piece, or, if you prefer it, an enormous sarcophagus. The eight towers -all had their names. There were the Corner, the Chapel, and the Well -towers, names readily accounted for by their position or by details of -their construction. Then came the Bertaudière and Bazinière towers, -baptized by the names of two former prisoners. The Treasure tower was so -called because it had received on many occasions, notably under Henri -IV., the custody of the public money. The excellent poet Mathurin -Regnier alludes to this fact in these oft-quoted lines:—</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Now mark these parsons, sons of ill-got gain,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Whose grasping sires for years have stolen amain,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Whose family coffers vaster wealth conceal,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Than fills that royal store-house, the Bastille.â€<br /></span> -</div></div> - -<p class="nind">The seventh tower was known as the County tower, owing its name, as M. -Bournon conjectures, to the feudal dignity called the County of Paris. -“The hypothesis,†he adds, “derives the greater weight from the fact -that the mayors of Paris were called, up to the end of the<a name="page_060" id="page_060"></a> <i>ancien -régime</i>, mayors of the town and viscounty of Paris.†The eighth tower -bore a name which, for the tower of a prison, is very remarkable. It was -called the Tower of Liberty. This odd appellation had come to it from -the circumstance that it had been the part of the Bastille where -prisoners were lodged who enjoyed exceptionally favourable treatment, -those who had the “liberty†of walking during the day in the courtyards -of the château. These prisoners were said to be “in the liberty of the -courtâ€; the officers of the château called them the “prisoners of the -liberty†in contradistinction to the prisoners “in duranceâ€; and that -one of the eight towers in which they were lodged was thus, quite -naturally, called “the Tower of Liberty.â€</p> - -<p>The towers of the Chapel and the Treasure, which were the oldest, had -flanked the original gateway, but this was soon walled up, leaving -however in the masonry the outline of its arch, and even the statues of -saints and crowned princes that had been the only ornaments of its bare -walls. “In accordance with custom,†says M. Augé de Lassus, “the -entrance to the Bastille was single and double at the same time; the -gate for vehicles, defended by its drawbridge, was flanked by a smaller -gate reserved for foot passengers, and this, too, was only accessible -when a small drawbridge was lowered.â€</p> - -<p>In the first of the two courtyards of the Bastille, D’Argenson had -placed a monumental clock held up by large sculptured figures -representing prisoners in chains. The<a name="page_061" id="page_061"></a> heavy chains fell in graceful -curves around the clock-face, as a kind of ornamentation. D’Argenson and -his artists had a ferocious taste.</p> - -<p>On the morrow of the defeat at St. Quentin,<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> the fear of invasion -decided Henri II., under the advice of Coligny, to strengthen the -Bastille. It was then, accordingly, that there was constructed, in front -of the Saint-Antoine gate, the bastion which was at a later date to be -adorned with a garden for the prisoners to walk in.</p> - -<p>Around the massive and forbidding prison, in the course of the -seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, quite a little town sprang up and -flourished, as in the Middle Ages happened around lofty and impressive -cathedrals. Barbers, cobblers, drink-sellers, poulterers, cheesemongers, -and general dealers had their shops there. These new buildings -encroached on the Rue Saint-Antoine, and extended as far as the convent -of the Visitation, the chapel of which, converted into a Protestant -place of worship, still exists.</p> - -<p>“In its latter days,†writes M. de Lassus, “the Bastille with its -appendages presented an appearance somewhat as follows:—On the Rue -Saint-Antoine, a gateway of considerable size, and, with its trophies of -arms, making some pretensions to a triumphal arch, gave access to a<a name="page_062" id="page_062"></a> -first court skirted with shops, and open, at least during the day, to -all comers. People might pass through it freely, but were not allowed to -loiter there. Then appeared a second entrance, a double one for horse -and foot traffic, each gate defended by its drawbridge. Admittance -through this was more difficult, and the sentry’s instructions more -rigorous; this was the outer guard. As soon as this entrance was passed, -one came to the court of the governor, who received the more or less -voluntary visitor. On the right stretched the quarters of the governor -and his staff, contiguous to the armoury. Then there were the moats, -originally supplied by the waters of the Seine—at that time people -frequently fell in and were drowned, the moats not being protected by -any railing—in later times they were for the most part dry. Then rose -the lofty towers of the citadel, encircled, nearly a hundred feet up, by -their crown of battlements; and then one found the last drawbridge, most -often raised, at any rate before the carriage gate, the door for foot -passengers alone remaining accessible, under still more rigorous -conditions.â€</p> - -<p>These conditions, so rigorous for contemporaries—the Czar Peter the -Great himself found them inflexible—are removed for the historian: -thanks to the numerous memoirs left by prisoners, thanks to the -documents relating to the administration of the Bastille now in the -Arsenal library, and to the correspondence of the lieutenants of police, -we shall penetrate into the interior<a name="page_063" id="page_063"></a> of these well-fenced precincts and -follow the life of the prisoners day by day.</p> - -<p>In its early days, then, the Bastille was not a prison, though it became -such as early as the reign of Charles VI. Yet for two centuries it kept -its character as a military citadel. Sometimes the kings gave lodgment -there to great personages who were passing through Paris. Louis XI. and -Francis I. held brilliant fêtes there, of which the chroniclers speak -with admiration.</p> - -<p>It is Richelieu who must be considered the founder of the Bastille—the -Bastille, that is, as a royal prison, the Bastille of the seventeenth -and eighteenth centuries. Before him, imprisonment in the old fortress -was merely casual; it is to him that we must trace the conception of the -state prison as an instrument of government. Here we shall be arrested -by the question, what is to be understood by a state prison? The term, -vague and open to discussion, is explained by M. Bournon. “By a state -prison—taking the Bastille as a particular instance—must be understood -a prison for those who have committed a crime or misdemeanour not -provided for by the common law; for those who, rightly or wrongly, have -appeared dangerous to the safety of the state, whether the nation itself -is concerned, or its head, or a body more or less considerable of -citizens, a body sometimes no larger than the family of the suspect. If -we add to this class of prisoners personages too conspicuous to be -punished for a crime at common law on equal terms with the ordinary -malefactor, and for whom it would appear inevitable that<a name="page_064" id="page_064"></a> an exceptional -prison should be reserved, we shall have passed in review the different -kinds of delinquents who expiated their misdeeds at the Bastille from -the time of Richelieu to the Revolution.â€</p> - -<p>The administration of the Bastille, which, up to the reign of Louis -XIII., was entrusted to great lords, dukes, constables, marshals of -France—the Marshal de Bassompierre, the Constable de Luynes, the -Marshal de Vitry, the Duke of Luxemburg, to mention only the last of -them—was placed by Richelieu in the hands of a real jailer, Leclerc du -Tremblay, brother of Père Joseph.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p> - -<p>Documents throwing any light on the Bastille at the time when the Red -Man, as Victor Hugo named<a name="page_065" id="page_065"></a> Richelieu, was supreme, are however very -rare. An advocate, Maton de la Varenne, published in 1786, in his -<i>Revolutions of Paris</i>, a letter which ostensibly had been written on -December 1, 1642, to Richelieu, at that time ill. In it we read: “I, -whom you are causing to rot in the Bastille for having disobeyed your -commandment, which would have brought upon my soul condemnation to -eternal hell, and would have made me appear in eternity with hands -stained with blood——†It is impossible to guarantee the authenticity -of this document. To us it appears suspicious, the text having been -published at a time when many apocryphal documents were produced as -coming from the archives of the Bastille. More worthy of arresting our -attention is the “return of the prisoners who are in the château of the -Bastille,†a document of Richelieu’s time which M. Bournon discovered in -the archives of the Foreign Office. This catalogue, containing -fifty-three names, is the oldest list of prisoners of the Bastille known -up to the present time. Among the prisoners several are suspected or -convicted of evil designs against “Monsieur le cardinal,†some are -accused of an intention to “complot,†that is, to conspire against the -throne, or of being spies. There is an “extravagant†priest, a monk who -had “opposed Cluni’s election,†three hermits, three coiners, the -Marquis d’Assigny, condemned to death, but whose punishment had been -commuted to perpetual imprisonment, a score or so of lords designated as -“madmen, vile scoundrels, evil wretches,†or accused<a name="page_066" id="page_066"></a> of some definite -crime, theft or murder; finally, those whose name is followed by the -simple note, “Queen-mother,†or “Monsieur,â€<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> whence we may conclude -that the clerk had no exact information about the prisoners of the -cardinal. We shall give later the list of the prisoners in the Bastille -on the day of its capture, July 14, 1789; and the comparison between the -two lists at the two periods, the remotest and the most recent that we -could select, will be instructive. We have also, to assist us in forming -a judgment of the Bastille in Richelieu’s time, the memoirs of -Bassompierre and of Laporte, which transport us into a state prison, -elegant, we might almost say luxurious, reserved for prisoners of birth -and breeding, where they lived observing all social usages in their -mutual relations, paying and returning calls. But the Bastille preserved -its military character for many more years, and among the prisoners we -find especially a number of officers punished for breaches of -discipline. Prisoners of war were confined there, and foreign personages -of high rank arrested by way of reprisal, secret agents and spies -employed in France by hostile nations; finally, powerful lords who had -incurred the king’s displeasure. The court intrigues under Richelieu and -Mazarin contributed to the diversion of the Bastille from its original -intention: they began to incarcerate there <i>valets de chambre</i> who had -somehow become mixed up in the plots of sovereigns.</p> - -<p>Religious persecution was revived by the government<a name="page_067" id="page_067"></a> of Louis XIV., and -ere long a whole world of gazetteers and “novelists,†the journalists of -the period, were seen swarming like flies in the sun. Louis XIV. was not -precisely a stickler for the liberty of the press, but on the other hand -he shrank from cooping up men of letters, Jansenists and Protestants -convinced of the truth of their beliefs, pell-mell with the vagabonds -and thiefs confined at Bicêtre, Saint-Lazare, and the other prisons of -Paris. He threw open to them, too generously no doubt, the portals of -his château in the Suburb Saint-Antoine, where they mixed with young men -of family undergoing a mild course of the Bastille at the request of -their parents, and with quarrelsome nobles whom the marshals of France, -anxious to avoid duels, used to send there to forget their animosities. -Further, the reign of Louis XIV. was marked by some great trials which -produced a strange and appalling impression, and threw around the -accused a halo of mystery—trials for magic and sorcery, cases of -poisoning and base coining. The accused parties in these cases were -confined in the Bastille. And here we encounter a fresh departure from -the primitive character of the old fortress; prisoners were sent there -whose cases were tried by the regularly constituted judges. Henceforth -prisoners who appeared before the court of the Arsenal were divided -between the Bastille and the fortress of Vincennes.</p> - -<p>This is the grand epoch in the history of the Bastille: it is now a -veritable prison of state. Writers can speak<a name="page_068" id="page_068"></a> of its “nobleness.†It -shows itself to us in colours at once charming and awe-inspiring, -brilliant, majestic, now filled with sounds of merriment, now veiled -with an appalling silence. From the gloomy regions within the massive -walls there come to us the sounds of song and laughter mingled with -cries of despair, with sobs and tears. This is the period of the Iron -Mask: the period when the governor receives mysterious letters from the -court. “I beg you, sir, to see that, if anyone comes to ask for news of -the prisoner whom Desgrez conducted to the Bastille this morning by -order of the king, nothing be said about him, and that, if possible, in -accordance with the intention of His Majesty and the accompanying -instructions, no one may get to know him or even his name.†“M. de -Bernaville (the name of one of the governors of the Bastille), having -given orders for the conveyance of an important prisoner to the prison -of my château of the Bastille, I send this letter to inform you of my -intention that you receive him there and keep him closely guarded until -further orders, warning you not to permit him, under any pretext -whatever, to hold communication with any person, either by word of mouth -or in writing.†The prisoners surrounded with so absolute a silence -almost all belonged to the same category, namely, distinguished spies, -who seem to have been rather numerous in France at the full tide of -Louis XIV.’s wars, and who were hunted down with an eagerness which grew -in proportion as fortune frowned on the royal armies. We read in the -Journal kept by<a name="page_069" id="page_069"></a> the King’s lieutenant, Du Junca: “On Wednesday, -December 22, about ten o’clock in the morning, M. de la Coste, provost -of the King’s armies, came here, bringing and leaving in our custody a -prisoner whom for greater secrecy he caused to enter by our new gate, -which allows us to pass into or out of the garden of the Arsenal at all -hours—the which prisoner, M. d’Estingen by name, a German, but married -in England, was received by the governor by order of the King sent by -the hand of the Marquis de Barbezieux, with explicit instructions to -keep the prisoner’s presence a secret and to prevent him from holding -communication with anyone, in speech or writing: the which prisoner is a -widower, without children, a man of intelligence, and doing a brisk -trade in news of what is happening in France, sending his information to -Germany, England, and Holland: a gentlemanly spy.†On February 10, 1710, -Pontchartrain wrote to Bernaville, governor of the Bastille: “I cannot -refrain from telling you that you and the Chevalier de la Croix speak a -good deal too much and too openly about the foreign prisoners you have. -Secrecy and mystery is one of your first duties, as I must ask you to -remember. Neither D’Argenson nor any other than those I have apprized -you of should see these prisoners. Give explicit warning to the Abbé -Renaudot and to de la Croix of the necessity of maintaining an -inviolable and impenetrable secrecy.â€</p> - -<p>It happened also at that period that a prisoner remained in complete -ignorance of the reason of his<a name="page_070" id="page_070"></a> incarceration: “The prisoner at the -Bastille named J. J. du Vacquay,†writes Louvois to the governor, “has -complained to the King that he has been kept there for thirteen years -without knowing the reason: be good enough to let me know what minister -signed the warrant under which he is detained, so that I may report to -His Majesty.â€</p> - -<p>As the greater part of the papers relating to the arrest were destroyed -as soon as the incarceration was effected, it sometimes happened that in -certain cases the reasons were not known even in the offices of the -ministers. Thus Seignelay writes to the governor, M. de Besmaus: “The -King has commanded me to write and ask you who is a certain prisoner -named Dumesnil, how long he has been at the Bastille, and for what -reason he was placed there.†“The demoiselle de Mirail, a prisoner at -the Bastille, having demanded her liberty of the King, His Majesty has -instructed me to write and ask you the reason of her detention; if you -know it, be good enough to inform me at your earliest convenience.†-Again, we find Louvois writing to the same effect: “I am sending you a -letter from M. Coquet, in regard to which the King has commanded me to -ask who signed the warrant under which he was sent to the Bastille, and -whether you know the reason of his being sent there.†“Sir, I am writing -a line merely to ask you to let me know who is Piat de la Fontaine, who -has been five years at the Bastille, and whether you do not remember why -he was placed there.<a name="page_071" id="page_071"></a>â€</p> - -<p>Letters of this kind are, it is true, very rare; yet if one compares the -state of things they disclose with the extraordinary comfort and luxury -with which the prisoners were surrounded, they help to characterize the -celebrated prison at this epoch of its history, namely, the seventeenth -century.</p> - -<p>In 1667 the office of lieutenant of police had been created. The first -to hold the title was Gabriel Nicolas de la Reynie, a man of the -greatest worth. It is very important to note that under the <i>ancien -régime</i> the lieutenant of police had a double function, being at the -same time a subordinate of the minister of Paris<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> and a member of the -Châtelet.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> His duties were thus of a twofold nature, administrative -and judicial. Now the Bastille, as a state prison, was more especially -an administrative institution; but gradually, owing to the character of -the persons brought there as prisoners, it became difficult to avoid -turning it also into a judicial institution, and the minister of Paris -became accustomed to delegate his subordinate, the lieutenant of police, -to conduct the examination of the prisoners at the Bastille. Though La -Reynie took practically the whole responsibility<a name="page_072" id="page_072"></a> of the administration -of the Bastille, his visits to the prison itself were nevertheless -relatively rare, and on every occasion a permit signed by Louis XIV. or -by Colbert was necessary.</p> - -<p>La Reynie was succeeded by D’Argenson. Under him the powers of the -lieutenant of police were very largely extended, and the Bastille was -comprised within his jurisdiction. Henceforth the lieutenant of police -will enter the state prison whenever it seems good to him, as lord and -master, accompanied by his subordinates at the Châtelet, clerks and -inspectors of police; the prisoners will be in direct and constant -communication with him, and he will make an inspection of all the -chambers at least once a year. We find that at every change in the -lieutenancy of police, it sufficed for the minister of Paris to send the -name of the new officer to the governor. Dating from this period, the -prison in the Suburb Saint-Antoine remained under the authority of a -magistrate.</p> - -<p>The Regency was a transition period between the reigns of Louis XIV. and -Louis XV., and there was a corresponding transition period in the -history of the Bastille. The incarcerations were less numerous and less -rigorous, but the rule of the prison lost something of that aristocratic -air which had characterized it. The most important episode in the -history of the Bastille during the Regency was the incarceration of -those who were accused of complicity in the Cellamare conspiracy. Among -these was Mdlle de Launay, later to be known<a name="page_073" id="page_073"></a> as Madame de Staal. She -has left some charming pages about her imprisonment, in which we find, -related with a fluent and subtle pen, the little romance which we -proceed to outline.</p> - -<p>Mdlle de Launay was secretary to the Duchess of Maine. She had had some -part in drawing up the scheme of the Cellamare conspiracy, which, if it -had succeeded, would have placed the king of Spain on the throne of -France. On December 10, 1718, the Regent sent her, with several of her -accomplices, to the Bastille, less with the idea of punishing her for -machinations against the state than to obtain from her details of the -conspiracy. At that period of her life she was of but moderate fortune -and rank, and it would not have been strange if she had been treated -with rigour. She found at the Bastille, on the contrary, unexpected -comfort and consideration. In her <i>Memoirs</i>, she writes that her sojourn -at the Bastille was the pleasantest time of her life. Her maid, Rondel, -was permitted to live with her. She was installed in a veritable suite -of rooms. She complained of the mice there, and a cat was given her, to -drive out the mice and provide some amusement. By and by there were -kittens, and the sportive tricks of the numerous little family cheered -her wonderfully, she said. Mdlle de Launay was regularly invited to dine -with the governor; she spent her days in writing and card-playing. The -king’s lieutenant, Maisonrouge, a man well on in years, who held, after -the governor, the first place in the administration of the château, -conceived a profound<a name="page_074" id="page_074"></a> and pathetic passion for the fair prisoner. He -declared that nothing would give him greater happiness than to make her -his wife. His apartments happened to be near those of Mdlle de Launay. -Unhappily for the king’s lieutenant, there was in the neighbourhood a -third suite, occupied by a young and brilliant nobleman, the Chevalier -de Ménil, who also was implicated in the Cellamare affair. The fair -prisoner was not acquainted with him. Maisonrouge impresses us as a man -of great dignity, and rare nobility of character. He spoke to the two -young prisoners about each other, hoping, by bringing them into -communication, to provide them with fresh distractions, more -particularly the lady, whom he loved. The Chevalier de Ménil and Mdlle -de Launay could not see each other; they had never met. They began by -exchanging epistles in verse. Like everything that came from her pen, -the verses of Mdlle de Launay were full of animation and charm. The good -Maisonrouge played post between them, happy to see his little friend’s -delight in the diversion she owed to him. It was not long before the -verses carried from one room to the other by Maisonrouge began to speak -of love, and this love—surprising as it may seem, but not difficult to -understand in the sequestered life of the Bastille—ere long became real -in the consciousness of the young people, who saw each other in -imagination under the most charming colours. Maisonrouge was soon -induced to contrive an interview between them. It is a delightful -moment. The two captives had never seen each other,<a name="page_075" id="page_075"></a> yet loved each -other passionately: what will their mutual impressions be? Mdlle de -Launay’s impression, when she saw the gay chevalier, was of unmixed -enthusiasm; the chevalier’s, maybe, was more subdued; but if it is true, -as someone has said, that to nuns the gardener represents mankind, to a -prisoner every young woman must be an exquisite creature. The interviews -continued under the benevolent eye of Maisonrouge, who watched the -development of Mdlle de Launay’s love for Ménil—the love of the girl -whom he himself loved intensely, but whose happiness he preferred to his -own. There are delightful details which may be found delightfully -described in Mdlle de Launay’s <i>Memoirs</i>. It is M. Bournon’s opinion -that, according to the testimony of Mdlle de Launay herself, this idyll -of the Bastille had “the dénouement that might have been foretold.†We -have caught no hint of the sort in the <i>Memoirs</i> of Madame de Staal, but -then, M. Bournon is no doubt the better psychologist. At any rate, the -governor of the Bastille got wind of the diversions of the lovers. He -put his foot down. Ménil was transferred to a distant tower, Mdlle de -Launay shed tears, and, incredible as it seems, Maisonrouge, while -redoubling his efforts to please her, sympathized with her lot to the -point of arranging fresh and more difficult interviews with the sparkish -chevalier. Mdlle de Launay left the prison in the spring of 1720, after -having sent to the Regent a detailed statement of the facts of the -conspiracy, which hitherto she had refused to furnish. Once at liberty, -she vainly implored<a name="page_076" id="page_076"></a> the Chevalier de Ménil to fulfil his pledges and -make her his wife. Maisonrouge died in the following year, of -disappointment, says the gay coquette, at his failure to get from her, -during her imprisonment, the promise of marriage which now she would -have been glad enough to fulfil.</p> - -<p>It seems as though under the Regency everything at the Bastille turned -on love—a reflection of the epoch itself. The young Duke de Richelieu -was locked up there because he did not love his wife. The brilliant -nobleman was kept under lock and key for several weeks, “in solitude and -gloom,†he says, when suddenly the door of his room flew open and Madame -de Richelieu appeared, a wonder of grace, brightness and charm: “The -fair angel,†writes the duke, “who flew from heaven to earth to set -Peter free was not so radiant.â€</p> - -<p>We have seen how the Bastille had been transformed from a military -citadel into a prison of state. We shall now witness, under the -government of the Duke of Orleans, another transformation, betokened by -an event which is of little apparent importance. The Duke de Richelieu -was imprisoned in the Bastille a second time as the result of a duel: a -judge of the Parlement went there to question him and the Parlement -tried his case. The Parlement<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> at the Bastille, in the prison of the -king! From that moment the fortress continued year by year to grow more -like our modern<a name="page_077" id="page_077"></a> prisons. “Under the Cardinal de Fleury,†writes La -Harpe, “this famous château was inhabited by hardly any but Jansenist -writers: it then became the enforced residence of champions of -philosophy and authors of clandestine satires, and acted as a foil to -their obscurity and shame.†It became increasingly the practice to -confine there accused persons whose cases were regularly tried at the -Châtelet or even before the Parlement. By the second half of the -eighteenth century accused persons had come to be incarcerated in the -Bastille by direct order of the Châtelet, which would have seemed -incredible to a contemporary of Louis XIV. The summoning officer would -post himself before the towers, and there, while the prisoner pressed -his head close against the bars of the window, the officer would shout -the terms of the writ at him across the moat. The advocates defending -the accused obtained permission to go and consult their clients, and -they were the only persons who were permitted to interview the prisoners -in private. On the appointed day the prisoner was transferred to the law -courts quietly and by night to avoid the curiosity of the crowd.</p> - -<p>Under Louis XVI. the judges of the Parlement visited the Bastille as -they visited the other prisons; at length the minister Breteuil sent -instructions to the officials informing them that no more <i>lettres de -cachet</i> would be issued without stating the duration of the penalty to -which the guilty person was condemned and the grounds for his -punishment. The Bastille was now merely a<a name="page_078" id="page_078"></a> prison like the others, -except that the prisoners were better treated there.</p> - -<p>In 1713 Voysin, the Secretary of State, wrote to D’Argenson: -“Beaumanielle is not sufficiently deserving of consideration to warrant -his removal from the Châtelet to the Bastille.†La Harpe has well -described the transformation which from this time came over the great -state prison by saying that, from the beginning of the century, none of -the prisoners who had been placed there “had merited the honour.†His -remark receives corroboration from Linguet: “It is not, in these latter -days especially, for criminals of state that the Bastille is reserved: -it has become in some sort the antichambre of the conciergerie.â€</p> - -<p>If the glories of the Bastille paled as it grew older, on the other hand -torture, which, it is true, had never been applied except by order of -the courts, had completely disappeared. From the beginning of the -eighteenth century, the cells and chains were merely a temporary -punishment reserved for insubordinate prisoners: from the accession of -Louis XVI. they had fallen into disuse. Breteuil forbade any person -whatever to be placed in the cells, which were the rooms on the lowest -floor of each tower, a sort of damp and gloomy vaults. On September 11, -1775, Malesherbes writes: “No prisoner should be refused material for -reading and writing. The abuse it is pretended that they may make of it -cannot be dangerous, confined so closely as they are. Nor should any -refusal be made to the desire of such as may wish to<a name="page_079" id="page_079"></a> devote themselves -to other occupations, provided they do not require you to leave in their -hands tools of which they might avail themselves to effect their escape. -If any of them should wish to write to his family and his friends, he -must be permitted to receive replies, and to send replies to their -letters after having read them. In all this you must be guided by your -prudence and your humanity.†The reading of the gazettes, formerly -rigidly forbidden, was now authorised.</p> - -<p>It must further be remarked that the number of prisoners confined in the -Bastille was not so large as might be thought. During the whole reign of -Louis XVI. the Bastille received no more than two hundred and forty -prisoners, an average of sixteen a year; while it had room for forty-two -in separate apartments.</p> - -<p>Under Louis XIV., at the period when the government was most liberal in -dispensing its <i>lettres de cachet</i>, an average of only thirty prisoners -a year entered the château, and their captivity was for the most part of -short duration. Dumouriez informs us in his <i>Memoirs</i> that during his -detention he had never more than eighteen fellow prisoners, and that -more than once he had only six. M. Alfred Bégis has drawn up a list of -the prisoners detained in the Bastille from 1781 to 1789. In May, 1788, -it contained twenty-seven prisoners, the highest figure reached during -these eight year; in September, 1782, it contained ten; in April, 1783, -seven; in June of the same year, seven; in December, 1788,<a name="page_080" id="page_080"></a> nine; in -February, 1789, nine; at the time of its capture, July 14, 1789, there -were seven.</p> - -<p>True, not only men were locked up in the Bastille, but also books when -they appeared dangerous. The royal warrant under which they were -incarcerated was even drawn up on the model of the <i>lettres de cachet</i>. -M. Bournon has published a specimen of these. The books were shut up in -a closet between the towers of the Treasure and the County, over an old -passage communicating with the bastion. In 1733 the lieutenant of police -instructed the governor of the Bastille to receive at the château “all -the apparatus of a clandestine printing-press which had been seized in a -chamber of the Saint-Victor abbey: the which you will be good enough to -have placed in the store room of the Bastille.†When the books ceased to -appear dangerous, they were set at liberty. In this way the -<i>Encyclopædia</i><a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> was liberated after a detention of some years.</p> - -<p>We have just seen that during the reign of Louis XVI. the Bastille did -not receive more than sixteen prisoners a year, on an average. Several -of these were only detained for a few days. From 1783 to 1789 the -Bastille remained almost empty, and would have been absolutely empty if -it had not been decided to place there prisoners who should properly -have been<a name="page_081" id="page_081"></a> elsewhere. As early as February, 1784, the fortress of -Vincennes, which served as a sort of overflow pipe to the Bastille, had -been shut for lack of prisoners. The system of <i>lettres de cachet</i> was -slipping away into the past. On the other hand, the Bastille was a -source of great expense to the King. The governor alone received 60,000 -livres annually. When you add the salaries and board of the officers of -the garrison, the turnkeys, the physicians, the surgeon, the apothecary, -the chaplains; when you add the food—this alone in 1774 came to 67,000 -livres—and the clothing of the prisoners, and the upkeep of the -buildings, the total will appear outrageous, for the figures given above -must be tripled to represent the value of the present day. So Necker, -seeing that the Bastille was of no further utility, thought of -suppressing it “for economy’s sake,â€<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> and he was not the only one in -high places to speak of this suppression. The Carnavalet<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> museum -possesses a scheme drawn up in 1784 by Corbet, the superintending -architect to the city of Paris, whence the project has an official -character: it is a scheme for a “Place Louis XVI.†to be opened up on -the site of the old fortress. We learn from Millin<a name="page_082" id="page_082"></a> that other artists -“were occupied with a scheme for erecting a monument on the site of the -Bastille.†One of these schemes deserves special mention. Seven of the -eight towers were to be destroyed, the eighth to remain standing, but in -a significant state of dilapidation: on the site of the demolished -towers a monument was to be erected to the glory of Louis XVI. This -monument was to consist of a pedestal formed by piling up chains and -bolts taken from the state prison, above which would rise a statue of -the king, one hand extended towards the ruined tower with the gesture of -a deliverer. It is to be regretted, if not for the beauty, at least, for -the picturesqueness of Paris, that this scheme was never put into -execution. Davy de Chavigné, king’s counsellor and auditor to the -treasury, was allowed to present to the Royal Academy of Architecture, -at its sitting on June 8, 1789, “a plan for a monument on the site of -the Bastille, to be decreed by the States General to Louis XVI. as the -restorer of the public liberty.†On this subject the famous sculptor -Houdon wrote to Chavigné: “I am very anxious for the plan to be adopted. -The idea of erecting a monument to liberty on the very spot where -slavery has reigned up to the present, appears to me particularly well -conceived, and well calculated to inspire genius. I shall think myself -only too fortunate to be among the artists who will celebrate the epoch -of the regeneration of France.â€</p> - -<p>We have seen prints, long anterior to 1789—one of them the frontispiece -of the edition of Linguet’s <i>Memoirs</i><a name="page_083" id="page_083"></a> that appeared in -1783—representing Louis XVI. extending his hand towards the lofty -towers, which workmen are in the act of demolishing.</p> - -<p>Among the archives of the Bastille are preserved two reports drawn up in -1788 by the king’s lieutenant, Puget, the most important personage in -the fortress after the governor. He proposes the suppression of the -state prison, the demolition of the old château, and the sale of the -ground for the benefit of the crown. It may be said of these schemes, as -of the plan of the architect Corbet, that they would not have been -propounded if they had not been approved in high places.</p> - -<p>Further, in the year 1784, an ardent supporter of the old state of -things cried: “Oh! if our young monarch ever committed a fault so great, -if he so far belied the most ancient usages of this government, if it -were possible that one day he could be tempted to destroy you†(the -author is apostrophizing the Bastille) “to raise on your ruins a -monument to the liberator-king....†The demolition of the Bastille was -decided on; and it would have been accomplished as a government -undertaking but for the outbreak of the Revolution.</p> - -<p>From January 1 to July 14, 1789, that is to say for more than six -months, only one solitary prisoner entered the Bastille; and what a -prisoner!—Réveillon, the paper manufacturer of the Suburb -Saint-Antoine, who was shut up on May 1 at his own request, in order to -escape the fury of the mob. The same year, the<a name="page_084" id="page_084"></a> lieutenant of police, de -Crosne, made an inspection of the Bastille, accompanied by a judge of -the Parlement; their object was to arrange officially about the -destruction of the state prison.</p> - -<p>Thus, on the eve of the Revolution, the Bastille no longer existed, -though its towers were still standing.</p> - -<p>The victors of the 14th of July set free seven prisoners: four forgers -whose arrest had been ordered by the Châtelet, whose case had been -regularly tried, and whose proper place was an ordinary prison; two -madmen who ought to have been at Charenton; and the Comte de Solages, a -young nobleman who had been guilty of a monstrous crime over which it -was desired to throw a veil out of regard for his family; he was -maintained on a pension paid by his father. The conquerors of the -Bastille destroyed an old fortified castle: the state prison no longer -existed. They “broke in an open door.†That was said of them even in -1789.<a name="page_085" id="page_085"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.<br /><br /> -<small>LIFE IN THE BASTILLE.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind">H<small>AVING</small> sketched rapidly and with bold strokes the outlines of the -history of the Bastille from its foundation to its fall, we intend to -show how the rule to which prisoners in the fortress of the Suburb -Saint-Antoine were submitted underwent its own process of -transformation, parallel with the transformation of the prison itself. -To understand the facts which follow, and which are of a kind to astound -the mind of everyone in these days, it is necessary to remember what we -have already said as to the character of the Bastille. It was the prison -of luxury, the aristocratic prison of the <i>ancien régime</i>, the <i>prison -de luxe</i> at a period when it was no dishonour, as we shall see later, to -be confined there. We must remember the phrase of the minister of Paris -writing to D’Argenson, in regard to a personage of but modest rank, that -this individual did not deserve “consideration†enough to be put in the -Bastille. Let us reflect on this observation of Mercier in his excellent -<i>Pictures of Paris</i>: “The people fear the Châtelet more than the -Bastille. Of the latter they have no dread, because it is almost unknown -to them.<a name="page_086" id="page_086"></a>â€</p> - -<p>We have shown how the Bastille, originally a military citadel, had -become a prison of state; then, little by little, had approximated to -the ordinary prisons, until the day when it died a natural death ere it -could be assassinated. The same transformation took place in the -treatment of the prisoners. Midway in the seventeenth century, the -Bastille had none of the characteristics of a prison, but was simply a -château in which the king caused certain of his subjects to sojourn, for -one cause or another. They lived there just as they thought proper, -furnishing their rooms according to their fancy with their own -furniture, indulging their tastes in regard to food at their own -expense, and waited on by their own servants. When a prisoner was rich -he could live at the Bastille in princely style; when he was poor, he -lived there very wretchedly. When the prisoner had no property at all, -the king did not for that reason give him furniture or food; but he gave -him money which he might use as seemed good to him in providing himself -with furniture and food: money of which he could retain a part—a number -of prisoners did not fail to do so—these savings becoming his own -property. This system, the character of which it is important to -recognize, underwent gradual modification during the course of the -seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, approximating, without ever -becoming identical with, the system of our modern prisons. Thus the -king, instead of granting pensions individually to the poorest of the -prisoners, came to endow the Bastille with a certain fixed number<a name="page_087" id="page_087"></a> of -pensions for the less fortunate prisoners. The recipients of these -pensions continued to enjoy them for long years, and if they did not -wish the whole of the money to be expended on their support, the balance -was handed over to them. So we see certain individuals getting little -fortunes together by the mere fact of their having been prisoners in the -Bastille—a circumstance which has so much surprised historians because -they have not sought its cause. It even happened that prisoners, when -their liberation was announced to them, asked to remain a little longer -in order to swell their savings, a favour which was sometimes granted -them. In the course of the eighteenth century the money destined to the -maintenance of the prisoners at the Bastille could not be diverted from -its purpose; the prisoners were no longer able to appropriate a part; -the whole sum had to be expended.</p> - -<p>It was only in the second half of the seventeenth century that the king -had some rooms at the Bastille furnished for such prisoners as were -without means of procuring furniture themselves. And it is very -interesting to note that it was only at the extreme end of the century, -under the administration of Saint-Mars, that certain apartments of the -Bastille were arranged in the prison style with bars and bolts. Until -then they had been simply the rooms of a stronghold.<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a></p> - -<p><a name="page_088" id="page_088"></a></p> - -<p>Let us follow the prisoner from his entrance to his exit.</p> - -<p>When the <i>lettre de cachet</i> had been signed, it was usually a sort of -sheriff’s officer who effected the arrest. He appeared in company with -five or six men-at-arms, and signified the arrest by touching his quarry -with a white staff. A coach was in waiting. The police officer politely -begged the person he was instructed to secure to step into the coach, -and took his place beside him. And, according to the testimony of -various memoirs, while the vehicle was rolling along with lowered -blinds, there was a pleasant conversational exchange of courtesies up to -the moment of the prisoner’s finding himself within the walls of the -Bastille. A certain Lafort was living in furnished apartments with a -young and pretty Englishwoman whom he had abducted, when one evening, -about sunset, a police officer arrived. The coach was at the door. -Preliminaries were settled on both sides with as much politeness as if a -visit or an evening party had been the topic of discussion. They all got -into the vehicle, even the young man’s lackey who, beguiled by -appearances, mounted behind. Arrived at the Bastille, the lackey lost no -time in descending to open the door: there was general astonishment, -especially on the part of the poor servant, when he learnt that since he -had entered the Bastille along with his master, he must stay with him.<a name="page_089" id="page_089"></a></p> - -<p>Most often the officer and his companions surprised their quarry early -in the morning, on rising from bed. Imagine then the coach with the -prisoner and the police officer inside, arriving before the Bastille, in -the first court in front of the castle keep. “Who goes there?†cries the -sentinel. “The king’s writ!†replies the officer. At this, the shops we -have seen attached to the flanks of the château are bound at once to be -shut. The soldiers on guard have to turn their faces to the wall, or -perhaps to pull their hats over their eyes. The coach passes the -outpost, a bell sounds. “Advance!†cries the officer on duty. The -drawbridge is lowered and the coach rattles over the stout iron-clamped -boards. For greater secrecy, spies and prisoners of war were taken in by -a private door leading to the gardens of the Arsenal.</p> - -<p>Officers and noblemen presented themselves before the Bastille alone, -unless they were accompanied by relatives or friends. “It is my -intention,†the king had written to them, “that you betake yourselves to -my château of the Bastille.†And no one dreamt of declining the royal -invitation. Further, when the governor desired to transfer one of them -from one prison to another, he contented himself with telling him so. We -find in the Journal of Du Junca, king’s lieutenant<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> at the<a name="page_090" id="page_090"></a> Bastille, -several notes like the following: “Monday, December 26, 1695, about ten -o’clock in the morning, M. de Villars, lieutenant-colonel of the -regiment of Vosges infantry, came and reported himself a prisoner, as -ordered by M. Barbezieux, though he was a prisoner in the citadel of -Grenoble, whence he came direct without being brought by anyone.â€<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> On -the arrival of the prisoner, the king’s lieutenant, accompanied by the -captain of the gates, came to receive him as he got out of his carriage. -The officers of the château at once led the new-comer into the presence -of the governor, who received him civilly, invited him to sit down, and -after having endorsed the <i>lettre de cachet</i> conversed with him for some -time. Under Louis XIV. the governor in most cases even kept his new -guest, as well as the persons who had accompanied him, to lunch or -dinner. Meanwhile his quarters had been got ready. We read in Du Junca’s -Journal that on January 26, 1695, a certain De Courlandon, a colonel of -cavalry, presented himself for incarceration at the Bastille. There -being no room ready to receive him, the governor asked him to go and -pass the night in a neighbouring inn, at the sign of the<a name="page_091" id="page_091"></a> <i>Crown</i>, and -to return next day. “Whereupon M. de Courlandon did not fail to return -about eleven o’clock in the morning, having dined with M. de Besmaus -(the governor), and in the afternoon he entered the château.â€</p> - -<p>The reader will not be surprised at learning that the prospect of -incarceration at the Bastille did not always strike the future prisoner -with terror. We read in the <i>Memoirs</i> of the Duke de Lauzun:<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> -“Scolded for two hours on end by everybody who fancied himself entitled -to do so, I thought I could not do better than go to Paris and await -developments. A few hours after my arrival, I received a letter from my -father telling me that it had been decided to put us all in the -Bastille, and that I should probably be arrested during the night. I -determined at least to finish gaily, so I invited some pretty girls from -the Opera to supper, so that I might await the officer without -impatience. Seeing that he did not arrive, I determined on the bold move -of going to Fontainebleau and joining the king’s hunt. He did not speak -to me once during the chase, which was such a confirmation of our -disgrace that on our return no one gave us the customary salute. But I -did not lose heart; in the evening I was in attendance, and the king -came to me. ‘You are all,’ he said, ‘hotheaded rips, but funny dogs all -the same; come along and have supper, and bring M. de Guéméné and the -Chevalier de Luxembourg.<a name="page_092" id="page_092"></a>’â€</p> - -<p>Before the new arrival was installed in the chamber prepared for him, he -was taken to the great council hall, where he was requested to empty his -pockets. Only notorious rogues were searched. If the prisoner had upon -him money, jewels, or other articles such as knives and scissors, the -use of which was not allowed by the regulations, they were done up in a -parcel which he himself sealed, with his own seal if he had one; if not, -with the seal of the Bastille. Finally, he was conducted to the room -reserved for him.</p> - -<p>Each of the eight towers of the Bastille contained four or five stories -of rooms or cells. The worst of these rooms were on the lowest floor, -and these were what were called the “cells,‗octagonal vaults, cold and -damp, partly under ground; the walls, grey with mould, were bare from -floor to ceiling, the latter a groined arch. A bench and a bed of straw -covered with a paltry coverlet, formed the whole appointments. Daylight -feebly flickered through the vent-hole opening on to the moat. When the -Seine was in flood, the water came through the walls and swamped the -cells; and then any prisoners who might happen to be in them were -removed. During the reign of Louis XIV. the cells were sometimes -occupied by prisoners of the lowest class and criminals condemned to -death. Later, under Louis XV., the cells ceased to be used except as a -place of punishment for insubordinate prisoners who assaulted their -guardians or fellow-prisoners, or for turnkeys and sentinels of the -château who had committed breaches of discipline. They stayed in the -cells for<a name="page_093" id="page_093"></a> a short time in irons. The cells had fallen into disuse by -the time the Revolution broke out; since the first ministry of Necker, -it had been forbidden to confine in them any one whatever, and none of -the warders questioned on July 18 remembered having seen any one placed -in them. The two prisoners, Tavernier and Béchade, whom the conquerors -of the 14th of July found in one of these dungeons, had been placed -there, at the moment of the attack, by the officers of the château, for -fear lest amid the rain of bullets some harm should befall them.</p> - -<p>The worst rooms after the cells were the <i>calottes</i>, the rooms on the -floor above. In summer the heat was extreme in them, and in winter the -cold, in spite of the stoves. They were octagons whose ceilings, as the -name implies, were shaped like a skull-cap. High enough in the centre, -they gradually diminished in height towards the sides. It was impossible -to stand upright except in the middle of the room.</p> - -<p>The prisoners were only placed in the cells and <i>calottes</i> under -exceptional circumstances. Every tower had two or three floors of lofty -and airy chambers, and in these the prisoners lived. They were octagons -from fifteen to sixteen feet in diameter and from fifteen to twenty feet -high. Light entered through large windows approached by three steps. We -have said that it was only towards the end of Louis XIV.’s reign that -these rooms were arranged like prison cells with bars and bolts. They -were warmed with open fireplaces or stoves. The ceiling was whitewashed, -the floor of brick. On the<a name="page_094" id="page_094"></a> walls the prisoners had chalked verses, -mottoes, and designs.</p> - -<p>One artistic prisoner amused himself by decorating the bare walls with -paintings. The governor, delighted at seeing him thus find relaxation, -moved him from room to room; when he had finished filling one with his -designs and arabesques, he was placed in another. Some of these rooms -were decorated with portraits of Louis XIV. placed above the -chimney-piece, a characteristic detail which helps to show what the -Bastille was at this period: the château of the king, where the king -received a certain number of his subjects as his willing or unwilling -guests.</p> - -<p>The best rooms in the Bastille were those that were fitted up in the -eighteenth century for the accommodation of the staff. These were what -were called the “suites.†In these were placed invalids and prisoners of -distinction.</p> - -<p>At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the furniture of these -apartments was still extremely simple: they were absolutely empty. The -reason of this we have indicated above. “I arrived,†says Madame de -Staal, “at a room where there was nothing but four walls, very filthy, -and daubed all over by my predecessors for want of something better to -do. It was so destitute of furniture that someone went and got a little -straw chair for me to sit on, and two stones to support a lighted -faggot, and a little candle-end was neatly stuck on the wall to give me -light.â€</p> - -<p>The prisoners sent to their own homes for a table, bed,<a name="page_095" id="page_095"></a> and chair, or -they hired these from the upholsterer of the Bastille. When they had -nothing to bless themselves with, the government, as we have already -said, did not provide them with furniture. It gave them money, sometimes -considerable sums, which permitted them to adorn their rooms after their -own fancy. This was the case in regard to all prisoners up to 1684. At -this date the king ordered the administration to supply furniture to -those of the prisoners whose detention was to be kept secret, for, by -getting in bedding from their own houses or the houses of friends, they -made known their arrest. D’Argenson had half a dozen of the rooms -permanently furnished, others were furnished under Louis XV.; under -Louis XVI., almost all were furnished. The appointments were very -modest: a bed of green baize with curtains, one or two tables, several -chairs, fire-dogs, a shovel, and a small pair of tongs. But after having -undergone examination, the prisoner retained the right of getting in -furniture from outside. And in this way the rooms of the prisoners were -sometimes adorned with great elegance. Madame de Staal relates that she -had hers hung with tapestry; the Marquis de Sade covered the bare walls -with long and brilliant hangings: other prisoners ornamented their rooms -with family portraits: they procured chests of drawers, desks, round -tables, dressing-cases, armchairs, cushions in Utrecht velvet; the -inventories of articles belonging to the prisoners show that they -managed to secure everything they thought necessary. The Abbé Brigault, -who<a name="page_096" id="page_096"></a> was imprisoned at the same time as Madame de Staal and for the same -affair, brought into the Bastille five arm-chairs, two pieces of -tapestry, eleven serge hangings, eight chairs, a bureau, a small table, -three pictures, &c. The list of effects taken out of the Bastille by the -Comte de Belle-Isle when he was set at liberty includes a library -consisting of 333 volumes and ten atlases, a complete service of fine -linen and plate for the table, a bed furnished with gold-bordered red -damask, four pieces of tapestry on antique subjects, two mirrors, a -screen of gold-bordered red damask matching the bed, two folding -screens, two armchairs with cushions, an armchair in leather, three -chairs in tapestry, an overmantel of gilt copper, tables, drawers, -stands, candlestick of plated copper, &c. We might multiply examples, -even from among prisoners of middle station.</p> - -<p>It was the rule that prisoners newly arrived at the Bastille should be -examined within twenty-four hours. It sometimes happened, however, that -one or another remained for two or three weeks before appearing before -the magistrate. The Châtelet commissioner, specially delegated to the -Bastille for these examinations, founded his questions on notes supplied -him by the lieutenant of police, who, indeed, often went in person to -see the prisoners. A special commission was appointed for affairs of -importance. Dumouriez says that he was examined after nine hours of -detention by three commissioners: “The president was an old councillor -of<a name="page_097" id="page_097"></a> state named Marville, a man of intelligence, but coarse and -sarcastic. The second was M. de Sartine, lieutenant of police and -councillor of state, a man of polish and refinement. The third was a -<i>maître des requêtes</i><a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> named Villevaux, a very insincere and -disputatious fellow. The clerk, who had more intelligence than any of -them, was an advocate named Beaumont.â€</p> - -<p>We have found many instances of prisoners who spoke in high terms of -their judges. And it cannot be said that prisoners at the Bastille -escaped judgment. A Châtelet commissioner examined them and sent the -official report of his examination, with a statement of his opinion, to -the lieutenant of police. He decided whether the arrest should be -sustained. Moreover, it would be a mistake to compare the lieutenant of -police under the <i>ancien régime</i> with the prefect of police of to-day; -the lieutenants of police, selected from former <i>maîtres des requêtes</i>, -had a judicial character: the documents of the period call them -“magistratesâ€; they issued decrees without appeal and pronounced penal -sentences, even condemning to the galleys; they were at the same time -justices of the peace with an extensive jurisdiction. In addition to the -examination held on the entrance of a prisoner, the lieutenants of -police, in the course of their frequent visits, addressed to the<a name="page_098" id="page_098"></a> -ministers of Paris reports on the prisoners,—reports in which they -discussed the evidence, and which constituted veritable judgments.</p> - -<p>When the prisoner was recognized as innocent, a new <i>lettre de cachet</i> -soon set him at liberty. The verdict of “no true bill†often supervened -with a rapidity which the decisions of our police magistrates would do -well to emulate. A certain Barbier, who entered the Bastille on February -15, 1753, was found not guilty and set at liberty the next day. Of the -279 persons imprisoned in the Bastille during the last fifteen years of -the <i>ancien régime</i>, thirty-eight benefited by the dropping of the -indictment.</p> - -<p>Finally—and here is a point on which the new method might well model -itself on that of the Bastille—when a detention was recognized as -unjust, the victim was indemnified. A great number of examples might be -mentioned. An advocate named Subé left the Bastille on June 18, 1767, -after a detention of eighteen days; he had been falsely accused of the -authorship of a book against the king, and received compensation to the -tune of 3000 livres, more than £240 of our money. A certain Pereyra, -imprisoned in the Bastille from November 7, 1771, to April 12, 1772, and -then from July 1 to September 26, 1774, having been found to be -innocent, was reinstated in all his property, and received from the king -a life pension of 1200 livres, more than £100 to-day. A certain number -of those accused in the Canada case, when the charge was withdrawn,<a name="page_099" id="page_099"></a> -received a life pension on leaving the Bastille. At other times, the -detention of an individual might throw his family into want. He was kept -in the Bastille, if it was thought he deserved it, but his people were -assisted. Under date September 3, 1763, the Duke de Choiseul writes to -the lieutenant of police: “I have received the letter you did me the -honour of writing to me in favour of the children of the Sieur -Joncaire-Chabert. I have the pleasure to inform you that I have got for -them a second subsidy of 300 livres (nearly £30 to-day) in consideration -of the sad condition you informed me they were in.†Louis XIV. -guaranteed to Pellisson, at his liberation, a pension of 2000 crowns. -The Regent granted to Voltaire, when he left the Bastille, a pension of -1200 livres. Louis XVI. awarded to Latude an annuity of 400 livres, and -to La Rocheguérault an annuity of 400 crowns. The minister Breteuil -pensioned all the prisoners whom he set at liberty. Brun de Condamine, -confined from 1779 to 1783, received on leaving a sum of 600 livres. -Renneville speaks of a prisoner to whom Seignelay gave an important -situation in compensation for his detention at the Bastille. We hear of -one, Toussaint Socquart, a commissioner of the Châtelet and of police -whose offices were restored to him when he came out of the Bastille. In -fact, contrary to detention in our modern prisons, incarceration in the -Bastille did not cast the slightest slur on the prisoner’s character, -even in the eyes of those to whom his arrest was due, and instances have -been known of men who, on their release from the<a name="page_100" id="page_100"></a> Bastille, not only -were reinstated in public offices, but reached the highest positions.</p> - -<p>Until his examinations were quite completed, the prisoner was kept in -close confinement. None but the officers of the château were allowed to -communicate with him. And during this time he lived in solitude, unless -he had brought a servant with him. The administration readily permitted -the prisoners to avail themselves of the services of their valets, who -were boarded at the king’s expense. It even happened that the government -sometimes gave their prisoners valets, paying not only for their board, -but also their wages at the rate of 900 livres a year. One might cite -prisoners of inferior rank who thus had servants to wait on them. Two or -three prisoners were sometimes put together in one room. Prison life has -no greater terror than solitude. In absolute solitude many of the -prisoners became mad. In company, the hours of captivity seemed less -tedious and oppressive. Father and son, mother and daughter, aunt and -niece, lived together. Many might be named. On September 7, 1693, a lady -named De la Fontaine was taken to the Bastille for the second time. The -first time, she had been imprisoned quite alone; but this new detention -evoked the compassion of the lieutenant of police, who, to please the -poor lady, sent her husband to the Bastille, locked him up with her, and -gave them a lackey to wait on them.</p> - -<p>The examinations being ended, the prisoners enjoyed a greater liberty. -They could then enter into communication<a name="page_101" id="page_101"></a> with the people of the town. -They obtained permission to see their relatives and friends. These -sometimes paid them visits in their rooms; but as a rule the interviews -took place in the council-hall, in presence of one of the officers of -the château. They were usually permitted to discuss only family affairs -and business matters. All conversation on the Bastille and the reasons -for their imprisonment was forbidden. The rules of the prison increased -in severity as time went on. Towards the end of Louis XV.’s reign the -lieutenant of police went so far as to prescribe the subjects of -conversation which would alone be permitted in the course of the visits -the prisoners received. “They may talk to the prisoner about the harvest -his vineyards will yield this year, about cancelling a lease, about a -match for his niece, about the health of his parents.†But it is -necessary to read the <i>Memoirs</i> of Gourville, Fontaine, Bussy-Rabutin, -Hennequin, Madame de Staal, the Duke de Richelieu, to form a general -idea of life at the Bastille under Louis XIV. and under the Regent. -Several prisoners were free to move about through the château wherever -it seemed good to them; they entered the rooms of their fellow-prisoners -at all hours of the day. The governor contented himself with locking -them in their own rooms at night. The prisoners who had the “liberty of -the court†organized games of bowls or <i>tonneau</i>, and hobnobbed with the -officers of the garrison. Fontaine relates that they might have been -seen from the top of the towers, collected fifty at a time in the inner -court<a name="page_102" id="page_102"></a> Bussy-Rabutin’s room was open to all comers: his wife and friends -visited him; he gave dinners to persons from court, plotted love -intrigues there, and corresponded freely with his friends and relatives. -Several prisoners even had permission to take a walk into the town on -condition of their returning to the château in the evening. Two brothers -were placed in the Bastille together. They went out when they pleased, -taking turns; it was sufficient for one or other to be always at the -château. The officers of the staff gossiped with the prisoners and gave -them advice as to the best means of obtaining their liberty.</p> - -<p>This animated, courtly, and elegant life is described with infinite -charm by Madame de Staal, whom we have already cited. “We all used to -spend a part of the day with the governor. We dined with him, and after -dinner I enjoyed a rubber of ombre with Messieurs de Pompadour and de -Boisdavis, Ménil advising me. When it was over we returned to our own -apartments. The company met again in my rooms before supper, for which -we returned to the governor’s, and after that we all went to bed.â€</p> - -<p>As to the manner in which the prisoners were fed and looked after, that -is surprising indeed, and what we shall say about it, though rigidly -accurate, will perhaps be regarded as an exaggeration. The governor drew -three livres a day for the maintenance of a man of inferior rank; five -livres for the maintenance of a tradesman; ten livres for a banker, a -magistrate, or a man of<a name="page_103" id="page_103"></a> letters; fifteen livres for a judge of the -Parlement; thirty-six livres for a marshal of France. The Cardinal de -Rohan had 120 francs a day spent on him. The Prince de Courlande, during -a stay of five months at the Bastille, spent 22,000 francs. These -figures must be doubled and trebled to give the value they would -represent to-day.</p> - -<p>We read, too, with the greatest astonishment the description of the -meals the prisoners made. Renneville, whose evidence is the more -important in that his book is a pamphlet against the administration of -the Bastille, speaks in these terms of his first meal: “The turnkey put -one of my serviettes on the table and placed my dinner on it, which -consisted of pea soup garnished with lettuce, well simmered and -appetizing to look at, with a quarter of fowl to follow; in one dish -there was a juicy beef-steak, with plenty of gravy and a sprinkling of -parsley, in another a quarter of forcemeat pie well stuffed with -sweetbreads, cock’s combs, asparagus, mushrooms, and truffles; and in a -third a ragoût of sheep’s tongue, the whole excellently cooked; for -dessert, a biscuit and two pippins. The turnkey insisted on pouring out -my wine. This was good burgundy, and the bread was excellent. I asked -him to drink, but he declared it was not permitted. I asked if I should -pay for my food, or whether I was indebted to the king for it. He told -me that I had only to ask freely for whatever would give me pleasure, -that they would try to satisfy me, and that His Majesty paid for it -all.†The<a name="page_104" id="page_104"></a> “most Christian†king desired that his guests should fast on -Fridays and in Lent, but he did not treat them any the worse on that -account. “I had,†says Renneville, “six dishes, and an admirable prawn -soup. Among the fish there was a very fine weever, a large fried sole, -and a perch, all very well seasoned, with three other dishes.†At this -period Renneville’s board cost ten francs a day; later he was reduced to -the rate of the prisoners of a lower class. “They much reduced my usual -fare,†he says; “I had, however, a good soup with fried bread crumbs, a -passable piece of beef, a ragoût of sheep’s tongue, and two custards for -dessert. I was treated in pretty much the same manner the whole time I -was in this gloomy place; sometimes they gave me, after my soup, a wing -or leg of fowl, sometimes they put two little patties on the edge of the -dish.â€</p> - -<p>Towards the end of Louis XV.’s reign, Dumouriez eulogizes the cookery of -the Bastille in almost the same terms. On the day of his entrance, -noticing that they were serving a fish dinner, he asked for a fowl to be -got from a neighbouring eating-house. “A fowl!†said the major, “don’t -you know that to-day is Friday?†“Your business is to look after me and -not my conscience. I am an invalid, for the Bastille itself is a -disease,†replied the prisoner. In an hour’s time the fowl was on the -table. Subsequently he asked for his dinner and supper to be served at -the same time, between three and four o’clock. His valet, a good cook, -used to make him stews. “You fared very well at the Bastille;<a name="page_105" id="page_105"></a> there -were always five dishes at dinner and three at supper, without the -dessert, and the whole being put on the table at once, appeared -magnificent.†There is a letter from the major of the Bastille addressed -in 1764 to the lieutenant of police, discussing a prisoner named Vieilh, -who never ate butcher’s meat; so they had to feed him exclusively on -game and poultry. Things were much the same under Louis XVI., as -Poultier d’Elmotte testifies: “De Launey, the governor, used to come and -have a friendly chat with me; he got them to consult my taste as regards -food, and to supply me with anything I wished for.†The bookseller -Hardy, transferred in 1766 to the Bastille with the members of the -Breton deputation, declares frankly that they were all treated in the -best possible way. Finally, Linguet himself, in spite of his desire to -paint the lot of the victims of the Bastille in the most sombre colours, -is obliged to confess that food was supplied in abundance. Every morning -the cook sent up to him a menu on which he marked the dishes he fancied.</p> - -<p>The account books of the Bastille confirm the testimony of former -prisoners. The following, according to these documents, are the meals -that La Bourdonnais enjoyed during July, 1750. Every day the menu -contains soup, beef, veal, beans, French beans, two eggs, bread, -strawberries, cherries, gooseberries, oranges, two bottles of red wine, -and two bottles of beer. In addition to this regular bill of fare we -note on July 2, a fowl and a bottle of Muscat; on the 4th, a bottle of -Muscat; on the 7th, tea;<a name="page_106" id="page_106"></a> on the 12th, a bottle of brandy; on the 13th, -some flowers; on the 14th, some quails; on the 15th, a turkey; on the -16th, a melon; on the 17th, a fowl; on the 18th, a young rabbit; on the -19th, a bottle of brandy; on the 20th, a chicken and ham sausage and two -melons; and so on.</p> - -<p>Tavernier was a prisoner of mean station, son of a doorkeeper of Paris -de Montmartel. He was implicated in a plot against the King’s life, and -was one of the seven prisoners set free on the 14th of July. He was -found out of his mind in his cell. After he had been led in triumph -through the streets of Paris, he was shut up at Charenton. He was a -martyr, people exclaimed. He was certainly not so well off in his new -abode as he had been at the Bastille. We have an account of what was -supplied to him at the Bastille in addition to the ordinary meals, in -November, 1788, in March and May, 1789, three of the last months of his -imprisonment. In November we find: tobacco, four bottles of brandy, -sixty bottles of wine, thirty bottles of beer, two pounds of coffee, -three pounds of sugar, a turkey, oysters, chestnuts, apples, and pears; -in March: tobacco, four bottles of brandy, forty-four bottles of wine, -sixty bottles of beer, coffee, sugar, fowls, cheese; in May: tobacco, -four bottles of brandy, sixty-two bottles of wine, thirty-one bottles of -beer, pigeons, coffee, sugar, cheese, &c. We have the menus of the -Marquis de Sade for January, 1789: chocolate cream, a fat chicken -stuffed with chestnuts, pullets with truffles, potted ham, apricot -marmalade, &c.<a name="page_107" id="page_107"></a></p> - -<p>The facts we are describing were the rule. The prisoners who were -treated with the least consideration fed very well. Only those who were -sent down to the cells were sometimes put on bread and water, but that -was only a temporary punishment.</p> - -<p>When a complaint was formulated by any prisoner in regard to his food, a -reprimand to the governor soon followed. Then the lieutenant of police -inquired of the person concerned if he was better treated than formerly. -“His Majesty tells me,†writes Pontchartrain to De Launey, “that -complaints have been raised about the bad food of the prisoners; he -instructs me to write to you to give the matter great attention.†And -Sartine wrote jokingly to Major de Losmes: “I am quite willing for you -to get the clothes of Sieur Dubois enlarged, and I hope all your -prisoners may enjoy as excellent health.â€</p> - -<p>Further, the king clothed those of the prisoners who were too poor to -buy their own clothes. He did not give them a prison uniform, but -dressing-gowns padded or lined with rabbit skin, breeches of coloured -stuff, vests lined with silk plush and fancy coats.<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> The commissary -at the Bastille appointed to look after the supplies took the prisoners’ -measure, and inquired about their<a name="page_108" id="page_108"></a> tastes, and the colours and styles -that suited them best. A lady prisoner named Sauvé asked to have made -for her a dress of white silk, dotted with green flowers. The wife of -commissary Rochebrune spent several days in going the round of the Paris -shops, and then wrote in despair that no dressmaker had such a material, -the nearest approach to it being a white silk with green stripes: if -Madame Sauvé would be satisfied with that, they would send to take her -measure. “Monsieur le major,†writes a prisoner named Hugonnet, “the -shirts they brought me yesterday are not a bit what I asked for, for I -remember having written ‘fine, and with embroidered ruffles’; instead of -which these things are coarse, made of wretched linen, and with ruffles -at best only fit for a turnkey; and so I shall be glad if you will send -them back to the commissary; and let him keep them, for I declare I -won’t have them.â€</p> - -<p>The governor also saw that the prisoners had some means of diversion. -The poorest he provided with pocket-money and tobacco.</p> - -<p>About the beginning of the seventeenth century, a Neapolitan named -Vinache died at the Bastille, after founding a library there for the use -of his fellow-prisoners. This library was gradually augmented by -donations from the governors, by gifts from various prisoners, and even -by the generosity of a citizen of Paris whose compassion had been -excited for the lot of the prisoners. The books consisted of romances, -works of science and philosophy, and religious books, light literature -predominating.<a name="page_109" id="page_109"></a> The lieutenant of police, Berryer, struck out of the -list of books that were being sent one day to the binder a “poem on the -greatness of God,†as being on “too melancholy a subject for prisoners.†-The prisoners also procured books from outside. We have mentioned the -Comte de Belle-Isle, who had more than three hundred books and atlases -at the Bastille. La Beaumelle collected a library of more than 600 -volumes. The administration, moreover, never refused to get for the -prisoners, out of the royal funds and sometimes at considerable expense, -such works as they said were necessary to their studies. The works of -Voltaire and Puffendorf were readily placed in their hands. Finally, -under Louis XVI., they were allowed to read the gazettes.</p> - -<p>After the permission to have books and to write, the most coveted favour -was that of walking exercise. Refusal of this was rare. The prisoners -might walk, either on the towers of the Bastille, or in the inner -courts, or lastly along the bastion, which was transformed into a -garden. To fresh invigorating air the platform of the towers added the -attraction of the finest view. Fontaine relates that Sacy went to the -top of the towers every day after dinner. He there walked about in -company with the officers, who gave him news of the town and the -prisoners.</p> - -<p>In their rooms the prisoners amused themselves with feeding cats and -birds and animals of all kinds: they taught dogs tricks. Some were -allowed to have a violin or a clavecin. Pellisson was shut up with a -Basque who<a name="page_110" id="page_110"></a> used to play to him on the musette. The Duke de Richelieu -boasts of the operatic airs he sang in parts with his neighbours in the -Bastille, Mdlle. de Launay among them, with her head at the bars of her -window; “we got up choruses of a sort, with fine effect.â€</p> - -<p>Other prisoners killed time with embroidery, weaving or knitting; some -made ornaments for the chapel of the château. Some devoted themselves to -carpentry, turned wood, made small articles of furniture. Artists -painted and sketched. “The occupation of M. de Villeroi was somewhat -singular: he had very fine clothes, which he was for ever unpicking and -sewing together again with much cleverness.†The prisoners who lived -several in one room played at cards, chess, and backgammon. In 1788, at -the time of the troubles in Brittany, a dozen noblemen of that country -were shut up in the Bastille. They lived together, and asked for a -billiard table to amuse themselves; the table was set up in the -apartments of the major, and there these gentlemen went for their games.</p> - -<p>The prisoners who died in the Bastille were interred in the graveyard of -St. Paul’s; the funeral service was held in the church of St. Paul, and -the burial certificate, bearing the family name of the deceased, was -drawn up in the vestry. It is not true that the names of the deceased -were wrongly stated in the register in order that their identity might -be concealed from the public. The Man in the Iron Mask was inscribed on -the register of St. Paul’s under his real name. Jews, Protestants,<a name="page_111" id="page_111"></a> and -suicides were buried in the garden of the château, the prejudices of the -period not allowing their remains to be laid in consecrated ground.</p> - -<p>Those who were liberated had a happier fate. Their dismissal was ordered -by a <i>lettre de cachet</i>, as their incarceration had been. These orders -for their liberation, so anxiously expected, were brought by the court -“distributors of packets†or by the ordinary post; sometimes relatives -and friends themselves brought the sealed envelope, in order to have the -joy of taking away at once those whose deliverance they came to effect.</p> - -<p>The governor, or, in his absence, the king’s lieutenant, came into the -prisoner’s chamber and announced that he was free. The papers and other -effects which had been taken from him on entrance were restored to him, -the major getting a receipt for them; then he signed a promise to reveal -nothing of what he had seen at the château. Many of the prisoners -refused to submit to this formality, and were liberated notwithstanding; -others, after having signed, retailed everywhere all they knew about the -prison, and were not interfered with. When the prisoner only recovered -his freedom under certain conditions, he was required to give an -undertaking to submit to the king’s pleasure.</p> - -<p>All these formalities having been completed, the governor, with that -feeling for good form which characterized the men of the <i>ancien -régime</i>, had the man who had been his guest served for the last time -with an excellent dinner. If the prisoner was a man of good<a name="page_112" id="page_112"></a> society, -the governor would even go so far as to invite him to his own table, and -then, the meal over and the good-byes said, he placed his own carriage -at the prisoner’s disposal, and often entered it himself to accompany -him to his destination.</p> - -<p>More than one prisoner thus restored to the world must have felt greatly -embarrassed before a day was past, and have been at a loss what to do or -where to go. The administration of the Bastille sometimes gave money to -one and another to enable them to get along for a time. In December, -1783, a certain Dubu de la Tagnerette, after being set at liberty, was -lodged in the governor’s house for a fortnight until he had found -apartments that would suit him. Moreover, many of the prisoners were -actually annoyed at being dismissed: we could cite examples of persons -who sought to get themselves sent to the Bastille; others refused to -accept their liberty, and others did their best to get their detention -prolonged.</p> - -<p>“Many come out,†says Renneville, “very sad at having to leave.†Le -Maistre de Sacy and Fontaine affirm that the years spent at the Bastille -were the best years in their lives. “The innocent life we lived,†says -Renneville again, “Messieurs Hamilton, Schrader, and myself, seemed so -pleasant to M. Hamilton that he begged me to write a description of it -in verse.†The <i>Memoirs</i> of Madame de Staal represent her years at the -Bastille as the happiest she ever knew. “In my heart of hearts, I was -very far from desiring my liberty.<a name="page_113" id="page_113"></a>†“I stayed at the Bastille for six -weeks,†observes the Abbé Morellet, “which sped away—I chuckle still as -I think of them—very pleasantly for me.†And later, Dumouriez declares -that at the Bastille he was happy and never felt dull.</p> - -<p>Such was the rule of the celebrated state prison. In the last century -there was no place of detention in Europe where the prisoners were -surrounded with so many comforts and attentions: there is no such place -in these days.</p> - -<p>But in spite of these very real alleviations, it would be absurd to -pretend that the prisoners were in general reconciled to their -incarceration. Nothing is a consolation for the loss of liberty. How -many poor wretches, in their despair, have dashed their heads against -the thick walls while wife and children and concerns of the utmost -gravity were summoning them from without! The Bastille was the cause of -ruin to many; within its walls were shed tears which were never dried.</p> - -<p>An eighteenth-century writer thus defined the state prison: “A bastille -is any house solidly built, hermetically sealed, and diligently guarded, -where any person, of whatever rank, age, or sex, may enter without -knowing why, remain without knowing how long, hoping to leave it, but -not knowing how.†These lines, written by an apologist for the old state -prison, contain its condemnation, without appeal, before the modern -mind.<a name="page_114" id="page_114"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br /><br /> -<small>THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind">F<small>OR</small> two centuries no question has excited public opinion more than that -of the Man in the Iron Mask. The books written on the subject would fill -a library. People despaired of ever lifting the veil. “The story of the -Iron Mask,†says Michelet, “will probably remain for ever obscure,†and -Henri Martin adds: “History has no right to pronounce judgment on what -will never leave the domain of conjecture.†To-day, the doubt no longer -exists. The problem is solved. Before disclosing the solution which -criticism has unanimously declared correct, we propose to transcribe the -scanty authentic documents that we possess on the masked man, and then -to state the principal solutions which have been proposed, before -arriving at the true solution.</p> - -<h3>1. <span class="smcap">The Documents.</span></h3> - -<p><i>The Register of the Bastille.</i>—To begin with, let us quote the text -which is the origin and foundation of all the works published on the -question of the Iron Mask.</p> - -<p class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_134_lg.png"> -<img class="enlargeimage" -src="images/enlarge-image.jpg" -alt="enlarge-image" -title="enlarge-image" -width="18" -height="14" /> -</a><br /><img src="images/i_134_sml.png" width="363" height="550" alt="Note in Du Junca’s Journal regarding the entrance to the -Bastille (September 18, 1698) of the Man in the Iron Mask." /> -<br /> -<span class="caption">Note in Du Junca’s Journal regarding the entrance to the -Bastille<br /> (September 18, 1698) of the Man in the Iron Mask.</span> -</p> - -<p>Etienne du Junca, king’s lieutenant at the Bastille,<a name="page_115" id="page_115"></a> in a journal -which he began to keep on October 2, 1690, when he entered upon his -office—a sort of register in which he recorded day by day the details -concerning the arrival of the prisoners—writes, under date September -18, 1698, these lines,<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> which the popular legend has rendered -memorable:—</p> - -<p>“Thursday, September 18 (1698), at three o’clock in the afternoon, M. de -Saint-Mars, governor of the château of the Bastille, made his first -appearance, coming from his governorship of the Isles of -Sainte-Marguerite-Honorat, bringing with him, in his conveyance, a -prisoner he had formerly at Pignerol, whom he caused to be always -masked, whose name is not mentioned; directly he got out of the carriage -he put him in the first room of the Bazinière tower, waiting till night -for me to take him, at nine o’clock, and put him with M. de Rosarges, -one of the sergeants brought by the governor, alone in the third room of -the Bertaudière tower, which I had had furnished with all necessaries -some days before his arrival, having received orders to that effect from -M. de Saint-Mars: the which prisoner will be looked after and waited on -by M. de Rosarges, and maintained by the governor.â€</p> - -<p>In a second register, supplementary to the first, in which du Junca -records details of the liberation or the death of the prisoners, we -read, under date November 19, 1703:—<a name="page_116" id="page_116"></a></p> - -<p>“On the same day, November 19, 1703, the unknown prisoner, always masked -with a mask of black velvet, whom M. de Saint-Mars, the governor, -brought with him on coming from the Isles de Sainte-Marguerite, whom he -had kept for a long time, the which happening to be a little ill -yesterday on coming from mass, he died to-day, about ten o’clock at -night, without having had a serious illness; it could not have been -slighter. M. Giraut, our chaplain, confessed him yesterday, is surprised -at his death. He did not receive the sacrament, and our chaplain -exhorted him a moment before he died. And this unknown prisoner, kept -here for so long, was buried on Tuesday at four o’clock p.m., November -20, in the graveyard of St. Paul, our parish; on the register of burial -he was given a name also unknown. M. de Rosarges, major, and Arreil, -surgeon, signed the register.â€</p> - -<p>And in the margin:—</p> - -<p>“I have since learnt that they called him M. de Marchiel on the -register, and that forty livres was the cost of the funeral.â€</p> - -<p>The registers of du Junca were preserved among the ancient archives of -the Bastille, whence they passed to the Arsenal library, where they are -now kept. They are drawn up in the clumsy handwriting of a soldier, with -little skill in penmanship. The spelling is bad. But the facts are -stated with precision, and have always proved accurate when checked.</p> - -<p class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_137_lg.png"> -<img class="enlargeimage" -src="images/enlarge-image.jpg" -alt="enlarge-image" -title="enlarge-image" -width="18" -height="14" /> -</a><br /><img src="images/i_137_sml.png" width="363" height="550" alt="Notice in Du Junca’s Journal of the death of the masked -prisoner in the Bastille (November 19, 1703)." /> -<br /> -<span class="caption">Notice in Du Junca’s Journal of the death of the masked -prisoner<br /> in the Bastille (November 19, 1703).</span> -</p> - -<p>The extract from the second register shows that the<a name="page_117" id="page_117"></a> mysterious -prisoner wore, not a mask of iron, but one of black velvet.</p> - -<p>Further, the entry on the register of St. Paul’s church has been -discovered. It reads:—</p> - -<p>“On the 19th, Marchioly, aged 45 years or thereabouts, died in the -Bastille, whose body was buried in the churchyard of St. Paul, his -parish, the 20th of the present month, in the presence of M. Rosage -(<i>sic</i>), major of the Bastille, and of M. Reglhe (<i>sic</i>), surgeon major -of the Bastille, who signed.—(Signed) <span class="smcap">Rosarges, Reilhe</span>.â€</p> - -<p>Such are the fundamental documents for the story of the Iron Mask; we -shall see by and by that they are sufficient to establish the truth.</p> - -<p><i>The Letter of the Governor of Sainte-Marguerite.</i>—We have just seen, -from the register of du Junca, that the masked man had been at the Isles -of Sainte-Marguerite under the charge of Saint-Mars, who, on being -appointed governor of the Bastille, had brought the prisoner with him. -In the correspondence exchanged between Saint-Mars and the minister -Barbezieux, occurs the following letter, dated January 6, 1696, in which -Saint-Mars describes his method of dealing with the prisoners, and the -masked man is referred to under the appellation “my ancient prisoner.â€</p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“<span class="smcap">My Lord</span>,—You command me to tell you what is the practice, when I -am absent or ill, as to the visits made and precautions taken daily -in regard to the prisoners committed to my charge. My two -lieutenants<a name="page_118" id="page_118"></a> serve the meals at the regular hours, just as they -have seen me do, and as I still do very often when I am well. The -first of my lieutenants, who takes the keys of the prison of <i>my -ancient prisoner</i>, with whom we commence, opens the three doors and -enters the chamber of the prisoner, who politely hands him the -plates and dishes, put one on top of another, to give them into the -hands of the lieutenant, who has only to go through two doors to -hand them to one of my sergeants, who takes them and places them on -a table two steps away, where is the second lieutenant, who -examines everything that enters and leaves the prison, and sees -that there is nothing written on the plate; and after they have -given him the utensil, they examine his bed inside and out, and -then the gratings and windows of his room, and very often the man -himself: after having asked him very politely if he wants anything -else, they lock the doors and proceed to similar business with the -other prisoners.â€</p></div> - -<p><i>The Letter of M. de Palteau.</i>—On June 19, 1768, M. de Formanoir de -Palteau addressed from the château of Palteau, near Villeneuve-le-Roi, -to the celebrated Fréron, editor of the <i>Année Littéraire</i>, a letter -which was inserted in the number for June 30, 1768. The author of this -letter was the grand-nephew of Saint-Mars. At the time when the latter -was appointed governor of the Bastille, the château of Palteau belonged -to him, and he halted there with his prisoner on the way from the Isles -of Sainte-Marguerite to Paris.<a name="page_119" id="page_119"></a></p> - -<p>“In 1698,†writes M. de Palteau, “M. de Saint-Mars passed from the -governorship of the Isles of Sainte-Marguerite to that of the Bastille. -On his way to take up his duties, he stayed with his prisoner on his -estate at Palteau. The masked man arrived in a conveyance which preceded -that of M. de Saint-Mars; they were accompanied by several horsemen. The -peasants went to meet their lord: M. de Saint-Mars ate with his -prisoner, who had his back turned to the windows of the dining-hall -looking on the courtyard. The peasants whom I have questioned could not -see whether he ate with his mask on; but they observed very well that M. -de Saint-Mars, who was opposite him at table, had two pistols beside his -plate. They had only one footman to wait on them, and he fetched the -dishes from an ante-room where they were brought him, carefully shutting -the door of the dining-hall behind him. When the prisoner crossed the -courtyard, he always had his black mask over his face; the peasants -noticed that his lips and teeth were not covered, that he was tall and -had white hair. M. de Saint-Mars slept in a bed that was put up for him -near that of the masked man.â€</p> - -<p>This account is marked throughout with the stamp of truth. M. de -Palteau, the writer, makes no attempt to draw inferences from it. He -declares for none of the hypotheses then under discussion in regard to -the identity of the mysterious unknown. He is content to report the -testimony of those of his peasants who saw the masked man when he passed -through their lord’s estates.<a name="page_120" id="page_120"></a> The only detail in the story which we are -able to check—a characteristic detail, it is true—is that of the black -mask of which M. de Palteau speaks: it corresponds exactly to the mask -of black velvet mentioned in du Junca’s register.</p> - -<p>The château of Palteau is still in existence. In his work on -Superintendent Fouquet, M. Jules Lair gives a description of it. “The -château of Palteau, situated on an eminence among woods and vines, -presented at that time, as it does to-day, the aspect of a great lordly -mansion in the style of the time of Henri IV. and Louis XIII. First -there is a wide courtyard, then two wings; within, the principal -building and the chapel. The lower story is supported on arches, and its -lofty windows go right up into the roof, and light the place from floor -to attic.†Since the eighteenth century, however, the château has -undergone some modifications. The room in which Saint-Mars dined with -his prisoner is now used as a kitchen.</p> - -<p><i>The Notes of Major Chevalier.</i>—In addition to the entries in du -Junca’s Journal which we have transcribed, scholars are accustomed to -invoke, as equally worthy of credence though later in date, the -testimony of Father Griffet, chaplain of the Bastille, and that of Major -Chevalier.</p> - -<p>The extracts from du Junca quoted above were published for the first -time in 1769 by Father Griffet, who added the following comments: “The -memory of the masked prisoner was still preserved among the<a name="page_121" id="page_121"></a> officers, -soldiers, and servants of the Bastille, when M. de Launey, who has long -been the governor, came to occupy a place on the staff of the garrison. -Those who had seen him with his mask, when he crossed the courtyard on -his way to attend mass, said that after his death the order was given to -burn everything he had used, such as linen, clothes, cushions, -counterpanes, &c.: that the very walls of the room he had occupied had -to be scraped and whitewashed again, and that all the tiles of the -flooring were taken up and replaced by others, because they were so -afraid that he had found the means to conceal some notes or some mark, -the discovery of which would have revealed his name.â€</p> - -<p>The testimony of Father Griffet happens to be confirmed by some notes -from the pen of a major of the Bastille named Chevalier. The major was -not a personage of the highest rank in the administration of the -Bastille, since above him were the governor and the king’s lieutenant: -but he was the most important personage. The whole internal -administration, so far as the prisoners were concerned, was entrusted to -him. Chevalier fulfilled these duties for nearly thirty-eight years, -from 1749 to 1787. M. Fernand Bournon’s estimate of him is as follows: -“Chevalier is a type of the devoted hard-working official who has no -ambition to rise above a rather subordinate rank. It would be impossible -to say how much the administration of the Bastille owed to his zeal and -to his perfect familiarity with a service of extraordinary difficulty.<a name="page_122" id="page_122"></a>â€</p> - -<p>Among notes put together with a view to a history of the Bastille, -Chevalier gives in condensed form the information furnished by du -Junca’s register, and adds: “This is the famous masked man whom no one -has ever known. He was treated with great distinction by the governor, -and was seen only by M. de Rosarges, major of the said château, who had -sole charge of him; he was not ill except for a few hours, and died -rather suddenly: interred at St. Paul’s, on Tuesday, November 20, 1703, -at 4 o’clock p.m., under the name of Marchiergues. He was buried in a -new white shroud, given by the governor, and practically everything in -his room was burnt, such as his bed, chairs, tables, and other bits of -furniture, or else melted down, and the whole was thrown into the -privies.â€</p> - -<p>These notes of Father Griffet and Major Chevalier have derived great -force, in the eyes of historians, from their exact agreement; but a -close examination shows that the testimony of Chevalier was the source -of Father Griffet’s information; in fact, Chevalier was major of the -Bastille when the Jesuit compiled his work, and it is doubtless upon his -authority that the latter depended.</p> - -<p>Documents recently published in the <i>Revue Bleue</i> upset these -assertions, which appeared to be based on the firmest foundations.</p> - -<p>In the Journal of du Junca, which we have already mentioned, we read -under date April 30, 1701: “Sunday, April 30, about 9 o’clock in the -evening, M. Aumont the younger came, bringing and handing over to us a -prisoner<a name="page_123" id="page_123"></a> named M. Maranville, alias Ricarville, who was an officer in -the army, a malcontent, too free with his tongue, a worthless fellow: -whom I received in obedience to the king’s orders sent through the Count -of Pontchartrain: whom I have had put along with the man Tirmon, in the -second room of the Bertaudière tower, with the <i>ancient prisoner</i>, both -being well locked in.â€</p> - -<p>The “ancient prisoner†here referred to is no other than the masked man. -When he entered the Bastille, as we have seen, on September 18, 1698, he -was placed in the third room of the Bertaudière tower. In 1701, the -Bastille happened to be crowded with prisoners, and they had to put -several together in one and the same room; so the man in the mask was -placed with two companions. One of them, Jean-Alexandre de Ricarville, -also called Maranville, had been denounced as a “retailer of ill speech -against the State, finding fault with the policy of France and lauding -that of foreigners, especially that of the Dutch.†The police reports -depict him as a beggarly fellow, poorly dressed, and about sixty years -old. He had formerly been, as du Junca says, an officer in the royal -troops. Maranville left the Bastille on October 19, 1708. He was -transferred to Charenton, where he died in February, 1709. It must be -pointed out that Charenton was then an “open†prison, where the -prisoners associated with one another and had numerous relations with -the outside world.</p> - -<p>The second of the fellow-prisoners of the man in the mask, -Dominique-François Tirmont, was a servant.<a name="page_124" id="page_124"></a> When he was placed in the -Bastille, on July 30, 1700, he was nineteen years old. He was accused of -sorcery and of debauching young girls. He was put in the second room of -the Bertaudière tower, where he was joined by Maranville and the man in -the mask. On December 14, 1701, he was transferred to Bicêtre. He lost -his reason in 1703 and died in 1708.</p> - -<p>The man in the mask was taken out of the third room of the Bertaudière -tower, in which he had been placed on his entrance to the Bastille, on -March 6, 1701, in order to make room for a woman named Anne Randon, a -“witch and fortune-teller,†who was shut up alone in it. The masked -prisoner was then placed in the “second Bertaudière†with Tirmont, who -had been there, as we have just seen, since July 30, 1700. Maranville -joined them on April 30, 1701. Not long after, the masked man was -transferred to another room, with or without Maranville. Tirmont had -been taken to Bicêtre in 1701. We find that on February 26, 1703, the -Abbé Gonzel, a priest of Franche-Comté, accused of being a spy, was shut -up alone in the “second Bertaudière.â€</p> - -<p>These facts are of undeniable authenticity, and one sees at a glance the -consequences springing from them. At the time when the masked prisoner -shared the same room with fellow-captives, other prisoners at the -Bastille were kept rigorously isolated, in spite of the crowded state of -the prison, so much more important did the reasons for their -incarceration seem! The man in the mask was associated with persons of -the lowest class,<a name="page_125" id="page_125"></a> who were soon afterwards to leave and take their -places with the ruck of prisoners at Charenton and Bicêtre. We read in a -report of D’Argenson that there was even some talk of enlisting one of -them, Tirmont, in the army. Such, then, was this strange personage, the -repository of a terrible secret of which Madame Palatine<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> was already -speaking in mysterious terms, the man who puzzled kings, Louis XV., -Louis XVI., who puzzled the very officers of the Bastille, and caused -them to write stories as remote as possible from the reality!</p> - -<h3>2. <span class="smcap">The Legend.</span></h3> - -<p>If the very officers of the Bastille indulged such wild freaks of -imagination, what flights into dreamland might not the thoughts of the -public be expected to take? The movement is a very curious one to -follow. To begin with, we have the light Venetian mask transforming -itself<a name="page_126" id="page_126"></a> into an iron mask with steel articulations which the prisoner -was never without. The consideration—imaginary, as we have seen—with -which the prisoner is supposed to have been treated, and which is -referred to in the notes of Major Chevalier, becomes transformed into -marks of a boundless deference shown by the jailers towards their -captive. The story was that Saint-Mars, the governor, a knight of St. -Louis, never spoke to the prisoner except standing, with bared head, -that he served him at table with his own hands and on silver plate, and -that he supplied him with the most luxurious raiment his fancy could -devise. Chevalier says that after his death his room at the Bastille was -done up like new, to prevent his successor from discovering any -tell-tale evidence in some corner. Speaking of the time when the masked -man was at the Isles of Sainte-Marguerite, Voltaire relates: “One day -the prisoner wrote with a knife on a silver dish, and threw the dish out -of the window towards a boat moored on the shore, almost at the foot of -the tower. A fisherman, to whom the boat belonged, picked up the dish -and carried it to the governor. Astonished, he asked the fisherman, -‘Have you read what is written on this dish, and has anyone seen it in -your hands?’ ‘I cannot read,’ replied the fisher, ‘I have only just -found it, and no one has seen it.’ The poor man was detained until the -governor was assured he could not read and that no one had seen the -dish. ‘Go,’ he said, ‘it is lucky for you that you can’t read!<a name="page_127" id="page_127"></a>’â€</p> - -<p>In Father Papon’s <i>History of Provence</i>, linen takes the place of the -dish. The upshot is more tragic: “I found in the citadel an officer of -the Free Company, aged 79 years. He told me several times that a barber -of that company saw one day, under the prisoner’s window, something -white floating on the water; he went and picked it up and carried it to -M. de Saint-Mars. It was a shirt of fine linen, folded with no apparent -care, and covered with the prisoner’s writing. M. de Saint-Mars, after -unfolding it and reading a few lines, asked the barber, with an air of -great embarrassment, if he had not had the curiosity to read what was on -it. The barber protested over and over again that he had read nothing; -but, two days after, he was found dead in his bed.â€</p> - -<p>And the fact that Saint-Mars had had the body of the prisoner buried in -a white cloth struck the imagination, and was developed in its turn into -an extraordinary taste on the part of the prisoner for linen of the -finest quality and for costly lace—all which was taken to prove that -the masked man was a son of Anne of Austria, who had a very special -love, it was declared, for valuable lace and fine linen.</p> - -<p><i>A Brother of Louis XIV.</i>—We are able to fix with precision, we -believe, the origin of the legend which made the Iron Mask a brother of -Louis XIV. Moreover, it was due to this suggestion, which was hinted at -from the first, that the story of the prisoner made so great a noise. -The glory of it belongs to the most famous writer of the eighteenth -century. With a boldness of imagination for<a name="page_128" id="page_128"></a> which to-day he would be -envied by the cleverest journalistic inventor of sensational paragraphs, -Voltaire started this monstrous hoax on its vigorous flight.</p> - -<p>In 1745 there had just appeared a sort of romance entitled <i>Notes -towards the History of Persia</i>, which was attributed, not without some -reason, to Madame de Vieux-Maisons. The book contained a story within a -story, in which the mysterious prisoner, who was beginning to be talked -about everywhere, was identified with the Duke de Vermandois, and to -this fact was due the sensation which the book caused. Voltaire -immediately saw how he could turn the circumstance to account. He had -himself at one time been confined in the Bastille, which was one reason -for speaking of it; but he did not dare put in circulation suddenly, -without some preparation, the terrible story he had just conceived, and, -with a very delicate sensitiveness to public opinion, he contented -himself with printing the following paragraph in the first edition of -his <i>Age of Louis XIV.</i>: “A few months after the death of Mazarin there -occurred an event which is unexampled in history, and, what is not less -strange, has been passed over in silence by all the historians. There -was sent with the utmost secrecy to the château of the Isle of -Sainte-Marguerite, in the Sea of Provence, an unknown prisoner, of more -than ordinary height, young, and with features of rare nobility and -beauty. On the way, this prisoner wore a mask the chinpiece of which was -fitted with springs of steel, which allowed him to eat freely with the -mask covering his face. The order had been<a name="page_129" id="page_129"></a> given to kill him if he -uncovered. He remained in the island until an officer in whom great -confidence was placed, named Saint-Mars, governor of Pignerol, having -been made governor of the Bastille, came to the Isle of -Sainte-Marguerite to fetch him, and conducted him to the Bastille, -always masked. The Marquis de Louvois saw him in the island before his -removal, and remained standing while he spoke to him, with a -consideration savouring of respect.†Voltaire, however, does not say who -this extraordinary prisoner was. He observed the impression produced on -the public by his story. Then he ventured more boldly, and in the first -edition of his <i>Questions on the Encyclopædia</i> insinuated that the -motive for covering the prisoner’s face with a mask was fear lest some -too striking likeness should be recognized. He still refrained from -giving his name, but already everyone was on tip-toe with the -expectation of startling news. At last, in the second edition of -<i>Questions on the Encyclopædia</i>, Voltaire intrepidly added that the man -in the mask was a uterine brother of Louis XIV., a son of Mazarin and -Anne of Austria, and older than the king. We know what incomparable -agitators of public opinion the Encyclopædists were.</p> - -<p>Once hatched, the story was not long in producing a numerous progeny, -which grew in their turn and became a monstrous brood.</p> - -<p>We read in the <i>Memoirs</i> of the Duke de Richelieu, compiled by his -secretary the Abbé Soulavie, that Mdlle. de Valois, the Regent’s -daughter and at this date the<a name="page_130" id="page_130"></a> mistress of Richelieu, consented, at the -instigation of the latter, to prostitute herself to her -father—tradition has it that the Regent was enamoured of his -daughter—in order to get sight of an account of the Iron Mask drawn up -by Saint-Mars. According to this story, which the author of the -<i>Memoirs</i> prints in its entirety, Louis XIV. was born at noon, and at -half-past eight in the evening, while the king was at supper, the queen -was brought to bed of a second son, who was put out of sight so as to -avoid subsequent dissensions in the state.</p> - -<p>The Baron de Gleichen goes still farther. He is at the pains to prove -that it was the true heir to the throne who was put out of sight, to the -profit of a child of the queen and the cardinal. Having became masters -of the situation at the death of the king, they substituted their son -for the Dauphin, the substitution being facilitated by a strong likeness -between the children. One sees at a glance the consequences of this -theory, which nullifies the legitimacy of the last Bourbons.</p> - -<p>But the career of imagination was not yet to be checked. The legend came -into full bloom under the first empire. Pamphlets then appeared in which -the version of Baron de Gleichen was revived. Louis XIV. had been only a -bastard, the son of foreigners; the lawful heir had been imprisoned at -the Isles of Sainte-Marguerite, where he had married the daughter of one -of his keepers. Of this marriage was born a child who, as soon as he was -weaned, was sent to Corsica, and entrusted to a reliable person, as a -child coming of “good stock,†in Italian, <i>Buona-parte</i>.<a name="page_131" id="page_131"></a> Of that child -the Emperor was the direct descendant. The right of Napoleon I. to the -throne of France established by the Iron Mask!—there is a discovery -which the great Dumas missed. But, incredible as it seems, there were -men who actually took these fables seriously. In a Vendéan manifesto -circulated among the Chouans,<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> in Nivose of the year <span class="smcap">IX</span>,<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> we read: -“It is not wise for the Royalist party to rely on the assurances given -by some emissaries of Napoleon, that he seized the throne only to -restore the Bourbons; everything proves that he only awaits the general -pacification to declare himself, and that he means to base his right on -the birth of the children of the Iron Mask!â€</p> - -<p>We shall not stay to refute the hypothesis which makes the Iron Mask a -brother of Louis XIV. Marius Topin has already done so in the clearest -possible manner. The notion, moreover, has long been abandoned. The last -writers who adhered to it date from the revolutionary period.</p> - -<p><i>The Successive Incarnations of the Iron Mask.</i>—“Never has an Indian -deity,†says Paul de Saint-Victor, speaking of the Iron Mask, “undergone -so many metempsychoses<a name="page_132" id="page_132"></a> and so many avatars.†It would take too long -merely to enumerate all the individuals with whom it has been attempted -to identify the Iron Mask: even women have not escaped. We shall cite -rapidly the theories which have found most credence amongst the public, -or those which have been defended in the most serious works, in order to -arrive finally at the identification—as will be seen, it is one of -those proposed long ago—which is beyond doubt the true one.</p> - -<p>The hypothesis which, after that of a brother of Louis XIV., has most -powerfully excited public opinion, is that which made the mysterious -unknown Louis, Comte de Vermandois, admiral of France, and son of the -charming Louise de la Vallière. This was indeed the belief of Father -Griffet, chaplain of the Bastille, and even of the officers of the -staff. But the conjecture is disproved in a single line: “The Comte de -Vermandois died at Courtrai, on November 18, 1683.†A precisely similar -fact refutes the theory identifying the Iron Mask with the Duke of -Monmouth, the natural son of Charles II. and Lucy Walters. Monmouth -perished on the scaffold in 1683. Lagrange-Chancel throws much ardour -and talent into a defence of the theory which made the Iron Mask Francis -of Vendôme, Duke de Beaufort, who, under the Fronde, was called “King of -the Markets.†The Duke de Beaufort died at the siege of Candia, June 25, -1669.</p> - -<p>To Lagrange-Chancel succeeds the Chevalier de Taulès. “I have discovered -the Man in the Mask,†he cries, “and it is my duty to impart my -discovery to<a name="page_133" id="page_133"></a> Europe and posterity!†This discovery brings forward one -Avedick, an Armenian patriarch of Constantinople and Jerusalem, -kidnapped in the East at the instigation of the Jesuits, and transported -to France. Vergennes, on entering the ministry for foreign affairs, set -investigations on foot. They confirmed the statement that Avedick had -actually been arrested in the circumstances indicated, but after 1706; -and so he could not be identified with the Iron Mask.</p> - -<p>Such were the theories of the eighteenth century. We come now to those -of our own time. Since mystery and sinister machinations were involved, -the Jesuits could not be long left out of the business. We have just -seen them at their tricks with the Armenian patriarch. People dreamt of -an innocent youth thrown into a dungeon at their instigation for having -written a couple of verses against them. But even this fancy was -completely cast into the shade in a work published in 1885 under the -pseudonym of “Ubalde,†the author of which was unquestionably M. Anatole -Loquin. This is his conclusion: “The more I reflect, the more I believe -I recognize in the Man in the Iron Mask, without any elaborate theory, -without prejudice on my part, no other than J. B. Poquelin de Molière.†-The Jesuits have got their revenge for <i>Tartufe</i>!</p> - -<p>Let us come now to the conjectures which have almost hit the truth and -have been defended by genuine scholars.</p> - -<p>Superintendent Fouquet is the solution of the<a name="page_134" id="page_134"></a> bibliophile Jacob (Paul -Lacroix). M. Lair has shown that Fouquet died at Pignerol, of a sort of -apoplexy, on March 23, 1680, at the very moment when there was an idea -at court of sending him to the waters at Bourbon, as a first step -towards his final liberation.</p> - -<p>François Ravaisson, the learned and charming keeper of the Arsenal -library, whose work in classifying the archives of the Bastille we have -had the honour to continue, believed for a moment that the celebrated -prisoner might have been the young Count de Kéroualze who had fought at -Candia under the orders of Admiral de Beaufort. Ravaisson put forth his -theory with much hesitation, and as, in the sequel, he was himself led -to abandon it, we need not dwell any longer upon it.</p> - -<p>M. Loiseleur, in the course of his brilliant controversy with Marius -Topin, suggested “an obscure spy arrested by Catinat in 1681,†and his -opponent refuted him in the most piquant manner by discovering Catinat -in the very prisoner he was said to have arrested!</p> - -<p>General Jung published a large volume in support of the claims of a -certain Oldendorf, a native of Lorraine, a spy and poisoner, arrested on -March 29, 1673, in a trap laid for him at one of the passages of the -Somme. The theory was refuted by M. Loiseleur. As M. Lair pointed out, -General Jung did not even succeed in proving that his nominee entered -Pignerol, an essential condition to his being the Man in the Mask.</p> - -<p>Baron Carutti urged the claims of a mad Jacobin, a prisoner at Pignerol -whose name remains unknown;<a name="page_135" id="page_135"></a> but this Jacobin died at Pignerol towards -the close of 1693.’</p> - -<p>The recent work of M. Emile Burgaud, written in collaboration with -Commandant Bazeries, made a great sensation. He fixes on General Vivien -Labbé de Bulonde, whom Louvois arrested for having shown dereliction of -a general’s duty before Coni. M. Geoffroy de Grandmaison published in -the <i>Univers</i> of January 9, 1895, two receipts signed by General de -Bulonde, one in 1699, when the masked man was in rigorous isolation at -the Bastille, the other in 1705, when he had been dead for two years.</p> - -<p>We come at last to the hypothesis which is the most probable of -all—after the true hypothesis, of course. Eustache Dauger, whom M. Lair -identifies with the masked prisoner, was a valet, who had been put into -jail at Pignerol on July 28, 1669. But it must be noted that the masked -prisoner was kept guarded in rigorous secrecy in the early days of his -detention, as long as he was at Pignerol and the Isles of -Sainte-Marguerite. Now, when Dauger went to Pignerol, his case seemed of -such slight importance that Saint-Mars thought of making him into a -servant for the other prisoners, and in fact, in 1675, Louvois gave him -as a valet to Fouquet, who for some time past had seen the rigour of his -confinement sensibly mitigated, receiving visits, walking freely in the -courts and purlieus of the fortress, Dauger accompanying him. Further, -we know that the masked man was transferred direct from Pignerol to the -Isles of<a name="page_136" id="page_136"></a> Sainte-Marguerite, whilst Dauger was transferred in 1681 to -Exiles, whence he only went to the Isles in 1687.</p> - -<p>We now come to the correct solution.</p> - -<h3>3. <span class="smcap">Mattioli.</span></h3> - -<p>To Baron Heiss, once captain in the Alsace regiment, and one of the most -distinguished bibliophiles of his time, belongs the honour of being the -first, in a letter dated from Phalsbourg, June 28, 1770, and published -by the <i>Journal encyclopédique</i>, to identify the masked prisoner with -Count Mattioli, secretary of state to the Duke of Mantua. After him, -Dutens, in 1783, in his <i>Intercepted Correspondence</i>; Baron de -Chambrier, in 1795, in a Memoir presented to the Academy of Berlin; -Roux-Fazillac, member of the Legislative Assembly and the Convention, in -a remarkable work printed in 1801; then successively, Reth, Delort, -Ellis, Carlo Botta, Armand Baschet, Marius Topin, Paul de Saint-Victor, -and M. Gallien, in a series of publications more or less important, -endeavoured to prove that the Man in the Mask was the Duke of Mantua’s -secretary of state. The scholars most intimate with the history of Louis -XIV.’s government, Depping, Chéruel, Camille Rousset, have not hesitated -to pronounce in favour of the same view; while against them, -singlehanded like his D’Artagnan, Alexandre Dumas resisted the efforts -of twenty scholars, and the <i>Vicomte de Bragelonne</i>—giving a new lease -of life to the legend about the brother of Louis XIV., put in -circulation by Voltaire, and reinforced by the Revolution—drove<a name="page_137" id="page_137"></a> back -into their dust among the archives the documents which students had -exhumed.</p> - -<p>We have no longer to deal with so formidable an adversary, and we hope -that the following pages will not leave the shadow of a doubt.</p> - -<p>We know how, under the influence of Louvois, the able and insinuating -policy directed first by Mazarin, then by Lionne, gave way to a military -diplomacy, blunt and aggressive. Louis XIV. was master of Pignerol, -acquired in 1632. He was induced by Louvois to cast covetous glances at -Casal. In possession of these two places, the French armies could not -but dominate Upper Italy, and hold the court of Turin directly at their -mercy. The throne of Mantua was then occupied by a young duke, Charles -IV. of Gonzago, frivolous, happy-go-lucky, dissipating his wealth at -Venice in fêtes and pleasures. In 1677 he had pledged to the Jews the -crown revenues for several years. Charles IV. was also Marquis of -Montferrat, of which Casal was the capital. Noting with watchful eye the -frivolity and financial straits of the young prince, the court of -Versailles conceived the bold scheme of buying Casal for hard cash.</p> - -<p>At this date, one of the principal personages in Mantua was Count -Hercules Antony Mattioli. He was born at Bologna on December 1, 1640, of -a distinguished family. A brilliant student, he had barely passed his -twentieth year when he was elected a professor at the University of -Bologna. Afterwards he established himself at Mantua, where Charles -III., whose confidence<a name="page_138" id="page_138"></a> he had won, made him his secretary of state. -Charles IV., continuing the favour of his father, not only maintained -Mattioli in his office as minister of state, but appointed him an -honorary senator, a dignity which was enhanced by the title of Count.</p> - -<p>Louis XIV. was employing at the capital of the Venetian republic a -keen-witted and enterprising ambassador, the Abbé d’Estrades. He saw -through the ambitious and intriguing nature of Mattioli, and, towards -the end of 1677, succeeded in winning over his support for the designs -of the French court on Casal.</p> - -<p>On January 12, 1678, Louis XIV. with his own hand wrote expressing his -thanks to Mattioli, who by-and-by came to Paris. On December 8, the -contract was signed, the Duke of Mantua receiving in exchange for Casal -100,000 crowns. In a private audience, Louis XIV. presented Mattioli -with a costly diamond and paid him the sum of a hundred double louis.</p> - -<p>Scarcely two months after Mattioli’s journey to France, the courts of -Vienna, Madrid, Turin, and the Venetian Republic were simultaneously -informed of all that had taken place. In order to reap a double harvest -of gold, Mattioli had cynically betrayed both his master Charles IV. and -the King of France. Like a thunderbolt there came to Versailles the news -of the arrest of Baron d’Asfeld, the envoy appointed by Louis XIV. to -exchange ratifications with Mattioli. The governor of Milan had caused -him to be seized and handed over to the Spaniards. The rage of Louis -XIV. and of Louvois,<a name="page_139" id="page_139"></a> who had urged the opening of negotiations, taken -an active part in them, and begun preparations for the occupation of -Casal, may well be imagined. The Abbé d’Estrades, not less irritated, -conceived a scheme of the most daring kind, proposing to Versailles -nothing less than the abduction of the Mantuan minister. But Louis XIV. -was determined to have no scandal. Catinat was charged with carrying out -the scheme in person. The Abbé d’Estrades, in his dealings with -Mattioli, feigned ignorance of the double game the Count was playing. He -led him to believe, on the contrary, that the balance of the sums -promised at Versailles was about to be paid. A meeting was fixed for May -2, 1679. On that day d’Estrades and Mattioli got into a carriage, the -passing of which was awaited by Catinat accompanied by some dozen men. -At two o’clock in the afternoon, Mattioli was in the fortress of -Pignerol, in the hands of jailer Saint-Mars. When we remember the rank -held by the Italian minister, we are confronted with one of the most -audacious violations of international law of which history has preserved -a record.</p> - -<p>Early in the year 1694, Mattioli was transferred to the Isles of -Sainte-Marguerite; we have seen that he entered the Bastille on -September 18, 1698, and died there on November 19, 1703.</p> - -<p>The details that we possess of the imprisonment of Mattioli at Pignerol -and afterwards at the Isles of Sainte-Marguerite show that he was at the -outset treated with the consideration due to his rank and to the<a name="page_140" id="page_140"></a> -position he occupied at the time of his arrest. Eventually the respect -which the prisoner had at first inspired gradually diminished: as years -went on the attentions shown him grew less and less until the day when, -at the Bastille, he was given a room in common with persons of the -basest class. On the other hand, the rigour of his confinement, so far -as the secrecy in which he was kept was concerned, was more and more -relaxed; what it was material to conceal was the circumstances under -which Mattioli had been arrested, and with the lapse of time this secret -continually diminished in importance. As to the mask of black velvet -which Mattioli had among his possessions when he was arrested, and which -he put on, without a doubt, only for the occasion, this in reality -constituted a relief to his captivity, for it permitted the prisoner to -leave his room, while the other state prisoners were rigorously mewed up -in theirs.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>It remains to prove that the masked prisoner was really Mattioli.</p> - -<p>1. In the despatch sent by Louis XIV. to the Abbé d’Estrades five days -before the arrest, the king approves the scheme of his ambassador and -authorizes him to secure Mattioli, “since you believe you can get him -carried off without the affair giving rise to any scandal.†The prisoner -is to be conducted to Pignerol, where “instructions are being sent to -receive him and keep him there without anybody having knowledge of it.†-The<a name="page_141" id="page_141"></a> king’s orders close with these words: “You must see to it that no -one knows what becomes of this man.†The capture effected, Catinat wrote -on his part to Louvois: “It came off without any violence, and no one -knows the name of the knave, not even the officers who helped to arrest -him.†Finally, we have a very curious pamphlet entitled <i>La Prudenza -triomfante di Casale</i>, written in 1682, that is, little more than two -years after the event, and—this slight detail is of capital -importance—thirty years before there was any talk of the Man in the -Mask. In this we read: “The secretary (Mattioli) was surrounded by ten -or twelve horsemen, who seized him, disguised him, <i>masked</i> him, and -conducted him to Pignerol‗a fact, moreover, confirmed by a tradition -which in the eighteenth century was still rife in the district, where -scholars succeeded in culling it.</p> - -<p>Is there any need to insist on the strength of the proofs afforded by -these three documents, taken in connection one with another?</p> - -<p>2. We know, from du Junca’s register, that the masked man was shut up at -Pignerol under the charge of Saint-Mars. In 1681, Saint-Mars gave up the -governorship of Pignerol for that of Exiles. We can determine with -absolute precision the number of prisoners Saint-Mars had then in his -keeping. It was exactly five. A dispatch from Louvois, dated June 9, is -very clear. In the first paragraph, he orders “the two prisoners in the -lower tower†to be removed; in the second, he adds: “The rest of the -prisoners in your<a name="page_142" id="page_142"></a> charge.†Here there is a clear indication of the -“restâ€: what follows settles the number: “The Sieur du Chamoy has orders -to pay two crowns a day for the board of these <i>three</i> prisoners.†This -account, as clear as arithmetic can make it, is further confirmed by the -letter addressed by Saint-Mars to the Abbé d’Estrades on June 25, 1681, -when he was setting out for Exiles: “I received yesterday the warrant -appointing me governor of Exiles: I am to keep charge of two jailbirds I -have here, who have no other name than ‘the gentlemen of the lower -tower’; Mattioli will remain here with two other prisoners.â€</p> - -<p>The prisoners, then, were five in number, and the masked man is to be -found, of necessity, among them. Now we know who these five were: (1) a -certain La Rivière, who died at the end of December, 1686; (2) a -Jacobin, out of his mind, who died at the end of 1693; (3) a certain -Dubreuil, who died at the Isles of Sainte-Marguerite about 1697. There -remain Dauger and Mattioli. The Man in the Mask is, without possible -dispute, the one or the other. We have explained above the reasons which -lead us to discard Dauger. The mysterious prisoner, then, was Mattioli. -The proof is mathematically exact.</p> - -<p class="figcenter" style="width:70%;"> -<a href="images/i_165_lg.png"> -<img class="enlargeimage" -src="images/enlarge-image.jpg" -alt="enlarge-image" -title="enlarge-image" -width="18" -height="14" /> -</a><br /><img src="images/i_165_sml.png" width="550" height="237" alt="Burial certificate of the masked prisoner (November 20, 1703), -reproduced from the facsimile in the sixth edition of The Man in -the Iron Mask, by Marius Topin, 1883. The original, in the city -archives of Paris, was destroyed in the conflagration of 1871. -" /> -<br /> -<span class="caption">Burial certificate of the masked prisoner (November 20, 1703), -reproduced from the facsimile in the sixth edition of The Man in -the Iron Mask, by Marius Topin, 1883. The original, in the city -archives of Paris, was destroyed in the conflagration of 1871. -</span> -</p> - -<p>3. Opposite this page will be found a facsimile reproduction of the -death certificate of the masked prisoner as inscribed on the registers -of the church of St. Paul. It is the very name of the Duke of Mantua’s -former secretary that is traced there: “Marchioly.†It<a name="page_143" id="page_143"></a> must be -remembered that “Marchioly†would be pronounced in Italian “Markioly,†-and that Saint-Mars, governor of the Bastille, who furnished the -information on which the certificate was drawn up, almost always wrote -in his correspondence—a characteristic detail—not “Mattioli,†but -“Martiolyâ€: that is the very name on the register, less distorted than -the name of the major of the Bastille, who was called “Rosarges,†and -not “Rosage,†as given on the register; and the name of the surgeon, who -was called “Reilhe,†and not “Reglhe.â€</p> - -<p>It has been shown above how, as time went on, the rigorous seclusion to -which the masked prisoner had been condemned was relaxed. What it had -been thought necessary to conceal was the manner in which Mattioli had -been captured, and with time that secret itself had lost its importance. -As the Duke of Mantua had declared himself very well pleased with the -arrest of the minister by whom he, no less than Louis XIV., had been -deceived, there was nothing to prevent the name from being inscribed on -a register of death, where, moreover, no one would ever have thought of -looking for it.</p> - -<p>Let us add that, in consequence of error or carelessness on the part of -the officer who supplied the information for the register, or perhaps on -the part of the parson or beadle who wrote it, the age is stated -incorrectly, “forty-five years or thereabouts,†while Mattioli was -sixty-three when he died. However, the register was filled up without -the least care, as a formality of no importance.<a name="page_144" id="page_144"></a></p> - -<p>4. The Duke de Choiseul pressed Louis XV. to reveal to him the clue to -the enigma. The king escaped with an evasion. One day, however, he said -to him: “If you knew all about it, you would see that it has very little -interest;†and some time after, when Madame de Pompadour, at de -Choiseul’s instigation, pressed the king on the subject, he told her -that the prisoner was “the minister of an Italian prince.â€</p> - -<p>In the <i>Memoirs of the Private Life of Marie Antoinette</i> by her -principal lady in waiting, Madame de Campan, we read that the queen -tormented Louis XVI., who did not know the secret, to have a search made -among the papers of the various ministries. “I was with the queen,†says -Madame de Campan, “when the king, having finished his researches, told -her that he had found nothing in the secret papers which had any bearing -on the existence of this prisoner; that he had spoken on the subject to -M. de Maurepas, whose age brought him nearer the time when the whole -story must have been known to the ministers (Maurepas had been minister -of the king’s household as a very young man, in the early years of the -eighteenth century, having the department of the <i>lettres de cachet</i>), -and that M. de Maurepas had assured him that the prisoner was simply a -man of a very dangerous character through his intriguing spirit, and a -subject of the Duke of Mantua. He was lured to the frontier, arrested, -and kept a prisoner, at first at Pignerol, then at the Bastille.â€</p> - -<p>These two pieces of evidence are of such weight that<a name="page_145" id="page_145"></a> they alone would -be sufficient to fix the truth. When they were written, there was no -talk of Mattioli, of whose very name Madame de Campan was ignorant. -Supposing that Madame de Campan had amused herself by inventing a -fable—an absurd and improbable supposition, for what reason could she -have had for so doing?—it is impossible to admit that her imagination -could have hit upon fancies so absolutely in accord with facts.<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a></p> - -<p>And so the problem is solved. The legend, which had reared itself even -as high as the throne of France, topples down. The satisfaction of the -historian springs from his reflection that all serious historical works -for more than a century, resting on far-reaching researches and -eschewing all preoccupations foreign to science—such, for example, as -the desire of attaining a result different from the solutions proposed -by one’s predecessors—have arrived at the same conclusion, which proves -to be the correct solution. Heiss, Baron de Chambrier, Reth, -Roux-Fazillac, Delort, Carlo Botta, Armand Baschet, Marius Topin, Paul -de Saint-Victor, Camille Rousset, Chéruel, Depping, have not hesitated -to place under the famous mask of black velvet the<a name="page_146" id="page_146"></a> features of -Mattioli. But at each new effort made by science, legend throws itself -once more into the fray, gaining new activity from the passions produced -by the Revolution.</p> - -<p>The truth, in history, sometimes suggests to our mind’s eye those white -or yellow flowers which float on the water among broad flat leaves; a -breeze springs up, a wave rises and submerges them, they disappear; but -only for a moment: then they come to the surface again.<a name="page_147" id="page_147"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.<br /><br /> -<small>MEN OF LETTERS IN THE BASTILLE.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind">S<small>PEAKING</small> of men of letters in France under the <i>ancien régime</i>, Michelet -calls them “the martyrs of thoughtâ€; he adds: “The world thinks, France -speaks. And that is precisely why the Bastille of France, the Bastille -of Paris—I would rather say, the prison-house of thought—was, among -all bastilles, execrable, infamous, and accursed.†In the course of the -article devoted to the Bastille in the <i>Grande Encyclopédie</i>, M. Fernand -Bournon writes: “After Louis XIV. and throughout the eighteenth century, -the Bastille was especially employed to repress, though it could not -stifle, that generous and majestic movement (the glory of the human -spirit) towards ideas of emancipation and enfranchisement; it was the -epoch when philosophers, publicists, pamphleteers, the very booksellers, -were imprisoned there in large numbers.†And to substantiate this -eloquent apostrophe, M. Bournon cites the names of Voltaire, La -Beaumelle, the Abbé Morellet, Marmontel, and Linguet, imprisoned in the -Bastille; and of Diderot and the Marquis de Mirabeau placed in the -château of Vincennes.<a name="page_148" id="page_148"></a></p> - -<p>Let us recall the story of these poor victims in turn, and trace the -history of their martyrdom.</p> - -<h3><span class="smcap"><a name="Voltaire" id="Voltaire"></a>Voltaire.</span></h3> - -<p>The most illustrious and the earliest in date of the writers mentioned -by M. Bournon is Voltaire. He was sent to the Bastille on two different -occasions. His first imprisonment began on May 17, 1717. At that date -the poet was only twenty-two years of age and of no reputation; he did -not even bear the name of Voltaire, which he only took after his -discharge from the Bastille on April 14, 1718. The cause of his -detention was not “the generous and majestic movement towards ideas of -enfranchisement which is the glory of the human spirit,†but some -scurrilities which, to speak plainly, brought him what he deserved: -coarse verses against the Regent and his daughter, and public utterances -coarser still. Many authors state that Voltaire was imprisoned for -writing the <i>J’ai vu</i>, a satire against the government of Louis XIV., -each stanza of which ended with the line:—</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">J’ai vu ces maux, et je n’ai pas vingt ans.<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a><br /></span> -</div></div> - -<p>This is a mistake. Voltaire was imprisoned for having written the <i>Puero -regnante</i>, some verses on the Regent and his daughter, the Duchess of -Berry, which it would be impossible to translate. To these he added -observations whose reproduction would be equally impossible. At the -Bastille Voltaire underwent examinations in the usual way, in the course -of which he lied with impudence;<a name="page_149" id="page_149"></a> after that he was allowed considerable -liberty. “It was at the Bastille,†wrote Condorcet, “that the young poet -made the first draft of his poem <i>La Ligue</i>, corrected his tragedy of -<i>Å’dipe</i>, and composed some very lively lines on the ill-luck of being -there.â€</p> - -<p>The following are the most respectable lines of this production:—</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">So one fine faultless morning in the spring,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When Whitsun splendour brighten’d everything,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A strange commotion startled me from sleep.<br /></span> -<span style="margin-left: 4em;">. . . . . . . . . .</span><br /> -<span class="i0">At last I reach’d my chamber in the keep.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A clownish turnkey, with an unctuous smile,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of my new lodging ‘gan to praise the style:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“What ease, what charms, what comforts here are yours!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For never PhÅ“bus in his daily course<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Will blind you here with his too brilliant rays;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Within these ten-foot walls you’ll spend your days<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In cool sequester’d blithefulness always.â€<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then bidding me admire my cloistral cell—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The triple doors, the triple locks as well,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The bolts, the bars, the gratings all around—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“’Tis but,†says he, “to keep you safe and sound!â€<br /></span> -<span style="margin-left: 4em;">. . . . . . . . . .</span><br /> -<span class="i0">Behold me, then, lodged in this woful place,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cribb’d, cabin’d, and confined in narrow space;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sleepless by night, and starving half the day;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No joys, no friend, no mistress—wellaway!<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a><br /></span> -</div></div> - -<p>When Voltaire was set at liberty, the Regent, whom, as we have just -said, he had reviled, made him a very handsome offer of his protection. -The poet’s reply is well known: “My lord, I thank your royal highness -for being so good as to continue to charge yourself with my<a name="page_150" id="page_150"></a> board, but -I beseech you no longer to charge yourself with my lodging.†The young -writer thus obtained from the Regent a pension of 400 crowns, which -later on the latter augmented to 2000 livres.</p> - -<p>Voltaire was sent to the Bastille a second time in April, 1726. For this -new detention there was no justification whatever. He had had a violent -quarrel, one evening at the Opera, with the Chevalier de Rohan-Chabot. -On another occasion, at the Comédie Française, the poet and the nobleman -had a warm altercation in the box of Mdlle. Lecouvreur. Rohan raised his -stick, Voltaire put his hand on his sword, and the actress fainted. Some -days later “the gallant chevalier, assisted by half a dozen ruffians, -behind whom he courageously posted himself,†gave our poet a thrashing -in broad daylight. When relating the adventure later, the Chevalier said -pleasantly: “I commanded the squad.†From that moment Voltaire sought -his revenge. “The police reports reveal curious details of the loose, -erratic, and feverish life he lived between the insult and his arrest,†-writes the careful biographer of Voltaire, Desnoiresterres. From one of -these police reports we see that the young writer established relations -with soldiers of the guard: several notorious bullies were constantly -about him. A relative who attempted to calm him found him more irritated -and violent in his language than ever. It appears certain that he was -meditating some act of violence, which indeed would not have been -without justification. But the Cardinal de Rohan contrived that he -should be arrested<a name="page_151" id="page_151"></a> on the night of April 17, 1726, and placed in the -Bastille.</p> - -<p>Speaking of this new imprisonment Marshal de Villars writes: “The -public, disposed to find fault all round, came to the conclusion on this -occasion that everybody was in the wrong: Voltaire for having offended -the Chevalier de Rohan, the latter for having dared to commit a capital -offence in causing a citizen to be beaten, the government for not having -punished a notorious crime, and for having sent the injured party to the -Bastille to pacify the injurer.†Nevertheless, we read in the report of -Hérault, the lieutenant of police: “The Sieur de Voltaire was found -armed with pocket pistols, and his family, when informed of the matter, -unanimously and universally applauded the wisdom of an order which saves -this young man the ill effects of some new piece of folly and the worthy -people who compose his family the vexation of sharing his shame.â€</p> - -<p>Voltaire remained at the Bastille for <i>twelve days</i>: he was permitted to -have a servant of his own choice to wait on him, who was boarded at the -king’s expense; as for himself, he took his meals whenever he pleased at -the governor’s table, going out of the Bastille, as the governor’s -residence stood outside the prison. Relatives and friends came to see -him; his friend Thiériot dined with him; he was given pens, paper, -books, whatever he desired in order to divert himself. “Using and -abusing these opportunities,†writes Desnoiresterres, “Voltaire believed -that he could give audience to all<a name="page_152" id="page_152"></a> Paris. He wrote to those of his -friends who had not yet shown a sense of their duty, exhorting them to -give him proof they were alive.†“I have been accustomed to all -misfortunes,†he wrote to Thiériot, “but not yet to that of being -utterly abandoned by you. Madame de Bernières, Madame du Deffand, the -Chevalier des Alleurs really ought to come and see me. They only have to -ask permission of M. Hérault or M. de Maurepas.†At the time of the -poet’s entrance to the Bastille, the lieutenant of police had written to -the governor: “The Sieur de Voltaire is of a <i>genius</i> that requires -humouring. His Serene Highness has approved of my writing to tell you -that the king’s intention is that you should secure for him mild -treatment and the internal liberty of the Bastille, so far as these do -not jeopardize the security of his detention.†The warrant setting him -at liberty was signed on April 26.</p> - -<h3><span class="smcap">La <a name="Beaumelle" id="Beaumelle"></a>Beaumelle.</span></h3> - -<p>In M. Bournon’s list La Beaumelle comes second. The circumstances under -which he was put into the Bastille were as follows. After having fallen -out at Berlin with Voltaire, whom he had compared to a monkey, La -Beaumelle returned to Paris, whence he had been exiled. There he got -printed a new edition of Voltaire’s <i>Age of Louis XIV.</i>, unknown to the -author, and interpolated therein odes insulting to the house of Orleans. -“La Beaumelle,†exclaimed Voltaire, “is the first who dared to print -another man’s work in his lifetime. This miserable<a name="page_153" id="page_153"></a> Erostrates of the -<i>Age of Louis XIV.</i> has discovered the secret of changing into an -infamous libel, for fifteen ducats, a work undertaken for the glory of -the nation.â€</p> - -<p>La Beaumelle became an inmate of the Bastille in April, 1753, and -remained there for six months. Writing on May 18, 1753, to M. Roques, -Voltaire said that “there was scarcely any country where he would not -inevitably have been punished sooner or later, and I know from a certain -source that there are two courts where they would have inflicted a -chastisement more signal than that which he is undergoing here.â€</p> - -<p>It was not long before La Beaumelle issued his edition of <i>Notes towards -the History of Madame de Maintenon and that of the past century</i>, with -nine volumes of correspondence. He had fabricated letters which he -attributed to Madame de Saint-Géran and Madame de Frontenac, and -published a correspondence of Madame de Maintenon which M. Geffroy, in a -work recognized as authoritative, regards as full of barefaced -falsehoods and foul and scurrilous inventions. He had inserted in his -work the following phrase: “The court of Vienna has been long accused of -having poisoners always in its pay.â€</p> - -<p>It must be observed that La Beaumelle’s publication owed its great vogue -to special circumstances. The author’s reputation abroad, the very title -of the book, lent it great importance; and France, then engaged in the -Seven Years’ War, found it necessary to keep in Austria’s good graces. -La Beaumelle was conveyed to<a name="page_154" id="page_154"></a> the Bastille a second time. The lieutenant -of police, Berryer, put him through the usual examination. La Beaumelle -was a man of the world, so witty that in the course of their quarrels he -drove Voltaire himself to despair. He showed himself such in his -examination. “La Beaumelle,†said Berryer to him, “this is wit you are -giving me when what I ask of you is plain sense.†On his expressing a -wish for a companion, he was placed with the Abbé d’Estrades. The -officers of the château had all his manuscripts brought from his house, -so that he might continue his literary work. He had at the Bastille a -library of 600 volumes, ranged on shelves which the governor ordered to -be made for him. He there finished a translation of the <i>Annals</i> of -Tacitus and the <i>Odes</i> of Horace. He had permission to write to his -relatives and friends, and to receive visits from them; he had the -liberty of walking in the castle garden, of breeding birds in his room, -and of having brought from outside all the luxuries to which he was -partial. The principal secretary of the lieutenant of police, Duval, -reports the following incident: “Danry (the famous Latude) and Allègre -(his companion in confinement and ere long in escape) found means to -open a correspondence with all the prisoners in the Bastille. They -lifted a stone in a closet of the chapel, and put their letters -underneath it. La Beaumelle pretended to be a woman in his letters to -Allègre, and as he was a man of parts and Allègre was of keen -sensibility and an excellent writer, the latter fell madly in love with -La Beaumelle, to such<a name="page_155" id="page_155"></a> a degree that, though they mutually agreed to -burn their letters, Allègre preserved those of his fancied mistress, -which he had not the heart to give to the flames; with the result that, -the letters being discovered at an inspection of his room, he was put in -the cells for some time. The prisoner amused himself also by composing -verses which he recited at the top of his voice. This gave much concern -to the officers of the garrison, and Chevalier, the major, wrote to the -lieutenant of police on the matter: “The Sieur de la Beaumelle seems to -have gone clean out of his mind; he seems to be a maniac; he amuses -himself by declaiming verses in his room for a part of the day: for the -rest of the time he is quiet.â€</p> - -<p>This second detention lasted from August, 1756, till August, 1757.</p> - -<h3><span class="smcap">The Abbé <a name="Morellet" id="Morellet"></a>Morellet.</span></h3> - -<p>We come to the Abbé Morellet, a man of fine and fascinating mind, one of -the best of the Encyclopædists, who died in 1819 a member of the -Institute and the object of general esteem. He was arrested on June 11, -1760, for having had printed and distributed, without privilege or -permission, a pamphlet entitled: <i>Preface to the Philosophers’ Comedy; -or, the Vision of Charles Palissot</i>.<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> These are the terms in which, -later on, Morellet himself judged his pamphlet: “I must here make my -confession.<a name="page_156" id="page_156"></a> In this work, I went far beyond the limits of a literary -pleasantry regarding the Sieur Palissot, and to-day I am not without -remorse for my fault.†And further, as J. J. Rousseau, in whose favour -the pamphlet had been in part composed, had to acknowledge, the Abbé -“very impudently†insulted a young and pretty woman, Madame de Robecq, -who was dying of decline, spitting blood, and did actually die a few -days later.</p> - -<p>The arrest of Morellet was demanded by Malesherbes, then censor of the -press, one of the most generous and liberal spirits of the time, the -inspirer of the famous remonstrances of the Court of Taxation against -<i>lettres de cachet</i>—the man who, as M. H. Monin testifies, “being -elected censor of the press, protected philosophers and men of letters, -and by his personal efforts facilitated the publication of the -<i>Encyclopædia</i>.†Speaking of the <i>Preface to the Comedy</i>, Malesherbes -writes to Gabriel de Sartine, lieutenant-general of police: “It is an -outrageous pamphlet, not only against Palissot, but against respectable -persons whose very condition should shelter them against such insults. I -beg you, sir, to be good enough to put a stop to this scandal. I believe -it to be a matter of public importance that the punishment should be -very severe, and that this punishment should not stop at the Bastille or -the For-l’Evêque,<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> because a very wide distinction must be drawn -between the delinquencies<a name="page_157" id="page_157"></a> of men of letters tearing each other to -pieces and the insolence of those who attack persons of the highest -consideration in the State. I do not think that Bicêtre would be too -severe for these last. If you have to ask M. de Saint-Florentin for the -royal authority for your proceedings, I hope you will be good enough to -inform him of the request I am making.â€</p> - -<p>It will be observed that, on Malesherbes’ showing, the Bastille would -not suffice to punish the <i>Preface to the Comedy</i>, nor even the -For-l’Evêque; he asks for the most stringent of the prisons, Bicêtre. -Before long, it is true, this excellent man returned to milder -sentiments. An imprisonment at Bicêtre, he wrote, would be infamous. -Saint-Florentin and Sartine were not hard to convince. Morellet was -taken to the Bastille. “The warrant for his arrest,†wrote one of his -agents to Malesherbes, “was executed this morning by Inspector D’Hémery -with all the amenities possible in so unpleasant a business. D’Hémery -knows the Abbé Morellet, and has spoken of him to M. de Sartine in the -most favourable terms.â€</p> - -<p>When he entered the Bastille the Abbé calculated that his imprisonment -would last six months, and after acknowledging that he at that time -viewed his detention without great distress, he adds: “I am bound to -say, to lower the too high opinion that may be formed of me and my -courage, that I was marvellously sustained by a thought which rendered -my little virtue more easy. I saw some literary glory illumining the -walls of my prison; persecuted, I must be better known. The men of -letters<a name="page_158" id="page_158"></a> whom I had avenged, and the philosophy for which I was a -martyr, would lay the foundation of my reputation. The men of the world, -who love satire, would receive me better than ever. A career was opening -before me, and I should be able to pursue it at greater advantage. These -six months at the Bastille would be an excellent recommendation, and -would infallibly make my fortune.â€</p> - -<p>The Abbé remained at the Bastille, not six months, but six weeks, “which -slipped away,†he observes “—I chuckle still as I think of them—very -pleasantly for me.†He spent his time in reading romances, and, with -admirable humour, in writing a <i>Treatise on the Liberty of the Press</i>. -Afterwards the good Abbé informs us that the hopes which he had indulged -were not deceived. On issuing from the Bastille he was a made man. -Little known two months before, he now met everywhere with the reception -he desired. The doors of the salons of Madame de Boufflers, Madame -Necker, the Baron d’Holbach, flew open before him; women pitied him and -admired him, and men followed their example. Why have we not to-day a -Bastille to facilitate the career of writers of talent!</p> - -<h3><span class="smcap"><a name="Marmontel" id="Marmontel"></a>Marmontel.</span></h3> - -<p>To Marmontel his stay at the royal prison appeared as pleasant as the -Abbé Morellet had found his. He had amused himself by reciting at Madame -Geoffrin’s a mordant satire in which the Duke d’Aumont, first groom of -the stole to the king, was cruelly hit. The duke<a name="page_159" id="page_159"></a> expostulated; -Marmontel wrote to him declaring that he was not the author of the -satire; but the nobleman stood his ground.</p> - -<p>“I am helpless,†said the Count de Saint-Florentin, who countersigned -the <i>lettre de cachet</i>, to Marmontel; “the Duke d’Aumont accuses you, -and is determined to have you punished. It is a satisfaction he demands -in recompense for his services and the services of his ancestors. The -king has been pleased to grant him his wish. So you will go and find M. -de Sartine; I am addressing to him the king’s order; you will tell him -that it was from my hand you received it.â€</p> - -<p>“I went to find M. de Sartine,†writes Marmontel, “and I found with him -the police officer who was to accompany me. M. de Sartine was intending -that he should go to the Bastille in a separate carriage; but I myself -declined this obliging offer, and we arrived at the Bastille, my -introducer and myself, in the same hack.... The governor, M. d’Abadie, -asked me if I wished my servant to be left with me.... They made a -cursory inspection of my packets and books, and then sent me up to a -large room furnished with two beds, two tables, a low cupboard, and -three cane chairs. It was cold, but a jailer made us a good fire and -brought me wood in abundance. At the same time they gave me pens, ink, -and paper, on condition of my accounting for the use I made of them and -the number of sheets they allowed me.</p> - -<p>“The jailer came back to ask if I was satisfied with<a name="page_160" id="page_160"></a> my bed. After -examining it I replied that the mattresses were bad and the coverlets -dirty. In a minute all was changed. They sent to ask me what was my -dinner hour. I replied, ‘The same as everybody’s.’ The Bastille had a -library: the governor sent me the catalogue, giving me free choice among -the books. I merely thanked him for myself, but my servant asked for the -romances of Prévost, and they were brought to him.â€</p> - -<p>Let us go on with Marmontel’s story. “For my part,†he says, “I had the -means of escape from ennui. Having been for a long time impatient of the -contempt shown by men of letters for Lucan’s poem, which they had not -read, and only knew in the barbarous fustian of Brébeuf’s version, I had -resolved to translate it more becomingly and faithfully into prose; and -this work, which would occupy me without fatiguing my brain, was the -best possible employment for the solitary leisure of my prison. So I had -brought the <i>Pharsalia</i> with me, and, to understand it the better, I had -been careful to bring with it the <i>Commentaries</i> of Cæsar. Behold me -then at the corner of a good fire, pondering the quarrel of Cæsar and -Pompey, and forgetting my own with the Duke d’Aumont. And there was Bury -too (Marmontel’s servant) as philosophical as myself, amusing himself by -making our beds placed at two opposite corners of my room, which was at -this moment lit up by the beams of a fine winter sun, in spite of the -bars of two strong iron gratings which permitted me a view of the Suburb -Saint-Antoine.<a name="page_161" id="page_161"></a></p> - -<p>“Two hours later, the noise of the bolts of the two doors which shut me -in startled me from my profound musings, and the two jailers, loaded -with a dinner I believed to be mine, came in and served it in silence. -One put down in front of the fire three little dishes covered with -plates of common earthenware; the other laid on that one of the two -tables which was clear a tablecloth rather coarse, indeed, but white. I -saw him place on the table a very fair set of things, a pewter spoon and -fork, good household bread, and a bottle of wine. Their duty done, the -jailers retired, and the two doors were shut again with the same noise -of locks and bolts.</p> - -<p>“Then Bury invited me to take my place, and served my soup. It was a -Friday. The soup, made without meat, was a <i>purée</i> of white beans, with -the freshest butter, and a dish of the same beans was the first that -Bury served me with. I found all this excellent. The dish of cod he gave -me for second course was better still. It was served with a dash of -garlic, which gave it a delicacy of taste and odour which would have -flattered the taste of the daintiest Gascon. The wine was not -first-rate, but passable; no sweets: of course one must expect to be -deprived of something. On the whole, I thought that dinner in prison was -not half bad.</p> - -<p>“As I was rising from table, and Bury was about to sit down—for there -was enough for his dinner in what was left—lo and behold! in came my -two jailers again, with pyramids of dishes in their hands. At this -display of fine linen, fine china-ware, spoon and fork of silver, we<a name="page_162" id="page_162"></a> -recognized our mistake; but we made not the ghost of a sign, and when -our jailers, having laid down their burden, had retired, ‘Sir,’ said -Bury, ‘you have just eaten my dinner, you will quite agree to my having -my turn and eating yours.’ ‘That’s fair,’ I replied, and the walls of my -room were astonished, I fancy, at the sound of laughter.</p> - -<p>“This dinner was not vegetarian; here are the details: an excellent -soup, a juicy beef-steak, a boiled capon’s leg streaming with gravy and -melting in one’s mouth, a little dish of artichokes fried in pickle, a -dish of spinach, a very fine William pear, fresh-cut grapes, a bottle of -old burgundy, and best Mocha coffee; this was Bury’s dinner, with the -exception of the coffee and the fruit, which he insisted on reserving -for me.</p> - -<p>“After dinner the governor came to see me, and asked me if I found the -fare sufficient, assuring me that I should be served from his table, -that he would take care to cut my portions himself, and that no one -should touch my food but himself. He suggested a fowl for my supper; I -thanked him and told him that what was left of the fruit from my dinner -would suffice. The reader has just seen what my ordinary fare was at the -Bastille, and from this he may infer with what mildness, or rather -reluctance, they brought themselves to visit on me the wrath of the Duke -d’Aumont.</p> - -<p>“Every day I had a visit from the governor. As he had some smack of -literature and even of Latin, he took<a name="page_163" id="page_163"></a> some interest in following my -work, in fact, enjoyed it; but soon, tearing himself away from these -little dissipations, he said, ‘Adieu, I am going to console men who are -more unfortunate than you.’â€</p> - -<p>Such was the imprisonment of Marmontel. It lasted for eleven days.</p> - -<h3><span class="smcap"><a name="Linguet" id="Linguet"></a>Linguet.</span></h3> - -<p>Linguet, advocate and journalist, was arrested for a breach of the press -laws and for slander. He was a man of considerable ability, but little -character. Attorney-general Cruppi has devoted to the story of Linguet a -work as extensive as it is eloquent. He has a wealth of indulgence for -his hero; yet, despite the goodwill he shows for him and endeavours to -impart to the reader, his book reveals between the lines that Linguet -was worthy of little esteem, and that his professional brethren were -justified in removing his name from the roll of the advocates of Paris.</p> - -<p>Linguet’s captivity lasted for two years. He has left a description of -it in his <i>Memoirs on the Bastille</i>, which made a great noise, and of -which the success has endured down to our own day. His book, like -everything which came from his pen, is written in a fluent style, with -spirit and brilliance; the facts cited are for the most part correct, -but the author, aiming at making a sensation, has cleverly presented -them in a light which distorts their real character. “There are means,†-says Madame de Staal, “of so distributing light and shade on<a name="page_164" id="page_164"></a> the facts -one is exhibiting, as to alter their appearance without altering the -groundwork.†Take, for instance, the description that Linguet gives of -his belongings while in the Bastille: “Two worm-eaten mattresses, a cane -chair the seat of which was only held to it by strings, a folding table, -a jug for water, two earthenware pots, one of them for drinking, and two -stone slabs to make a fire on.†A contemporary could say of Linguet’s -<i>Memoirs</i>, “It is the longest lie that ever was printed.†And yet, if we -take the facts themselves which are related by the clever journalist, -and disengage them from the deceitful mirage in which he has enwrapped -them, we do not see that his life in the Bastille was so wretched as he -endeavours to make us believe. He is forced to acknowledge that his food -was always most abundant, adding, it is true, that that was because they -wished to poison him! He owed his life, he is convinced, “only to the -obstinate tenacity of his constitution.†He marked, nevertheless, on the -menu for the day, which was sent up every morning by the Bastille cook, -the dishes he fancied; and later on he had his room furnished after his -own heart. He still enjoyed, moreover, enough liberty to write during -his imprisonment a work entitled, <i>The Trials of Three Kings, Louis -XVI., Charles III., and George III.</i>, which appeared in London in 1781. -Let us recall once more the famous saying of Linguet to the wig-maker of -the Bastille on the first day that he presented himself to trim the -prisoner’s beard: “To whom have I the honour of speaking?†“I am,<a name="page_165" id="page_165"></a> sir, -the barber to the Bastille.†“Gad, then, why don’t you raze it?â€</p> - -<p>In June, 1792, some years after his liberation, Linguet was prosecuted a -second time for breach of the press laws. The revolutionary tribunal -condemned him to death. As he mounted the steps of the scaffold, the -ardent pamphleteer thought, mayhap, with bitterly ironical regret, of -that Bastille whose destruction he had so clamorously demanded.</p> - -<h3><span class="smcap"><a name="Diderot" id="Diderot"></a>Diderot.</span></h3> - -<p>We have still to speak of Diderot and the Marquis de Mirabeau, who were -not incarcerated at the Bastille, but at Vincennes, not in the castle -keep, but in the château itself, which constituted a separate place of -imprisonment. They placed in the château only prisoners guilty of minor -offences, who were sentenced to a temporary detention, and to whom they -wished to show some consideration. This was, as we have just said, the -abode of Diderot and the Marquis de Mirabeau. Diderot was arrested on -July 24, 1749. His last book, <i>Letters on the Blind for the Use of those -Who Can See</i>, contained theories which appeared to have but little title -to the description of “moral.†But in the course of his examination he -stoutly denied that he was its author, as also he denied the authorship -of the <i>Thoughts of a Philosopher</i> he had published some years before. -The lieutenant of police gave instructions to the governor of Vincennes -that, short of being set at liberty, Diderot was to be granted all<a name="page_166" id="page_166"></a> -possible comforts—allowed to walk in the garden and park; “that the -king’s desire was, in consideration of the literary work on which he was -engaged (the <i>Encyclopædia</i>), to permit him to communicate freely with -persons from without who might come for that purpose or on family -business.†And so Diderot received a visit from his wife and walked with -her in the wood; Rousseau and D’Alembert spent their afternoons with -him, and, as in the “good old days†of Plato and Socrates, our -philosophers chatted of metaphysics and love, seated on the green grass -under the shade of mighty oaks. The booksellers and printers who had -undertaken the publication of the <i>Encyclopædia</i> were, as we have seen, -in constant communication with Diderot at Vincennes; he corrected in -prison the proofs of the publication, which the court looked on with no -favourable eye. And we know, too, that at night, with the secret -complicity of the governor, our philosopher cleared the park walls to -hurry to a fair lady at Paris, one Madame de Puysieux, whom he loved -with a passion by no means platonic; ere the sun was up, the jailers -found him safely back under lock and key. This irksome captivity lasted -little more than three months.</p> - -<h3><span class="smcap">The Marquis de <a name="Mirabeau" id="Mirabeau"></a>Mirabeau.</span></h3> - -<p>The imprisonment of Mirabeau lasted only ten days. The <i>lettre de -cachet</i> had been obtained by the clique of financiers, who took fright -at the audacious conceptions of the <i>Theory of Taxation</i>. “I fancy I -deserved my<a name="page_167" id="page_167"></a> punishment,†wrote the Marquis, “like the ass in the fable, -for a clumsy and misplaced zeal.†In regard to the arrest, Madame -d’Epinay sent word to Voltaire: “Never before was a man arrested as this -one was. The officer said to him, ‘Sir, my orders do not state I am to -hurry you: to-morrow will do, if you haven’t time to-day.’ ‘No, sir, one -cannot be too prompt in obeying the king’s orders, I am quite ready.’ -And off he went with a bag crammed with books and papers.†At Vincennes -the Marquis had a servant with him. His wife came to see him. The king -spent for his support fifteen livres a day, more than twenty-five -shillings of our money. He was liberated on December 24, 1760. His -brother, Bailie Mirabeau, speaking of this detention, wrote to him of “a -week’s imprisonment in which you were shown every possible -consideration.â€</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>We have exhausted M. Bournon’s list of the writers who were victims of -arbitrary authority. Such are the “martyrs†for whom that excellent -historian, and Michelet and others, have shown the most affecting -compassion. The foregoing facts do not call for comment. Men of letters -were the spoilt children of the eighteenth century much more than of our -own, and never has an absolute government shown a toleration equal to -that of the monarchy under the <i>ancien régime</i> towards writers whose -doctrines, as events have proved, tended directly to its destruction.<a name="page_168" id="page_168"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br /><br /> -<small>LATUDE.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind">F<small>EW</small> historical figures have taken a higher place in the popular -imagination than Masers de Latude. That celebrated prisoner seems to -have accumulated in his life of suffering all the wrongs that spring -from an arbitrary government. The novelists and playwrights of the -nineteenth century have made him a hero; the poets have draped his woes -in fine mourning robes, our greatest historians have burnt for him the -midnight oil; numerous editions of his <i>Memoirs</i> have appeared in quick -succession down to our own days. Even by his contemporaries he was -regarded as a martyr, and posterity has not plucked the shining crown of -martyrdom from his head, hoary with the snows of long captivity. His -legend is the creature of his own unaided brain. When in 1790 he -dictated the story of his life, he made greater calls on his glowing -southern imagination than on his memory; but the documents relating to -his case in the archives of the Bastille have been preserved. At the -present time they are to be found dispersed among various libraries, at -the Arsenal, at Carnavalet, at St.<a name="page_169" id="page_169"></a> Petersburg. Thanks to them it is -easy to establish the truth.</p> - -<p>On March 23, 1725, at Montagnac in Languedoc, a poor girl named -Jeanneton Aubrespy gave birth to a male child who was baptized three -days later under the name of Jean Henri, given him by his god-parents, -Jean Bouhour and Jeanne Boudet. Surname the poor little creature had -none, for he was the illegitimate child of a father unknown. Jeanneton, -who had just passed her thirtieth year, was of respectable middle-class -family, and lived near the Lom gate in a little house which seems to -have been her own. Several cousins of hers held commissions in the army. -But from the day when she became a mother, her family had no more to do -with her, and she fell into want. Happily she was a woman of stout -heart, and by her spinning and sewing she supported her boy, who shot up -into a lad of keen intelligence and considerable ambition. She succeeded -in getting him some sort of education, and we find Jean Henri at the age -of seventeen acting as assistant surgeon in the army of Languedoc. -Surgeons, it is true, made no great figure in the eighteenth century; -they combined the duties of barber and dentist as well as leech. But the -situation was good enough. “Assistant surgeons in the army,†wrote -Saint-Marc the detective, “who really worked at their trade, made a good -deal of money.†At this time, being reluctant to bear his mother’s name, -the young man ingeniously transformed his double forename into Jean -Danry, under which he is<a name="page_170" id="page_170"></a> designated in a passport for Alsace, given him -on March 25, 1743, by the general commanding the royal forces in -Languedoc. In the same year 1743, Danry accompanied the army of Marshal -de Noailles in its operations on the Maine and the Rhine, receiving from -the Marshal, towards the end of the season, a certificate testifying to -his good and faithful service throughout the campaign.</p> - -<p>Four years later we find Danry at Brussels, employed in the -field-hospital of the army in Flanders, at a salary of 500 livres a -month. He was present at the famous siege of Bergen-op-Zoom, the -impregnable fortress which the French so valiantly stormed under the -command of the Comte de Lowendal. But peace being concluded at -Aix-la-Chapelle, the armies were disbanded, and Danry went to Paris. He -had in his pocket a letter of recommendation to Descluzeaux, the surgeon -of Marshal de Noailles, and a certificate signed by Guignard de La -Garde, chief of the commissariat, testifying to the ability and good -conduct of “the aforesaid Jean Danry, assistant surgeon.†These two -certificates formed the most substantial part of his fortune.</p> - -<p>Danry arrived in Paris about the end of the year 1748. On any afternoon -he might have been seen strolling about the Tuileries in a grey frock -and red waistcoat, carrying his twenty-three years with a good grace. Of -middle height and somewhat spare figure, wearing his brown hair in a -silk net, having keen eyes and an expression of much intelligence, he -would probably have<a name="page_171" id="page_171"></a> been thought a handsome fellow but for the marks -which smallpox had indelibly stamped on his face. His accent had a -decided Gascon tang, and it is obvious, from the spelling of his -letters, not only that he could not boast of a literary education, but -that his speech was that of a man of the people. Yet, what with his -brisk temperament, his professional skill, and his favour with his -superiors, he was in a fair way to attain an honourable position, which -would have enabled him at length to support his mother, then living in -solitary friendlessness at Montagnac, centring on him, in her forlorn -condition, all her affection and her dearest hopes.</p> - -<p>Paris, with its gaiety and stir, dazzled the young man. Its brilliant -and luxurious life, its rustling silks and laces, set him dreaming. He -found the girls of Paris charming creatures, and opened his heart to -them without stint, and his purse too; and his heart was more opulent -than his purse. Ere long he had spent his modest savings and sunk into -want. He fell into bad company. His best friend, an apothecary’s -assistant named Binguet, shared with him a mean garret in the Cul-de-sac -du Coq, in the house of one Charmeleux, who let furnished lodgings. Than -these two no greater rakes, wastrels, or thorough-paced rascals could -have been found in all Paris. Danry in particular very soon got a name -all over his neighbourhood for his riotous, threatening, and choleric -temper. Dying of hunger, threatened with being ejected neck-and-crop -from his lodging for nonpayment of rent, he was reduced at last to write -for<a name="page_172" id="page_172"></a> money to his mother, who, poor thing, had barely enough for her own -modest wants.</p> - -<p>As yet we are a long way from the “handsome officer of engineers†who -lives in our remembrance: we see little likeness to the brilliant -picture which Danry drew later of those youthful years during which he -received, “by the care of his father the Marquis de La Tude, the -education of a gentleman destined to serve his country and his king.â€</p> - -<p>Having come now absolutely to the end of his resources, Danry took it -into his head that, at the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom, he had been stripped -by some soldiers of all his clothes but his shirt, and robbed of 678 -livres into the bargain. This story he worked up in a letter addressed -to Moreau de Séchelles, commissary of the army in Flanders, hoping to -get it corroborated by Guignard de La Garde, the commissary under whom -he had himself served. In this letter he demanded compensation for the -losses he had suffered while devoting himself under fire to the care of -the wounded. But we read, in the <i>Memoirs</i> he wrote later, that so far -from having been stripped and robbed, he had actually purchased at -Bergen-op-Zoom a considerable quantity of goods of all kinds when they -were sold off cheap after the sack of the town. However that may be, his -experiment was a failure. But Danry was a man of resource, and not many -days had passed before he had hit on another means of raising the wind.</p> - -<p class="figcenter" style="width:70%;"> -<a href="images/i_198_lg.png"> -<img class="enlargeimage" -src="images/enlarge-image.jpg" -alt="enlarge-image" -title="enlarge-image" -width="18" -height="14" /> -</a><br /><img src="images/i_198_sml.png" width="550" height="441" alt="Cover of the explosive box sent by Danry to the Marquise de -Pompadour. The words almost obliterated are: “Je vous prie, Madame, -d’ouvrir le paquet en particulié.†Below is the record and the date -of Danry’s examination, with his signature, and that of Berryer, -the lieutenant of police. -" /> -<br /> -<span class="caption">Cover of the explosive box sent by Danry to the Marquise de -Pompadour. The words almost obliterated are: “Je vous prie, Madame, -d’ouvrir le paquet en particulié.†Below is the record and the date -of Danry’s examination, with his signature, and that of Berryer, -the lieutenant of police. -</span> -</p> - -<p>At this time everybody was talking about the struggle<a name="page_173" id="page_173"></a> between the -king’s ministers and the Marquise de Pompadour, which had just ended in -a triumph for the lady. Maurepas was going into exile, but it was -generally believed that he was a man who would wreak vengeance on his -enemy, and the favourite herself openly declared that she went in fear -of poison. A light dawned on the young surgeon’s mind as he heard such -gossip as this; he caught a sudden glimpse of himself—even he, the -ragged outcast—arrayed in cloth of gold and rolling in his carriage -along the Versailles road.</p> - -<p>This was his plan. On April 27, 1749, in a shop under the arcade of the -Palais-Royal, hard by the grand staircase, he bought of a small -tradesman six of those little bottle-shaped toys, once called Prince -Rupert’s Drops, out of which children used to get so much harmless -amusement. They were globules of molten glass, which, on being thrown -into cold water, had taken the shape of pears, and which, if the -tapering end was suddenly snapped, crumbled with a loud report into -dust. Four of these crackers Danry placed in a cardboard box, binding -the thin ends together with a thread which he fixed in the lid. Over -these he sprinkled some toilet powder, and this he covered with a layer -of powdered vitriol and alum. The whole packet he then enclosed in a -double wrapper, writing on the inner one, “I beg you, madam, to open the -packet in private,†and on the outer one, “To Madame the Marquise de -Pompadour, at court.â€</p> - -<p>At eight o’clock in the evening of the next day,<a name="page_174" id="page_174"></a> Danry, having seen his -packet safely in the post, hurried off himself to Versailles. He had -hoped to gain admittance to the favourite herself, but being stopped by -Gourbillon, her principal valet, in a voice trembling with emotion he -related to him a frightful story. Happening to be at the Tuileries, he -said, he had observed two men seated in animated conversation, and on -going close to them heard them mouthing the most horrible threats -against Madame de Pompadour. When they rose he dogged their footsteps, -which led direct to the post office, where they consigned a packet to -the box. Who the men were, and what was the nature of the packet, were -natural questions to which Danry had no answer; all he could say was -that, devoted to the interests of the Marquise, he had instantly sped -off to reveal to her what he had seen.</p> - -<p>To understand the impression produced by the young man’s information, it -is necessary to bear in mind the feverish excitement then prevailing at -court. Maurepas, the witty and sprightly minister who had won Louis -XV.’s special affection because of the charm with which he endowed mere -business for “the man who was always bored‗Maurepas had just been -exiled to Bourges. “Pontchartrain,†the king sent word to him, “is too -near.†The struggle between the minister and the favourite had been one -of extraordinary violence. Maurepas was for ever dashing off satirical -verses on the girl who had reached the steps of the throne, and -incessantly pursuing her with the cruel and insolent<a name="page_175" id="page_175"></a> shafts of his wit; -his muse indeed did not shrink from the most brutal insults. Nor was the -Marquise a whit more tender towards her foe: she openly dubbed him liar -and knave, and assured everybody that he was trying to get her poisoned. -A surgeon was actually required to be in constant attendance upon her, -and she always had an antidote within reach. At table she was careful -never to be the first to partake of any dish, and in her box at the -theatre she would drink no lemonade but what had been prepared by her -surgeon.</p> - -<p>The packet which Danry had posted arrived at Versailles on April 29, and -Quesnay, the physician to the king and the Marquise, was requested to -open it. Having done so with infinite precaution, he recognized the -vitriol and alum and toilet powder, and declared at once that there was -not a pennyworth of danger in the whole contrivance. But since alum and -vitriol were substances capable of being turned to baneful uses, he -thought that possibly it was a case of a criminal design clumsily -executed.</p> - -<p>There is not a shadow of doubt that Louis XV. and his mistress were -seriously alarmed. D’Argenson himself, who had upheld Maurepas against -the favourite, had the greatest possible interest in seeing the affair -cleared up as soon as possible. The first move was altogether in favour -of the informer. D’Argenson wrote to Berryer that Danry was deserving of -a reward.</p> - -<p>No time was lost in instituting a search for the authors<a name="page_176" id="page_176"></a> of the plot. -The lieutenant of police selected the most skilful and intelligent of -his officers, the detective Saint-Marc, who put himself in communication -with Danry. But he had not spent two days with the assistant surgeon -before he drew up a report demanding his arrest. “It is not unimportant -to note that Danry is a surgeon, and his best friend an apothecary. In -my opinion it is essential to apprehend both Danry and Binguet without -further delay, and without letting either know of the other’s arrest, -and at the same time to search their rooms.â€</p> - -<p>Accordingly Danry was conveyed to the Bastille on May 1, 1749, and -Binguet was secured the same day. Saint-Marc had taken the precaution to -ask the assistant surgeon for a written account of his adventure. This -document he put into the hands of an expert, who compared the -handwriting with the address on the packet sent to Versailles. Danry was -lost. Suspicion was but too well confirmed by the results of a search in -his room. Being shut up in the Bastille, Danry knew nothing of all these -proceedings, and when, on May 2, the lieutenant-general of police came -to question him, he replied only with lies.</p> - -<p>Berryer, the lieutenant of police, was a man of much firmness, but -honourable and kindly disposed. “He inspired one’s confidence,†wrote -Danry himself, “by his urbanity and kindness.†This excellent man was -vexed at the attitude taken up by the prisoner, and pointing out the -danger he was incurring, he besought him to<a name="page_177" id="page_177"></a> tell the truth. But at a -second examination Danry only persisted in his lies. Then all at once he -changed his tactics and refused to answer the questions put to him. -“Danry, here we do justice to every one,†said Berryer to him, to give -him courage. But entreaties had no better success than threats. Danry -maintained his obstinate silence; and D’Argenson wrote to Berryer: “The -thorough elucidation of this affair is too important for you not to -follow up any clue which may point towards a solution.â€</p> - -<p>By his falsehoods, and then by his silence, Danry had succeeded in -giving the appearance of a mysterious plot to what was really an -insignificant piece of knavery.</p> - -<p>Not till June 15 did he make up his mind to offer a statement very near -the truth, which was written down and sent at once to the king, who read -it over several times and kept it in his pocket the whole day—a -circumstance which indicates to what importance the affair had now -swelled. Suspicions were not dispelled by the declaration of June 15. -Danry had misrepresented the truth in his former examinations, and there -was reason to believe that he was equally misrepresenting it in the -third. Thus he owed his ruin to his silence and his self-contradictory -depositions. Six months later, on October 7, 1749, when he was at -Vincennes, Dr. Quesnay, who had shown much interest in the young -surgeon, was sent to find out from him the name of the individual who -had instigated the crime. On his<a name="page_178" id="page_178"></a> return the doctor wrote to Berryer, -“My journey has been utterly useless. I only saw a blockhead, who -persisted nevertheless in adhering to his former declarations.†Two -years more had passed away when the lieutenant of police wrote to -Quesnay:—“February 25, 1751. Danry would be very glad if you would pay -him a visit, and your compliance might perhaps induce him to lay bare -his secret soul, and make a frank confession to you of what up to the -present he has obstinately concealed from me.â€</p> - -<p>Quesnay at once repaired to the Bastille, bearing with him a conditional -promise of liberty. Working himself up into a frenzy, Danry swore that -“all his answers to the lieutenant of police had been strictly true.†-When the doctor had taken his leave, Danry wrote to the minister: “M. -Quesnay, who has been several times to see me in my wretchedness, tells -me that your lordship is inclined to believe I had some accomplice in my -fault whom I will not reveal, and that it is for this reason your -lordship will not give me my liberty. I could wish, my lord, from the -bottom of my heart, that your belief were true, for it would be much to -my profit to put my guilt upon another, whether for having induced me to -commit my sin or for not having prevented me from committing it.â€</p> - -<p>It was the opinion of the ministers that Danry had been the instrument -of a plot against the life of the Marquise de Pompadour directed by some -person of high rank, and that at the critical moment he had either -taken<a name="page_179" id="page_179"></a> fright, or else had made a clean breast of the matter at -Versailles in the hope of reaping some advantage from both sides. These -facts must be kept in mind if we are to understand the real cause of his -confinement. Kept, then, in the Bastille, he was subjected to several -examinations, the reports of which were regularly drawn up and signed by -the lieutenant of police. Under the <i>ancien régime</i>, this officer was, -as we have seen, a regular magistrate, indeed he has no other -designation in the documents of the period; he pronounced sentence and -awarded punishments in accordance with that body of customs which then, -as to-day in England, constituted the law.</p> - -<p>Binguet, the apothecary, had been set at liberty immediately after -Danry’s declaration of June 15. In the Bastille, Danry was treated with -the utmost consideration, in accordance with the formal instructions of -Berryer. He was provided with books, tobacco, and a pipe; he was -permitted to play on the flute; and having declared that a solitary life -bored him, he was given two room mates. Every day he was visited by the -officers of the fortress, and on May 25 the governor came to tell him of -the magistrate’s order: “That the utmost attention was to be shown him; -if he needed anything he was to be requested to say so, and was to be -allowed to want for nothing.†No doubt the lieutenant of police hoped, -by dint of kindness, to persuade him to disclose the authors of the -unfortunate plot which was the figment of his imagination.<a name="page_180" id="page_180"></a></p> - -<p>Danry did not remain long in the prison of the Suburb Saint-Antoine; on -July 28 Saint-Marc transferred him to Vincennes, and we see from the -report drawn up by the detective with what astonishment the Marquis du -Châtelet, governor of the fortress, heard “that the court had resolved -to send him such a fellow.†Vincennes, like the Bastille, was reserved -for prisoners of good position; our hero was sent there by special -favour, as he was told for his consolation by the surgeon who attended -him: “Only persons of noble birth or the highest distinction are sent to -Vincennes.†Danry was indeed treated like a lord. The best apartment was -reserved for him, and he was able to enjoy the park, where he walked for -two hours every day. At the time of his admission to the Bastille, he -was suffering from some sort of indisposition which later on he ascribed -to his long confinement. At Vincennes he complained of the same illness, -with the same plea that his troubles had made him ill. He was attended -by a specialist as well as by the surgeon of the prison.</p> - -<p>Meantime the lieutenant came again to see him, reiterating assurances of -his protection, and advising him to write direct to Madame de Pompadour. -Here is what Danry wrote:—</p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p class="r"> -“<span class="smcap">Vincennes</span>, <i>November 4, 1749</i>.<br /> -</p> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Madam</span>,—If wretchedness, goaded by famine, has driven me to commit -a fault against your dear person, it was with no design of doing -you any mischief. God is my<a name="page_181" id="page_181"></a> witness. If the divine mercy would -assure you to-day, on my behalf, how my soul repents of its heinous -fault, and how for 188 days I have done nothing but weep at the -sight of my iron bars, you would have pity on me. Madam, for the -sake of God who is enlightening you, let your just wrath soften at -the spectacle of my repentance, my wretchedness, my tears. One day -God will recompense you for your humanity. You are all-powerful, -Madam; God has given you power with the greatest king on all the -earth, His well-beloved; he is merciful, he is not cruel, he is a -Christian. If the divine power moves your magnanimity to grant me -my freedom, I would rather die, or sustain my life on nothing but -roots, than jeopardize it a second time. I have staked all my hopes -on your Christian charity. Lend a sympathetic ear to my prayer, do -not abandon me to my unhappy fate. I hope in you, Madam, and God -will vouchsafe an abundant answer to my prayers that your dear -person may obtain your heart’s desires.</p> - -<p>“I have the honour to be, with a repentance worthy of pardon, -Madam, your very humble and very obedient servant,</p> - -<p class="r"> -“<span class="smcap">Danry</span>.â€<br /> -</p> -</div> - -<p>A letter which it is a pleasure to quote, for it shows to great -advantage beside the letters written later by the prisoner. It was only -the truth that he had no evil design on the favourite’s life; but soon -becoming more audacious, he wrote to Madame de Pompadour saying that if -he had addressed the box to her at<a name="page_182" id="page_182"></a> Versailles, it was out of pure -devotion to her, to put her on her guard against the machinations of her -enemies, in short, to save her life.</p> - -<p>Danry’s letter was duly forwarded to the Marquise, but remained without -effect. Losing patience, he resolved to win for himself the freedom -denied him: on June 15, 1750, he escaped.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>In his <i>Memoirs</i> Danry has related the story of this first escape in a -manner as lively as imaginative. He really eluded his jailers in the -simplest way in the world. Having descended to the garden at the usual -hour for his walk, he found there a black spaniel frisking about. The -dog happened to rear itself against the gate, and to push it with its -paws. The gate fell open. Danry passed out and ran straight ahead, -“till, towards four o’clock in the afternoon, he fell to the ground with -fatigue, in the neighbourhood of Saint-Denis.â€</p> - -<p>There he remained until nine o’clock in the evening. Then he struck into -the road to Paris, passing the night beside the aqueduct near the -Saint-Denis gate. At daybreak he entered the city.</p> - -<p>We know what importance was attached at court to the safe custody of the -prisoner: there was still hope that he would make up his mind to speak -of the grave conspiracy of which he held the secret. D’Argenson wrote at -once to Berryer: “Nothing is more important or more urgent than to set -on foot at once all conceivable means of recapturing the prisoner.†-Accordingly<a name="page_183" id="page_183"></a> all the police were engaged in the search; the description -of the prisoner was printed, a large number of copies being distributed -by Inspector Rulhière among the mounted police.</p> - -<p>Danry took up his lodging with one Cocardon, at the sign of the Golden -Sun; but he did not venture to remain for more than two days in the same -inn. He expected his old chum Binguet to come to his assistance, but -Binguet was not going to have anything more to do with the Bastille. It -was a pretty girl, Annette Benoist, whom Danry had known when he was -lodging with Charmeleux, that devoted herself heart and soul to him. She -knew she herself was running the risk of imprisonment, and already -strangers of forbidding appearance had come asking at the Golden Sun who -she was. Little she cared; she found assistance among her companions: -the girls carried Danry’s letters and undertook the search for a safe -lodging. Meanwhile, Danry went to pass the night under the aqueducts; in -the morning he shut himself in the lodging the girls had chosen for him, -and there he remained for two days without leaving the house, Annette -coming there to keep him company. Unluckily the young man had no money: -how was he to pay his score? “What was to be done, what was to become of -me?†he said later. “I was sure to be discovered if I showed myself; if -I fled I ran no less risk.†He wrote to Dr. Quesnay, who had shown him -so much kindness at Vincennes; but the police got wind of the letter, -and Saint-Marc arrived and<a name="page_184" id="page_184"></a> seized the fugitive in the inn where he lay -concealed. The unlucky wretch was haled back to the Bastille. Annette -was arrested at the Golden Sun at the moment when she was asking for -Danry’s letters; she too was shut up in the Bastille. The warders and -sentinels who were on duty at Vincennes on the day of the escape had -been thrown into the cells.</p> - -<p>By his escape from Vincennes, Danry had doubled the gravity of his -offence. The regulations demanded that he should be sent down into the -cells reserved for insubordinate prisoners. “M. Berryer came again to -lighten my woes; outside the prison he demanded justice and mercy for -me, inside he sought to calm my grief, which seemed less poignant when -he assured me that he shared it.†The lieutenant of police ordered the -prisoner to be fed as well as formerly, and to be allowed his books, -papers, knick-knacks, and the privilege of the two hours’ walk he had -enjoyed at Vincennes. In return for these kindnesses, the assistant -surgeon sent to the magistrate “a remedy for the gout.†He asked at the -same time to be allowed to breed little birds, whose chirping and lively -movements would divert him. The request was granted. But instead of -bearing his lot with patience, Danry grew more and more irritable every -day. He gave free rein to his violent temper, raised a hubbub, shrieked, -tore up and down his room, so that they came perforce to believe that he -was going mad. On the books of the Bastille library, which circulated -from room to room, he wrote ribald verses against the Marquise de -Pompadour.<a name="page_185" id="page_185"></a> In this way he prolonged his sojourn in the cells. Gradually -his letters changed their tone. “It is a little hard to be left for -fourteen months in prison, a whole year of the time, ending to-day, in -one cell where I still am.â€</p> - -<p>Then Berryer put him back into a good room, about the end of the year -1751. At the same time he gave him, at the king’s expense, a servant to -wait on him.</p> - -<p>As to Annette Benoist, she had been set at liberty after a fortnight’s -detention. Danry’s servant fell sick; as there was no desire to deprive -the prisoner of society, he was given a companion. This was a certain -Antoine Allègre, who had been there since May 29, 1750. The -circumstances which had led to his imprisonment were almost identical -with those to which Danry owed his confinement. Allègre was keeping a -school at Marseilles when he learnt that the enemies of the Marquise de -Pompadour were seeking to destroy her. He fabricated a story of a -conspiracy in which he involved Maurepas, the Archbishop of Albi, and -the Bishop of Lodève; he sent a denunciation of this plot to Versailles, -and, to give it some semblance of truth, addressed to the favourite’s -valet a letter in disguised handwriting, beginning with these words: “On -the word of a gentleman, there are 100,000 crowns for you if you poison -your mistress.†He hoped by this means to obtain a good situation, or -the success of a business project he had in hand.</p> - -<p>Intelligent, with some education, and venturesome,<a name="page_186" id="page_186"></a> Danry and Allègre -were just the men to get on well together, so much the better that the -schoolmaster dominated the comrade to whom he was so much superior. The -years that Danry spent in company with Allègre exercised so great an -influence on his whole life that the lieutenant of police, Lenoir, could -say one day: “Danry is the second volume of Allègre.†The letters of the -latter, a large number of which have been preserved, bear witness to the -originality and energy of his mind: their style is fine and fluent, of -the purest French; the ideas expressed have distinction and are -sometimes remarkable without eccentricity. He worked untiringly, and was -at first annoyed at the presence of a companion: “Give me, I beg you, a -room to myself,†he wrote to Berryer, “even without a fire: I like being -alone, I am sufficient for myself, because I can find things to do, and -seed to sow for the future.†His temperament was naturally mystical, but -of that cold and acrid mysticism which we sometimes find in men of -science, and mathematicians in particular. For Allègre’s principal -studies were mathematics, mechanics, and engineering. The lieutenant of -police procured for him works on fortification, architecture, mechanics, -hydraulics. The prisoner used them to compile essays on the most diverse -questions, which he sent to the lieutenant of police in the hope of -their procuring his liberation. Those essays which we possess show the -extent of his intelligence and his education. Danry followed his example -by-and-by, in this as in everything else, but clumsily. Allègre was<a name="page_187" id="page_187"></a> -also very clever with his fingers, and could make, so the officials of -the château declared, whatever he pleased.</p> - -<p>Allègre was a dangerous man: the warders were afraid of him. Some time -after his entrance into the Bastille he fell ill, and a man was set to -look after him; the two men did not agree at all. Allègre sent complaint -after complaint to the lieutenant of police. An inquiry was made which -turned out not unfavourable to the keeper, and he was left with the -prisoner. One morning—September 8, 1751—the officers of the Bastille -heard cries and clamour in the “Well†tower. Hastily ascending, they -found Allègre in the act of stabbing his companion, who lay on the floor -held down by the throat, wallowing in the blood that streamed from a -gash in the stomach. If Allègre had not been in the Bastille, the -Parlement would have had him broken on the wheel in the Place de Grève: -the Bastille was his safety, though he could no longer hope for a speedy -liberation.</p> - -<p>Danry, in his turn, wore out the patience of his guardians. Major -Chevalier, who was kindness itself, wrote to the lieutenant of police: -“He is no better than Allègre, but though more turbulent and choleric, -he is much less to be feared in every respect.†The physician of the -Bastille, Dr. Boyer, a member of the Academy, wrote likewise: “I have -good reason to distrust the man.†The temper of Danry became embittered. -He began to revile the warders. One morning they were obliged to take -from him a knife and other sharp<a name="page_188" id="page_188"></a> instruments he had concealed. He used -the paper they gave him to open communications with other prisoners and -with people outside. Paper was withheld: he then wrote with his blood on -a handkerchief; he was forbidden by the lieutenant of police to write to -him with his blood, so he wrote on tablets made of bread crumbs, which -he passed out secretly between two plates.</p> - -<p>The use of paper was then restored to him, which did not prevent him -from writing to Berryer: “My lord, I am writing to you with my blood on -linen, because the officers refuse me ink and paper; it is now more than -six times that I have asked in vain to speak to them. What are you -about, my lord? Do not drive me to extremities. At least, do not force -me to be my own executioner. Send a sentry to break my head for me; that -is the very least favour you can do me.†Berryer, astonished at this -missive, remarked on it to the major, who replied: “I have not refused -paper to Danry.â€</p> - -<p class="figcenter" style="width:60%;"> -<a href="images/i_215_lg.png"> -<img class="enlargeimage" -src="images/enlarge-image.jpg" -alt="enlarge-image" -title="enlarge-image" -width="18" -height="14" /> -</a><br /><img src="images/i_215_sml.png" width="399" height="550" alt="Beginning of a letter written with blood on linen by Danry (Latude) -while a prisoner at Vincennes, to Rougemont, the king’s lieutenant. -" /> -<br /> -<span class="caption">Beginning of a letter written with blood on linen by Danry (Latude) -while a prisoner at Vincennes, to Rougemont, the king’s lieutenant. -</span> -</p> - -<p>So the prisoner forced them more and more to the conclusion that he was -a madman. On October 13, 1753, he wrote to Dr. Quesnay to tell him that -he wished him well, but that being too poor to give him anything else, -he was making him a present of his body, which was on the point of -perishing, for him to make a skeleton of. To the paper on which he -wrote, Danry had sewn a little square of cloth, adding: “God has given -the garments of martyrs the virtue of healing all manner of diseases. It -is now fifty-seven months since I have been suffering an enforced -martyrdom. So there is no<a name="page_189" id="page_189"></a> doubt that to-day the cloth of my coat will -work miracles; here is a bit for you.†This letter was returned to the -lieutenant of police in December, and on it we find a marginal note in -Berryer’s hand: “A letter worth keeping, as it reveals the prisoner’s -mind.†We know in what fashion madmen were wont to be treated in the -eighteenth century.</p> - -<p>But suddenly, to the great astonishment of the officers of the château, -our two friends amended their character and their conduct. No more -noises were heard in their room, and they answered politely anyone who -came to speak to them. But their behaviour was even more odd than ever. -Allègre used to walk up and down the room half naked, “to save his -toggery,†he said, and he sent letter after letter to his brother and -the lieutenant of police, asking them to send him things, particularly -shirts and handkerchiefs. Danry followed suit. “This prisoner,†wrote -Chevalier to the lieutenant of police, “is asking for linen. I shall not -make a requisition, because he has seven very good shirts, four of them -new; he has shirts on the brain.†But why decline to humour a prisoner’s -whim? So the commissary of the Bastille had two dozen expensive shirts -made—every one cost twenty livres, more than thirty-three shillings of -our money—and some handkerchiefs of the finest cambric.</p> - -<p>If the wardrobe-keeper of the Bastille had kept her eyes open, she would -have noticed that the serviettes and cloths which went into the room of -the two companions<a name="page_190" id="page_190"></a> were of much smaller dimensions when they came out. -Our friends had established communication with their neighbours above -and below, begging twine and thread from them and giving tobacco in -exchange. They had succeeded in loosening the iron bars which prevented -climbing up the chimney; at night they used to mount to the platforms, -whence they conversed down the chimneys with prisoners in the other -towers. One of these hapless creatures believed himself to be a prophet -of God; he heard at night the sound of a voice descending upon his cold -hearth: he revealed the miracle to the officers, who only considered him -still more insane than before. On the terrace Allègre and Danry found -the tools left there in the evening by the masons and gardeners employed -at the Bastille. Thus they got possession of a mallet, an auger, two -sorts of pulleys, and some bits of iron taken from the gun-carriages. -All these they concealed in the hollow between the floor of their room -and the ceiling of the room below.</p> - -<p>Allègre and Danry escaped from the Bastille on the night of February 25, -1756. They climbed up the chimney till they reached the platform, and -descended by means of their famous rope ladder, fastened to a -gun-carriage. A wall separated the Bastille moat from that of the -Arsenal. By the aid of an iron bar they succeeded in working out a large -stone, and they escaped through the hole thus made. Their rope ladder -was a work of long patience and amazing skill. When in after days -Allègre<a name="page_191" id="page_191"></a> went mad, Danry appropriated the whole credit of this -enterprise which his friend had conceived and directed.</p> - -<p>At the moment of leaving, Allègre had written on a scrap of paper, for -the officers of the Bastille, the following note, which is an excellent -indication of his character:—</p> - -<p>“We have done no damage to the furniture of the governor, we have only -made use of a few rags of coverlets of no possible use; the others are -left just as they were. If some serviettes are missing, they will be -found at the bottom of the water in the great moat, whither we are -taking them to wipe our feet.</p> - -<p>“<i>Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam!</i></p> - -<p>“<i>Scito cor nostrum et cognosce semitas nostras.</i>â€<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a></p> - -<p>Our two companions had provided themselves with a portmanteau, and they -made haste to change their clothes as soon as they had cleared the -precincts of the fortress. A foreman of works whom Danry knew interested -himself in them, and conducted them to one Rouit, a tailor, who lodged -them for some little time. Rouit even lent Danry forty-eight livres, -which he promised to return as soon as he reached Brussels. At the end -of a month our two friends were across the frontier.</p> - -<p>It is very difficult to follow Danry’s proceedings from the time when he -left Rouit to the moment of his reincarceration<a name="page_192" id="page_192"></a> in the Bastille. He has -left, it is true, two accounts of his sojourn in Flanders and Holland; -but these accounts are themselves inconsistent, and both differ from -some original documents which remain to us.</p> - -<p>The two fugitives had considered it advisable not to set out together. -Allègre was the first to arrive at Brussels, whence he wrote an insolent -letter to Madame de Pompadour. This letter led to his discovery. On -reaching Brussels, Danry learnt that his friend had been arrested. He -lost no time in making for Holland, and at Amsterdam he took service -with one Paul Melenteau. From Rotterdam he had written to his mother, -and the poor creature, collecting her little savings, sent him 200 -livres by post. But Saint-Marc had already struck on the track of the -fugitive. “The burgomaster of Amsterdam readily and gladly granted the -request made by Saint-Marc on behalf of the king, through the -ambassador, for the arrest and extradition of Danry.†Louis XV. confined -himself to claiming him as one of his subjects. Saint-Marc, disguised as -an Armenian merchant, discovered him in his retreat. Danry was arrested -in Amsterdam on June 1, 1756, conducted to a cell belonging to the town -hall, and thence brought back to France and consigned to the Bastille on -June 9. Word came from Holland that Saint-Marc was there regarded as a -sorcerer.</p> - -<p>By his second escape the unhappy man had succeeded in making his case -very serious. In the eighteenth century, escape from a state prison was -punishable with<a name="page_193" id="page_193"></a> death. The English, great apostles of humanity as they -were, were no more lenient than the French; and everyone knows what -treatment was meted out by Frederick II. to Baron de Trenck. He was to -have remained in prison only one year; but after his second escape he -was chained up in a gloomy dungeon; at his feet was the grave in which -he was to be buried, and on it his name and a death’s-head had been cut.</p> - -<p>The government of Louis XV. did not punish with such rigour as this. The -fugitive was simply put in the cells for a time. At the Bastille the -cells were damp and chilly dungeons. Danry has left in his <i>Memoirs</i> an -account of the forty months spent in this dismal place,—an account -which makes one’s hair stand on end; but it is packed full of -exaggeration. He says that he spent three years with irons on his hands -and feet: in November, 1756, Berryer offered to remove the irons from -either hands or feet at his choice, and we see from a marginal note by -Major Chevalier that he chose the feet. Danry adds that he lay all -through the winter on straw without any coverlet: he was actually so -well supplied with coverlets that he applied to Berryer for some others. -To believe him you would think that when the Seine was in flood the -water rose as high as his waist: as a fact, when the water threatened to -invade the cell, the prisoner was removed. Again, he says that he passed -there forty months in absolute darkness: the light of his prison was -certainly not very brilliant, but it was sufficient to enable him to -read and write, and<a name="page_194" id="page_194"></a> we learn from letters he sent to the lieutenant of -police that he saw from his cell all that went on in the courtyard of -the Bastille. Finally, he tells us of a variety of diseases he -contracted at the time, and cites in this connection the opinion of an -oculist who came to attend him. But this very report was forged by Danry -himself, and the rest he invented to match.</p> - -<p>In this cell, where he professes to have been treated in so barbarous a -manner, Danry, however, proved difficult enough to deal with, as we -judge from the reports of Chevalier. “Danry has a thoroughly nasty -temper; he sends for us at eight o’clock in the morning, and asks us to -send warders to the market to buy him fish, saying that he never eats -eggs, artichokes, or spinach, and that he insists on eating fish; and -when we refuse, he flies into a furious passion.†That was on fast days; -on ordinary days it was the same. “Danry swore like a trooper, that is, -in his usual way, and after the performance said to me: ‘Major, when you -give me a fowl, at least let it be stuffed!’†He was not one of the -vulgar herd, he said, “one of those fellows you send to Bicêtre.†And he -demanded to be treated in a manner befitting his condition.</p> - -<p>It was just the same with regard to clothes. One is amazed at the sight -of the lists of things the lieutenant of police got made for him. To -give him satisfaction, the administration did not stick at the most -unreasonable expense, and it was by selling these clothes that Danry, at -his various escapes, procured a part of the money he<a name="page_195" id="page_195"></a> was so much in -need of. He suffered from rheumatism, so they provided him with -dressing-gowns lined with rabbit-skin, vests lined with silk plush, -gloves and fur hats, and first-rate leather breeches. In his <i>Memoirs</i> -Danry lumps all these as “half-rotten rags.†Rochebrune, the commissary -charged with the prisoners’ supplies, was quite unable to satisfy him. -“You instructed me,†he wrote to the major, “to get a dressing-gown made -for the Sieur Danry, who asks for a calamanco with red stripes on a blue -ground. I have made inquiries for such stuff of a dozen tradesmen, who -have no such thing, and indeed would be precious careful not to have it, -for there is no sale for that kind of calamanco. I don’t see why I -should satisfy the fantastic tastes of a prisoner who ought to be very -well pleased at having a dressing-gown that is warm and well-fitting.†-On another occasion, the major writes: “This man Danry has never up to -the present consented to accept the breeches that M. de Rochebrune got -made for him, though they are excellent, lined with good leather, with -silk garters, and in the best style.†And Danry had his own pretty way -of complaining. “I beg you,†he wrote to the governor, “to have the -goodness to tell M. de Sartine in plain terms that the four -handkerchiefs he sent me are not fit to give to a galley-slave, and I -will not have them on any account; but that I request him kindly to give -me six print handkerchiefs, blue, and large, and two muslin cravats.†He -adds, “If there is no money in<a name="page_196" id="page_196"></a> the treasury, go and ask Madame de -Pompadour for some.â€</p> - -<p>One day Danry declared that something was wrong with his eyes. -Grandjean, the king’s oculist, came more than once to see him, ordered -aromatic fumigations for him, gave him ointments and eye-salve; but it -was soon seen that all that was wrong was that Danry desired to get a -spy-glass, and to smuggle out, with the doctor’s assistance, memoirs and -letters.</p> - -<p>On September 1, 1759, Danry was removed from the cells and placed in a -more airy chamber. He wrote at once to Bertin to thank him, and to tell -him that he was sending him two doves. “You delight in doing good, and I -shall have no less delight, my lord, if you favour me by accepting this -slight mark of my great gratitude.</p> - -<p>“Tamerlaine allowed himself to be disarmed by a basket of figs presented -to him by the inhabitants of a town he was proceeding to besiege. The -Marquise de Pompadour is a Christian lady; I beg you to allow me to send -her also a pair: perhaps she will allow her heart to be touched by these -two innocent pigeons. I append a copy of the letter which will accompany -them:—</p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“‘<span class="smcap">Madam</span>,—Two pigeons used to come every day to pick grains out of -my straw; I kept them, and they gave me young ones. I venture to -take the liberty of presenting you with this pair as a mark of my -respect and affection. I beseech you in mercy to be good enough to -accept them, with as much pleasure as I have<a name="page_197" id="page_197"></a> in offering them to -you. I have the honour to be, with the profoundest respect, Madam, -your very humble and obedient servant,</p> - -<p class="r"> -“‘<span class="smcap">Danry</span>, for eleven years at the Bastille.’†-</p></div> - -<p>Why did not Danry always make so charming a use of the permission -accorded him to write to the minister, the lieutenant of police, Madame -de Pompadour, Dr. Quesnay, and his mother? He wrote incessantly, and we -have letters of his in hundreds, widely differing one from another. Some -are suppliant and pathetic: “My body is wasting away every day in tears -and blood, I am worn out.†He writes to Madame de Pompadour:—“Madam,—I -have never wished you anything but well; be then sensible to the voice -of tears, of my innocence, and of a poor despairing mother of sixty-six -years. Madam, you are well aware of my martyrdom. I beg you in God’s -name to grant me my precious liberty; I am spent, I am dying, my blood -is all on fire by reason of my groaning; twenty times in the night I am -obliged to moisten my mouth and nostrils to get my breath.†Everyone -knows the famous letter beginning with the words, “I have been suffering -now for 100,000 hours.†He writes to Quesnay: “I present myself to you -with a live coal upon my head, indicating my pressing necessity.†The -images he uses are not always so happy: “Listen,†he says to Berryer, -“to the voice of the just bowels with which you are arrayedâ€!</p> - -<p>In other letters the prisoner alters his tone; to plaints<a name="page_198" id="page_198"></a> succeed cries -of rage and fury, “he steeps his pen in the gall with which his soul is -saturated.†He no longer supplicates, he threatens. There is nothing to -praise in the style of these epistles: it is incorrect and vulgar, -though at times vigorous and coloured with vivid imagery. To the -lieutenant of police he writes: “When a man is to be punished in this -accursed prison, the air is full of it, the punishments fall quicker -than the thunderbolt; but when it is a case of succouring a man who is -unfortunate, I see nothing but crabs;†and he addresses to him these -lines of Voltaire:—</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Perish those villains born, whose hearts of steel<br /></span> -<span class="i1">No touch of ruth for others’ woes can feel.â€<br /></span> -</div></div> - -<p>He predicts terrible retribution for the ministers, the magistrates, and -Madame de Pompadour. To her he writes: “You will see yourself one day -like that owl in the park of Versailles; all the birds cast water upon -him to choke him, to drown him; if the king chanced to die, before two -hours were past someone would set five or six persons at your heels, and -you would yourself pack to the Bastille.†The accused by degrees becomes -transformed into the accuser; he writes to Sartine: “I am neither a dog -nor a criminal, but a man like yourself.†And the lieutenant of police, -taking pity on him, writes on one of these letters sent to the minister -of Paris: “When Danry writes thus, it is not that he is mad, but frantic -from long imprisonment.†The magistrate counsels the prisoner “to keep -out of his letters all bitterness, which can only do him harm.†Bertin<a name="page_199" id="page_199"></a> -corrected with his own hand the petitions Danry sent to the Marquise de -Pompadour; in the margin of one of them we read, “I should think I was -prejudicing him and his interests if I sent on to Madame de Pompadour a -letter in which he ventures to reproach her with having <i>abused his good -faith and confidence</i>.†Having amended the letter, the lieutenant of -police himself carried it to Versailles.</p> - -<p>The years of captivity, far from humbling the prisoner and abasing his -pride, only made him the more arrogant; his audacity grew from day to -day, and he was not afraid of speaking to the lieutenants of police -themselves, who knew his history, about his fortune which had been -ruined, his brilliant career which had been cut short, his whole family -plunged into despair. At first the magistrate would shrug his shoulders; -insensibly he would be won over by these unwavering assertions, by this -accent of conviction; and he ends actually by believing in this high -birth, this fortune, this genius, in all which Danry had perhaps come to -believe himself. Then Danry takes a still higher tone: he claims not -only his freedom, but compensation, large sums of money, honours. But -one must not think that this sprang from a sordid sentiment unworthy of -him: “If I propose compensation, my lord, it is not for the sake of -getting money, it is only so that I may smooth away all the obstacles -which may delay the end of my long suffering.â€</p> - -<p>In return, he is very ready to give the lieutenant of<a name="page_200" id="page_200"></a> police some good -advice—to indicate the means of advancement in his career, to show him -how to set about getting appointed secretary of state, to compose for -him the speech he is to make to the king at his first audience. He adds: -“This very time is extremely favourable to you; it is the auspicious -hour: profit by it. Before they take horse on the day of rejoicing for -the conclusion of peace, you ought to be a counsellor of state.â€</p> - -<p>He is very ready also to send to the king schemes conceived in his -prison for the welfare of the realm. Now it is a suggestion to give -sergeants and officers on the battlefield muskets instead of spontoons -and pikes, by which the French arms would be strengthened by 25,000 good -fusiliers. Now it is a suggestion for increasing postal facilities, -which would augment the resources of the Treasury by several millions -every year. He recommends the erection of public granaries in the -principal towns, and draws up plans of battle for giving unheard-of -strength to a column of men three deep. We might mention other and -better suggestions. These notions were drowned in a flood of words, an -unimaginable wealth of verbiage, with parallels drawn from the history -of all periods and every country. His manuscripts were illustrated with -pen and ink sketches. Danry copied and recopied them incessantly, sent -them to all and sundry in all sorts of forms, persuaded the sentinels -that these lofty conceptions intimately concerned the safety of the -state and would win<a name="page_201" id="page_201"></a> him an immense fortune. Thus he induced these good -fellows to compromise their situation by carrying the papers secretly to -ministers, members of the Parlement, marshals of France; he threw them -from the windows of his room, and, wrapped in snowballs, from the top of -the towers. These memoirs are the work of a man whose open and active -mind, of incredible activity indeed, plans, constructs, invents without -cessation or repose.</p> - -<p>Among these bundles of papers we have discovered a very touching letter -from the prisoner’s mother, Jeanneton Aubrespy, who wrote to her son -from Montagnac on June 14, 1759:—</p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“Do not do me the injustice of thinking that I have forgotten you, -my dear son, my loving son. Could I shut you out of my thoughts, -you whom I bear always in my heart? I have always had a great -longing to see you again, but to-day I long more than ever, I am -constantly concerned for you, I think of nothing but you, I am -wholly filled with you. Do not worry, my dear son; that is the only -favour I ask of you. Your misfortunes will come to an end, and -perhaps it is not far off. I hope that Madame de Pompadour will -pardon you; for that I am trying to win heaven and earth over to -your cause. The Lord is putting my submission and yours to a long -test, so as to make us better realize the worth of His favour. Do -not distress yourself, my son. I hope to have the happiness of -receiving you again, and of embracing you more tenderly than ever. -Adieu, my son,<a name="page_202" id="page_202"></a> my dear son, my loving son, I love you, and I shall -love you dearly to the grave. I beg you to give me news of your -health. I am, and always shall be, your good mother,</p> - -<p class="r"> -<span class="smcap">Daubrespi</span>, <i>widow</i>.†-</p></div> - -<p>Is not this letter charming in its artless pathos? The son’s reply is -equally touching; but on reading it again one feels that it was to pass -under the eyes of the lieutenant of police; on examining it closely, one -sees the sentiments grimacing between the lines.</p> - -<p>No one knew better than Danry how to play on the souls of others, to -awake in them, at his will, pity or tenderness, astonishment or -admiration. No one has surpassed him in the art, difficult in very -truth, of posing as a hero, a genius, and a martyr, a part that we shall -see him sustain for twenty years without faltering.</p> - -<p>In 1759 there entered upon the office of lieutenant of police a man who -was henceforth to occupy Danry’s mind almost exclusively—Gabriel de -Sartine. He was a fine sceptic, of amiable character and pleasing -manners. He was loved by the people of Paris, who boasted of his -administrative abilities and his spirit of justice. He exerted himself -in his turn to render the years of captivity less cruel to Danry. “He -allowed me,†writes the latter, “what no other State prisoner has ever -obtained, the privilege of walking along the top of the towers, in the -open air, to preserve my health.†He cheered the prisoner with genial -words, and urged him to behave well and no longer to fill his letters -with insults.<a name="page_203" id="page_203"></a> “Your fate,†he told him, “is in your own hands.†He -looked into Danry’s scheme for the construction of public granaries, and -when he had read it said, “Really, there are excellent things, most -excellent things in it.†He visited Danry in prison and promised to do -his utmost to obtain his liberation. He himself put into the hands of -Madame de Pompadour the <i>Grand Mémoire</i> which Danry had drawn up for -her. In this memorial the prisoner told the favourite that in return for -a service he had rendered her in sending her a “hieroglyphic symbol†to -put her on her guard against the machinations of her enemies, she had -caused him to suffer unjustly for twelve years. Moreover, he would now -only accept his freedom along with an indemnity of 60,000 livres. He -added: “Be on your guard! When your prisoners get out and publish your -cruelties abroad, they will make you hateful to heaven and the whole -earth!†It is not surprising that this <i>Grand Mémoire</i> had practically -no result. Sartine promised that he would renew his efforts on his -behalf. “If, unhappily, you should meet with some resistance to the -entreaties you are about to make for me,†wrote Danry, “I take the -precaution of sending you a copy of the scheme I sent to the king.†-(This was the memorial suggesting that muskets should be given to the -officers and sergeants.) “Now the king has been putting my scheme in -operation for five years or more, and he will continue to avail himself -of it every time we are at war.†Sartine proceeded to Versailles, this -marvellous scheme in his pocket. He<a name="page_204" id="page_204"></a> showed it to the ministers and -pleaded on behalf of this protégé of his who, from the depths of his -dungeon, was doing his country service. But on his return he wrote to -the major of the Bastille a note in regard to Danry, in which we read: -“They have not made use, as he believes, of his military scheme.â€</p> - -<p>Danry had asked several times to be sent to the colonies. In 1763 the -government was largely occupied with the colonization of La Désirade. We -find a letter of June 23, 1763, in which Sartine proposes to send Danry -to La Désirade “with an introduction to the commanding officer.†But -nothing came of these proposals.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>All his life, Danry sought to compass his ends by the aid of women. He -was well aware of all the tenderness and devotion there is in these -light heads; he knew that sentiment is always stronger in them than -reason: “I was always looking out for women, and wished to find young -women, for their gentle and loving soul is more susceptible of pity; -misfortune moves them, stirs in them a more lively interest; their -impressionability is less quickly dulled, and so they are capable of -greater efforts.â€</p> - -<p>While taking his walk on the towers of the Bastille in the fresh morning -air, he tried by means of gestures and signals to open relations with -the people of the neighbourhood. “One day I noticed two young persons -working alone in a room, whose countenances struck me<a name="page_205" id="page_205"></a> as pretty and -gentle. I was not deceived. One of them having glanced in my direction, -I wafted her with my hand a salutation which I endeavoured to make -respectful and becoming, whereupon she told her sister, who instantly -looked at me too. I then saluted them both in the same manner, and they -replied to me with an appearance of interest and kindliness. From that -moment we set up a sort of correspondence between us.†The girls were -two good-looking laundresses named Lebrun, the daughters of a wigmaker. -And our rogue, the better to stimulate the little fools to enthusiastic -service in his behalf, knocked at the door of their young hearts, -willing enough to fly open. He spoke to them of youth, misfortune, -love—and also of his fortune, prodigious, he said, the half of which he -offered them. Glowing with ardour, the girls spared for him neither -time, nor trouble, nor what little money they had.</p> - -<p>The prisoner had put them in possession of several of his schemes, among -others the military one, with letters for certain writers and persons of -importance, and in addition a “terrible†indictment of Madame de -Pompadour for the king, in which “her birth and her shame, all her -thefts and cruelties were laid bare.†He begged the girls to have -several copies made, which they were then to send to the addresses -indicated. Soon large black crosses daubed on a neighbouring wall -informed the prisoner that his instructions had been carried out. Danry -seems no longer to have doubted that his woes were coming to an end, -that the gates of the Bastille<a name="page_206" id="page_206"></a> were about to fly open before him, and -that he would triumphantly leave the prison only to enter a palace of -fortune: <i>Parta victoria!</i><a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> he exclaims in a burst of happiness.</p> - -<p>And so we come to one of the most extraordinary episodes in this strange -life.</p> - -<p>In December, 1763, the Marquise of Pompadour was taken seriously ill. -“An officer of the Bastille came up to my room and said to me: ‘Sir, -write four words to the Marquise de Pompadour, and you may be sure that -in less than a week you will have recovered your freedom.’ I replied to -the major that prayers and tears only hardened the heart of that cruel -woman, and that I would not write to her. However, he came back next day -with the same story, and I replied in the same terms as on the previous -day. Scarcely had he gone than Daragon, my warder, came into my room and -said: ‘Believe the major when he tells you that within a week you will -be free: if he tells you so, depend upon it he is sure of it.’ Next day -but one the officer came to me for the third time: ‘Why are you so -obstinate?’ I thanked him—it was Chevalier, major of the Bastille—for -the third time, telling him that I would sooner die than write again to -that implacable shrew.</p> - -<p>“Six or eight days after, my two young ladies came and kissed their -hands to me, at the same time displaying a roll of paper on which were -written in large characters the words: ‘Madame de Pompadour is dead!’ -The<a name="page_207" id="page_207"></a> Marquise de Pompadour died on April 19, 1764, and two months -afterwards, on June 19, M. de Sartine came to the Bastille and gave me -an audience; the first thing he said was that we would say no more about -the past, but that at the earliest moment he would go to Versailles and -demand of the minister the justice which was my due.†And we find, in -truth, among the papers of the lieutenant of police, the following note, -dated June 18, 1764: “M. Duval (one of the lieutenant’s secretaries)—to -propose at the first inspection that Danry be liberated and exiled to -his own part of the country.â€</p> - -<p>Returning to his room, Danry reflected on these developments; for the -lieutenant of police to show so much anxiety for his liberation was -evidently a sign that he was afraid of him, and that his memorials had -reached their destination and achieved their end. But he would be a -great ass to be satisfied with a mere liberation: “100,000 livres†would -scarcely suffice to throw oblivion over the injustices with which he had -been overwhelmed.</p> - -<p>He revolved these thoughts in his head for several days. To accept -freedom at the hands of his persecutors would be to pardon the past, a -mistake he would never fall into. The door opened, the major entered, -bearing in his hand a note written by de Sartine: “You will tell County -Number 4 that I am working for his effectual liberation.†The officer -went out; Danry immediately sat down at his table and wrote to the -lieutenant of police a letter replete with threats, insults, and -obscenity.<a name="page_208" id="page_208"></a> The original is lost, but we have an abstract made by Danry -himself. He concluded with leaving to Sartine a choice: “he was either a -mere lunatic, or else had allowed himself to be corrupted like a villain -by the gold of the Marquis de Marigny, the Marquise de Pompadour’s -brother.â€</p> - -<p>“When Sartine received my letter, he wrote an answer which the major -brought and read to me, in which these were his very words: that I was -wrong to impute to him the length of my imprisonment, that if he had had -his way I should long ago have been set free; and he ended by telling me -that there was Bedlam for the mad. On which I said to the major: ‘We -shall see in a few days whether he will have the power to put me in -Bedlam.’ He did not deprive me of my walk on the towers; nine days -after, he put me in the cells on bread and water.†But Danry was not -easily put out. No doubt they were only meaning to put his assurance to -the test. He went down to his cell singing, and for several days -continued to manifest the most confident gaiety.</p> - -<p>From that moment the prisoner made himself insufferable to his -guardians. It was yells and violence from morning to night. He filled -the whole Bastille with bursts of his “voice of thunder.†Major -Chevalier wrote to Sartine: “This prisoner would wear out the patience -of the saintliest monkâ€; again: “He is full of gall and bitterness, he -is poison pure and simpleâ€; once more: “This prisoner is raving mad.<a name="page_209" id="page_209"></a>â€</p> - -<p>The lieutenant of police suggested to Saint-Florentin, the minister, to -transfer Danry to the keep of Vincennes. He was conducted there on the -night of September 15, 1764. We are now entering on a new phase of his -life. We shall find him still more wretched than in the past, but -constantly swelling his demands and pretensions, and with reason, for he -is now, mark you, a nobleman! He had learnt from a sentinel of the -Bastille of the death of Henri Vissec de la Tude, lieutenant-colonel of -a dragoon regiment, who had died at Sedan on January 31, 1761. From that -day he determined that he was the son of that officer. And what were his -reasons? Vissec de la Tude was from his own part of the country, he was -a nobleman and rich, and he was dead. These arguments Danry considered -excellent. He was, however, in complete ignorance of all that concerned -his father and his new family; he did not know even the name “Vissec de -la Tude,†of which he made “Masers de la Tudeâ€; Masers was the name of -an estate belonging to Baron de Fontès, a relation of Henri de Vissec. -The latter was not a marquis, as Danry believed, but simply a chevalier; -he died leaving six sons, whilst Danry represents him as dying without -issue. It goes without saying that all that our hero relates about his -father in his <i>Memoirs</i> is pure invention. The Chevalier de la Tude -never knew of the existence of the son of Jeanneton Aubrespy, and when -in later years Danry asked the children to recognize him as their -natural brother, his pretensions were rejected. Nevertheless our<a name="page_210" id="page_210"></a> -gentleman will henceforth sign his letters and memoirs “Danry, or rather -Henri Masers d’Aubrespy,†then “de Masers d’Aubrespy,†then “de Masers -de la Tude.†When Danry had once got an idea in his head, he never let -it go. He repeated it unceasingly until he had forced it upon the -conviction of all about him—pertinacity which cannot fail to excite our -admiration. In the patent of Danry’s pension of 400 livres granted by -Louis XVI. in 1784, the king calls the son of poor Jeanneton “Vicomte -Masers de la Tude.â€</p> - -<p>As may well be imagined, the Vicomte de la Tude could not accept his -liberty on the same terms as Danry. The latter would have been satisfied -with 60,000 livres: the viscount demands 150,000 and the cross of St. -Louis to boot. So he writes to the lieutenant of police. Sartine was too -sensible a man to be long obdurate to the prisoner on account of these -extravagances. “I was transferred to the keep of Vincennes on the night -of September 15, 1764. About nine hours after, the late M. de Guyonnet, -king’s lieutenant, came and saw me in the presence of the major and the -three warders, and said: ‘M. de Sartine has instructed me to inform you, -on his behalf, that provided you behave yourself quietly for a short -time, he will set you free. You have written him a very violent letter, -and you must apologize for it.’†Danry adds: “When all is said and done, -M. de Sartine did treat me well.†He granted him for two hours every day -“the extraordinary promenade of the moats.†“When a lieutenant of<a name="page_211" id="page_211"></a> -police,†says Danry, “granted this privilege to a prisoner, it was with -the object of promptly setting him free.†On November 23, 1765, Danry -was walking thus, in company with a sentinel, outside the keep. The fog -was dense. Turning suddenly towards his keeper, Danry said, “What do you -think of this weather?†“It’s very bad.†“Well, it’s just the weather to -escape in.†He took five paces and was out of sight. “I escaped from -Vincennes,†writes Danry, “without trickery; an ox would have managed it -as well.†But in the speech he delivered later in the National Assembly, -the matter took a new complexion. “Think,†he cried, “of the unfortunate -Latude, in his third escape, pursued by twenty soldiers, and yet -stopping and disarming under their very eyes the sentinel who had taken -aim at him!â€</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>When Latude was at large, he found himself without resources, as at his -first escape. “I escaped with my feet in slippers and not a sou in my -pocket; I hadn’t a thing to bless myself with.†He took refuge with his -young friends, the Misses Lebrun.</p> - -<p>In their keeping he found a part of his papers, plans and projects, -memorials and dissertations. He sent “a basketful†of these to Marshal -de Noailles, begging him to continue to honour him with his protection, -and imparting to him “four great discoveries he had just made; first, -the true cause of the tides; secondly, the true cause of mountains, but -for which the globe would<a name="page_212" id="page_212"></a> be brought to a standstill and become -speedily vitrified; thirdly, the cause of the ceaseless turning of the -globe; fourthly, the cause of the saltness of sea-water.†He wrote also -to the Duke de Choiseul, minister of war, in order to obtain a reward -for his military scheme; he wrote making overtures of peace to Sartine: -in return for an advance of 10,000 crowns of the 150,000 livres due to -him, he would overlook the past: “I was resolved,†he says, “to stake -all on one cast.†In reply, he received a letter naming a house where he -would find 1200 livres obtained for him by Dr. Quesnay. He proceeded to -the address indicated—and was there captured.</p> - -<p>He was at once taken back to Vincennes. He declares that he was about to -be set at liberty at the moment of his escape: and now a new detention -was commencing. We shall not relate in detail the life he was now to -lead. Materially he continued to be well treated, but his mind became -affected, his rages became more and more violent, reaching at last -paroxysms of fury. Here are some extracts from letters and memorials -sent to Sartine: “By all the devils, this is coming it too strong. It is -true, sir, that I’d defy the blackest devils in all hell to teach you -anything in the way of cruelty; and that’s but poor praise for you.†He -writes on another occasion: “The crime of every one of us is to have -seen through your villainies: we are to perish, are we? how delighted -you would be if some one told you that we had all strangled ourselves in -our cells!†Danry reminds the lieutenant of police of the tortures of -Enguerrand de Marigni, adding:<a name="page_213" id="page_213"></a> “Remember that more than a thousand -wretches have been broken in the Place de Grève who had not committed -the hundredth part of your crimes.â€... “Not a single person would be -astonished to see you flayed alive, your skin tanned, and your carcase -thrown into the gutters for the dogs to eat.â€... “But Monsieur laughs -at everything, Monsieur fears neither God, nor king, nor devil, Monsieur -swills down his crimes like buttermilk!â€</p> - -<p>In prison Latude wrote memoirs which he filled with calumnies on the -ministers and the court. These memoirs are composed in the most dramatic -style, with an inimitable accent of sincerity. It was known that the -prisoner found a thousand means of sending them outside the walls, and -it was feared that they might be circulated among the populace, whose -minds—the year is 1775—were beginning to ferment. Latude had just been -flung into a cell in consequence of a fresh outbreak against his -jailers. “On March 19, 1775, the king’s lieutenant entered, accompanied -by the major and three warders, and said to me: ‘I have obtained leave -to let you out of the cell, but on one condition: that you hand over -your papers.’</p> - -<p>“‘Hand over my papers! I tell you, sir, I’d rather be done to death in -this cell than show the white feather so!’</p> - -<p>“‘Your trunk is upstairs in your room: I’ve only to say the word and the -seals would be broken and your papers taken out.<a name="page_214" id="page_214"></a>’</p> - -<p>“I replied: ‘Sir, justice has formalities to which you are bound to -conform, and you are not allowed to commit such outrages.’</p> - -<p>“He took five or six steps out of the cell, and as I did not call him -back, he came back himself and said: ‘Just hand them to me for ten days -to examine them, and I give you my word of honour that at the end of -that time I will have them returned to your room.’</p> - -<p>“I replied: ‘I will not let you have them for two hours even.’</p> - -<p>“‘All right,’ he said; ‘as you won’t entrust them to me, you have only -to stay where you are.’â€</p> - -<p>Latude relates in his <i>Memoirs</i> with great indignation the story of a -flute he had made, on which he used to play, his sole diversion during -the long hours of solitude; his jailers had the barbarity to take it -from him. The governor of the fortress, out of compassion, offered to -restore it. “But it will only be on condition that you play by day only, -and not at night.†At this stipulation, writes Latude in his <i>Rêveries</i>, -“I could not refrain from bantering him, saying, ‘Why, don’t you know, -sir, that forbidding a thing is just the way to make me eager for it?’â€</p> - -<p>And so at Vincennes as at Paris they came to consider Danry as a madman. -Among the books given him for his amusement there were some dealing with -sorcery. These he read and re-read, and from that time onward he saw in -all the incidents of his life nothing but the perpetual intervention of -devils evoked by the witch<a name="page_215" id="page_215"></a> Madame de Pompadour and her brother the -magician, the Marquis de Marigny.</p> - -<p>Sartine came again to see the prisoner on November 8, 1772. Danry begged -him to send a police officer to make a copy of a memorial he had drawn -up for his own justification; to send also an advocate to assist him -with his advice, and a doctor, to examine the state of his health. The -police officer arrived on the 24th. On the 29th, he wrote to the -lieutenant of police: “I have the honour to report that in pursuance of -your orders I proceeded to the château of Vincennes on the 24th curt., -to hear from Danry something which, he asserts, concerns the minister: -it is impossible to hear anything which concerns him less. He began by -saying that to write all he had to tell me I should have to remain for -three weeks with him. He was bound to tell me the story of 180 -sorceries, and I was to copy the story, according to him, from a heap of -papers he drew from a bag, the writing of which is undecipherable.â€</p> - -<p>We know from Danry himself what passed at the visit of the advocate. He -entered the prisoner’s room about noon. Danry handed him two memorials -he had drawn up and explained their purport. “Instantly he cut me short, -saying, ‘Sir, I have no belief whatever in witchcraft.’ I did not give -in, but said, ‘Sir, I cannot show you the devil in bodily shape, but I -am very certain I can convince you, by the contents of this memorial, -that the late Marquise de Pompadour was a witch, and that the Marquis de -Marigny, her brother,<a name="page_216" id="page_216"></a> is at this very time still having dealings with -the devil.’</p> - -<p>“The advocate had read but a few pages when he stopped dead, put the -manuscript on the table, and said, as though he had been wakened out of -a deep sleep, ‘Would you not like to get out of prison?’ I replied: -‘There’s no doubt of that.’ ‘And do you intend to remain in Paris, or to -go to your home?’ ‘When I am free, I shall go home.’ ‘But have you any -means?’ Upon this I took his hand and said: ‘My dear sir, I beg you not -to take offence at what I am going to say.’ ‘Speak on,’ he said, ‘say -whatever you like, I shall not be offended.’ ‘Well then, I see very -clearly that the devil has already got hold of you.’â€</p> - -<p>In the same year, Malesherbes made his celebrated inspection of the -prisons. “This virtuous minister came to see me at the beginning of -August, 1775, and listened to me with the most lively interest.†The -historian who has the completest knowledge of everything relating to the -Bastille, François Ravaisson, believed that Malesherbes left the -wretched man in prison out of regard for his colleague Maurepas. “One -would have thought that Maurepas’ first act on resuming office would -have been to release his old accomplice.†This conjecture is destroyed -by a letter from Malesherbes to the governor of Vincennes: “I am busy, -sir, with the examination of the papers relating to your various -prisoners. Danry, Thorin, and Maréchal are quite mad, according to the -particulars furnished to me, and the two<a name="page_217" id="page_217"></a> first gave indubitable marks -of madness in my presence.â€</p> - -<p>In consequence, Danry was transferred to Charenton on September 27, -1775, “on account of mental derangement, in virtue of a royal order of -the 23rd of the said month, countersigned by Lamoignon. The king will -pay for his keep.†On entering his new abode, Latude took the precaution -to change his name a third time, and signed the register “Danger.â€</p> - -<p>In passing from the fortress of Vincennes to the hospital of Charenton, -Danry thought it was as well to rise still higher in dignity. So we see -him henceforth styling himself “engineer, geographer, and royal -pensioner at Charenton.â€</p> - -<p>His situation was sensibly changed for the better. He speaks of the -kindnesses shown him by the Fathers of La Charité.<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> He had companions -whose society pleased him. Halls were set apart for billiards, -backgammon, and cards. He had company at his meals and in his walks. He -met Allègre, his old fellow-prisoner, whom he came upon among the -dangerous lunatics in the dungeons; Allègre had been removed in 1763 -from the Bastille, where he was shattering and destroying everything. -His latest fancy was that he was God. As to Danry, he had taken so -kindly to his rôle as nobleman that to see his aristocratic and -well-to-do air, to hear his conversation,<a name="page_218" id="page_218"></a> full of reminiscences of his -family and his early life, no one could have doubted that he actually -was the brilliant engineer officer he set up for, who had fallen in the -prime of life a victim to the intrigues of the favourite. He hobnobbed -with the aristocratic section of society at Charenton and struck up an -intimacy with one of his associates, the Chevalier de Moyria, son of a -lieutenant-colonel, and a knight of Saint-Louis.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile the Parlement, which sent a commission every year to inspect -the Charenton asylum—a commission before which Danry appeared on two -separate occasions—did not decide that he ought to be set at liberty. -But one fine day in September, 1776, the prior of the Fathers, who took -a quite exceptional interest in the lot of his pensioner, meeting him in -the garden, said to him abruptly: “We are expecting a visit from the -lieutenant of police; get ready a short and taking address to say to -him.†The lieutenant of police, Lenoir, saw Danry, and listened to him -attentively, and as the prior’s account of him was entirely favourable, -the magistrate promised him his liberty. “Then Father Prudentius, my -confessor, who was behind me, drew me by the arm to get me away, fearing -lest, by some imprudent word, I might undo the good that had been -decided on‗a charming incident, much to the honour of Father -Prudentius.</p> - -<p>But on consideration it appeared dangerous to fling so suddenly upon -society a man who would be at a loss how to live, having neither -relatives nor fortune, having no longer the means of gaining a -livelihood, and a man,<a name="page_219" id="page_219"></a> moreover, whom there was only too much reason to -mistrust. Lenoir asked the prisoner if, once set at liberty, he would -find the wherewithal to assure his existence; if he had any property; if -he could give the names of any persons willing to go bail for him.</p> - -<p>What did this mean—<i>if</i> he had any property, <i>if</i> he could find -sureties? He, Masers de Latude! Why, his whole family, when the Marquise -de Pompadour had him put in the Bastille, was occupying a brilliant -position! Why, his mother, of whose death he had had the agony to hear, -had left a house and considerable estates! Latude took his pen, and -without hesitation wrote to M. Caillet, royal notary at Montagnac: “My -dear friend, I would bet ten to one you believe me dead; see how -mistaken you are!... You have but to say the word and before the -carnival is over we shall eat a capital leveret together.†And he speaks -to his friend the notary of the fortune left by his mother, and of his -family, who all of them cannot fail to be interested in him. Latude -himself was not greatly astonished at receiving no reply to this -epistle: but it must have passed under the eyes of the lieutenant of -police, and what more did he want?</p> - -<p>Latude’s new friend, the Chevalier de Moyria, had already been for some -time at liberty. The prisoner hastened to send him a copy of his letter -to the notary. “The reply is a long time coming, M. Caillet is dead, -doubtless.†What is to become of him? These twenty-eight years of -captivity have endangered his fortune, have made him lose his friends; -how is he to find the<a name="page_220" id="page_220"></a> remnant of his scattered family? Happily there -remains to him a friendship, a friendship still recent, but already -strong, in which he places his whole confidence. “Chevalier, it would -only need your intervention to deliver me, by inducing your good mother -to write to M. Lenoir.†The Chevalier de Moyria sent an amiable reply. -Danry wrote another and more urgent letter, with such success that not -only the Chevalier’s mother, but also an old friend of the Moyria -family, Mercier de Saint-Vigor, a colonel, and controller-general of the -queen’s household, intervened, and made applications at Versailles. “On -June 5, 1777, King Louis XVI. restored to me my freedom; I have in my -pocket the warrant under his own hand!â€</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>On leaving Charenton, Danry signed an undertaking to depart immediately -for Languedoc, an undertaking which he did not trouble to fulfil. Paris -was the only city in France where a man of his stamp could thrive. He -was now fifty-two years old, but was still youthful in appearance, full -of go and vigour; his hair, as abundant as it had been in youth, had not -become white. He soon found means of borrowing some money, and then we -see him opening a campaign, exerting himself to get in touch with the -ministers, gaining the protection of the Prince de Beauvau, distributing -memorials in which he claimed a reward for great services rendered, and -launched out into invectives against his oppressors, Sartine in -particular. Minister Amelot sent for him, and<a name="page_221" id="page_221"></a> in tones of severity -notified him that he was to leave the city at once. Latude did not wait -for the command to be repeated. He had reached Saint-Bris, about a -hundred miles from the capital, when he was suddenly arrested by the -police officer Marais. Brought back to Paris, he was locked up in the -Châtelet on July 16, 1777, and on August 1 conducted to Bicêtre. The -first use he had made of his liberty was to introduce himself to a lady -of quality and extort money from her by menaces. The officer found a -considerable sum in his possession.</p> - -<p>Bicêtre was not a state prison like the Bastille and Vincennes, or an -asylum like Charenton; it was the thieves’ prison. On entering, Danry -took the precaution of changing his name a fourth time, calling himself -Jedor. He is, moreover, careful in his <i>Memoirs</i> to give us the reason -of this fresh metamorphosis: “I would not sully my father’s name by -inscribing it on the register of this infamous place.†From this day -there begins for him a truly wretched existence; huddled with criminals, -put on bread and water, his lodging is a cell. But his long martyrdom is -nearing its end: the hour of his apotheosis is at hand!</p> - -<p>Louis XVI. had now been on the throne for several years, and France had -become the most impressionable country in the world. Tears flowed at the -slightest provocation. Was it the sentimental literature, which Rousseau -made fashionable, that produced this moving result, or contrariwise, was -the literature successful because it hit the taste of the day? At all -events, the<a name="page_222" id="page_222"></a> time was ripe for Latude. His recent unlucky experience was -not to dishearten him. On the contrary, it is with a greater energy, a -more poignant emotion, and cries still more heartrending, that he -resumes the story of his interminable sufferings. The victim of cruel -oppressors, of cowardly foes who have their own reasons for smothering -his voice, he will not bend his head under his abominable treatment; he -will remain proud, self-assured, erect before those who load him with -irons!</p> - -<p>On the birth of the Dauphin, Louis XVI. resolved to admit his wretched -prisoners to a share of his joy and to pronounce a great number of -pardons. A special commission, composed of eight counsellors of the -Châtelet and presided over by Cardinal de Rohan, sat at Bicêtre. Danry -appeared before it on May 17, 1782. His new judges, as he testifies, -heard his story with interest. But the decision of the commission was -not favourable to him. He was not so much surprised at this as might be -supposed: “The impure breath of vice,†he wrote to the Marquis de -Conflans, “has never tainted my heart, but there are magistrates who -would let off guilty men with free pardons rather than expose themselves -to the merited reproach of having committed injustice of the most -revolting kind in keeping innocence for thirty-three years in irons.â€</p> - -<p>Giving rein to the marvellous activity of his brain, he composed at -Bicêtre new schemes, memorials, and accounts of his misfortunes. To the -Marquis de Conflans he sends a scheme for a hydraulic press, “the<a name="page_223" id="page_223"></a> -homage of an unfortunate nobleman who has grown old in ironsâ€; he -induces the turnkeys to carry memorials to all who may possibly interest -themselves in him. The first to take compassion on him was a priest, the -Abbé Legal, of the parish of St. Roch, and curate of Bicêtre. He visited -him, consoled him, gave him money, showed him attentions. Cardinal de -Rohan also took much interest in him, and sent him some assistance -through his secretary. We are coming at last to Madame Legros. This -wonderful story is so well known that we shall tell it briefly. A -drunken turnkey chanced to lose one of Latude’s memorials at a corner of -the Rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois: it was picked up and -opened by a woman, a haberdasher in a small way. Her heart burned within -her as she read of these horrible sufferings, depicted in strokes of -fire. She inspired her husband with her own emotion; henceforth it was -to be the aim in life of these worthy people to effect the unhappy man’s -deliverance, and Madame Legros devoted herself to the self-imposed task -with indefatigable ardour, courage, and devotion. “A grand sight,†cries -Michelet, “to see this poor, ill-clad woman going from door to door, -paying court to footmen to win entrance into mansions, to plead her -cause before the great, to implore their support!†In many houses she -was well received. President de Gourgues, President de Lamoignon, -Cardinal de Rohan, aided her with their influence. Sartine himself took -steps on behalf of the unhappy man. Two advocates of the Parlement of -Paris,<a name="page_224" id="page_224"></a> Lacroix and Comeyras, devoted themselves to his cause. Copies -were made of the prisoner’s memorials and distributed in every -drawing-room; they penetrated even into the boudoir of the queen. All -hearts were stirred by the accents of this harrowing voice.</p> - -<p>The Marquis de Villette, who had become celebrated through the -hospitality he showed to Voltaire when dying, conceived a passionate -enthusiasm for Danry. He sent his steward to Bicêtre to offer him a -pension of 600 livres on the sole condition of the prisoner’s leaving -his case entirely in the Marquis’s hands. Latude received this singular -proposal with becoming dignity. “For two years a poor woman has been -devoting herself to my cause. I should be an ungrateful wretch if I did -not leave my fate in her hands.†He knew that this pension would not -escape him, and it was not for 600 livres that he would have consented -to rob his story of the touching and romantic features it was -increasingly assuming.</p> - -<p>Further, the French Academy actually intervenes! D’Alembert is all fire -and flame. From this time a stream of visitors of the highest -distinction flows through the squalid prison. At length the king himself -is led to look into the affair. He has the documentary evidence brought -to him and examines it carefully. With what anxiety everyone awaits his -decision! But Louis XVI., now acquainted with the case, replies that -Latude will be released—<i>never</i>! At this decree, to all appearance -irrevocable, all the<a name="page_225" id="page_225"></a> prisoner’s friends lose heart, except Madame -Legros. The queen and Madame Necker are on her side. In 1783, Breteuil, -the queen’s man, comes into power; on March 24, 1784, the release is -signed! The Vicomte de Latude receives a pension of 400 livres, but is -exiled to his own part of the country. New importunities, new -applications; at last they succeed: Latude is free to live in Paris!</p> - -<p>This is the grandest period in the life of a great man! Latude is soon -in occupation of a modest but decent and well-ordered suite of rooms on -the fourth floor. He lives with his two benefactors, M. and Madame -Legros, petted, spoilt in a thousand ways. The Duchess of Beauvau has -obtained for Madame Legros from Calonne, out of funds intended for the -support of distressed gentlefolk, a pension of 600 livres: the Duchess -of Kingston<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> grants a pension of the same amount. In addition to the -royal pension, Latude receives 500 livres a year from President Dupaty -and 300 from the Duke d’Ayen. Moreover, a public subscription is opened, -and the list is filled with the greatest names in France. An agreeable -competency is assured to the Legros couple and their adopted son. At its -sitting on March 24, the French Academy<a name="page_226" id="page_226"></a> solemnly awarded the Montyon -prize to the valiant little haberdasher. “The Dame Legros came to -receive the medal amid the acclamations of the whole assembly.â€</p> - -<p>The name of Latude is on everyone’s lips; he wins admiration and pity on -all sides. Ladies of the highest society are not above mounting to the -fourth story, accompanied by their daughters, to bring the poor man “aid -in money, with their tears.†The hero has left a complacent description -of the throng: duchesses, marchionesses, grandees of Spain, wearers of -the cross of St. Louis, presidents of the Parlement, all these met at -his house. Sometimes there were six or eight persons in his room. -Everyone listened to his story and lavished on him marks of the most -affectionate compassion, and no one failed before going away “to leave a -mark of his sensibility.†The wives of Marshals de Luxembourg and de -Beauvau, the Duchess de la Rochefoucauld, the Countess de Guimont, were -among the most zealous. “Indeed,†says our hero, “it would be extremely -difficult for me to tell which of these countesses, marchionesses, -duchesses, and princesses had the most humane, the most compassionate -heart.â€</p> - -<p>Thus Latude became one of the lions of Paris: strangers flocked to his -lodging, hostesses ran off with him. At table, when he spoke, all voices -were hushed with an air of deference and respect; in the drawing-room -you would find him seated in a gilt chair near the fireplace where great -logs were blazing, and surrounded by a thick cluster of bright, silky, -rustling robes. The<a name="page_227" id="page_227"></a> Chevalier de Pougens, son of the Prince de Conti, -pressed him to come and stay at his house; Latude graciously consented. -The American ambassador, the illustrious Jefferson, invited him to -dinner.</p> - -<p>Latude has himself described this enchanted life: “Since I left prison, -the greatest lords of France have done me the honour of inviting me to -eat with them, but I have not found a single house—except that of the -Comte d’Angevillier, where you could meet men of wit and learning in -scores, and receive all sorts of civilities on the part of the countess; -and that of M. Guillemot, keeper of the royal palaces, one of the most -charming families to be found in Paris—where you are more at your ease -than with the Marquis de Villette.</p> - -<p>“When a man has felt, as I have felt, the rage of hunger, he always -begins by speaking of his food. The Marquis de Villette possesses a cook -who is a match for the most skilful in his art: in a word, his table is -first-rate. At the tables of the dukes and peers and marshals of France -there is eternal ceremony, and everyone speaks like a book, whereas at -that of the Marquis de Villette, men of wit and learning always form the -majority of the company. All the first-class musicians have a cover set -at his table, and on at least three days of the week he gives a little -concert.â€</p> - -<p>On August 26, 1788, died one of the benefactresses of Latude, the -Duchess of Kingston, who did not fail to mention her protégé in her -will. We see him dutifully assisting at the sale of the lady’s furniture -and effects.<a name="page_228" id="page_228"></a> He even bought a few things, giving a <i>louis d’ or</i> in -payment. Next day, the sale being continued, the auctioneer handed the -coin back to Latude: it was bad. Bad! What! did they take the Vicomte de -Latude for a sharper? The coin bad! Who, he would like to know, had the -insolence to make “an accusation so derogatory to his honour and his -reputation?†Latude raised his voice, and the auctioneer threatened to -bundle him out of the room. The insolent dog! “Bundle out rogues, not -gentlemen!†But the auctioneer sent for the police, who put “the Sieur -de Latude ignominiously outside.†He went off calmly, and the same day -summoned the auctioneer before the Châtelet tribunal, “in order to get a -reparation as authoritative as the defamation had been public.â€</p> - -<p>In the following year (1789) Latude made a journey into England. He had -taken steps to sue Sartine, Lenoir, and the heirs of Madame de Pompadour -in the courts in order to obtain the damages due to him. In England, he -drew up a memorandum for Sartine, in which he informed the late -lieutenant of police of the conditions on which he would withdraw his -actions. “M. de Sartine, you will give me, as compensation for all the -harm and damage you have made me suffer unjustly, the sum of 900,000 -livres; M. Lenoir, 600,000 livres; the heirs of the late Marquise de -Pompadour and Marquis de Menars, 100,000 crowns; in all, 1,800,000 -livres;†that is to say, about £160,000 in English money of to-day.<a name="page_229" id="page_229"></a></p> - -<p class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_258_lg.png"> -<img class="enlargeimage" -src="images/enlarge-image.jpg" -alt="enlarge-image" -title="enlarge-image" -width="18" -height="14" /> -</a><br /><img src="images/i_258_sml.png" width="434" height="550" alt="Latude. - -From the Painting by Vestier (Hôtel Carnavalet)." /> -<br /> -<span class="caption">Latude.<br /> -From the Painting by Vestier (Hôtel Carnavalet).</span> -</p> - -<p>The Revolution broke out. If the epoch of Louis XVI., with its mildness -and fellow-feeling, had been favourable to our hero, the Revolution -seems to have been ordained on purpose for him. The people rose against -the tyranny of kings: the towers of the Bastille were overthrown. -Latude, the victim of kings, the victim of the Bastille and arbitrary -warrants, was about to appear in all his glory.</p> - -<p>He hastened to throw into the gutter his powdered peruque and viscount’s -frock; listen to the revolutionist, fierce, inflexible, indomitable, -<i>uncompromising</i>: “Frenchmen, I have won the right to tell you the -truth, and if you are free, you cannot but love to hear it.</p> - -<p>“For thirty-five years I meditated in dungeons on the audacity and -insolence of despots; with loud cries I was calling down vengeance, when -France in indignation rose up as one man in one sublime movement and -levelled despotism with the dust. The will to be free is what makes a -nation free; and you have proved it. But to preserve freedom a nation -must make itself worthy of it, and that is what remains for you to do!â€</p> - -<p>In the Salon of 1789 there were two portraits of Latude with the famous -ropeladder. Below one of these portraits, by Vestier, a member of the -Royal Academy, these lines were engraved:—</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Instruit par ses malheurs et sa captivité<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A vaincre des tyrans les efforts et la rage,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Il apprit aux Français comment le vrai courage<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Peut conquérir la liberté.<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a><br /></span> -</div></div> - -<p><a name="page_230" id="page_230"></a></p> - -<p>In 1787 the Marquis de Beaupoil-Saint-Aulaire had written, inspired by -Latude himself, the story of the martyr’s captivity. Of this book two -editions appeared in the same year. In 1789 Latude published the -narrative of his escape from the Bastille, as well as his <i>Grand -Mémoire</i> to the Marquise de Pompadour; finally, in 1790 appeared -<i>Despotism Unmasked, or the Memoirs of Henri Masers de Latude</i>, edited -by the advocate Thiéry. The book was dedicated to La Fayette. On the -first page we see a portrait of the hero, his face proud and energetic, -one hand on the ropeladder, the other extended towards the Bastille -which workmen are in the act of demolishing. “I swear,†says the author -at the commencement, “that I will not relate one fact which is not -true.†The work is a tissue of calumnies and lies; and what makes a most -painful impression on the reader is to see this man disowning his -mother, forgetting the privations she endured out of love for her son, -and ascribing the credit of what little the poor thing could do for her -child to a Marquis de la Tude, knight of St. Louis, and -lieutenant-colonel of the Orleans Dragoons!</p> - -<p>But the book vibrates with an incomparable accent of sincerity and of -that profound emotion which Latude knew so well how to infuse into all -those with whom he had to do. In 1793, twenty editions had been -exhausted, the work had been translated into several languages; the -journals had no praise strong enough for the boldness and genius of the -author; the <i>Mercure de France</i><a name="page_231" id="page_231"></a> proclaimed that henceforth it was a -parent’s duty to teach his children to read in this sublime work; a copy -was sent to all the departments, accompanied by a model of the Bastille -by the architect Palloy. With good reason could Latude exclaim in the -National Assembly: “I have not a little contributed to the Revolution -and to its consolidation.â€</p> - -<p>Latude was not the man to neglect opportunities so favourable. To begin -with, he sought to get his pension augmented, and presented to the -Constituent Assembly a petition backed by representative Bouche. But -Camus, “rugged Camus,†president of the committee appointed to -investigate the matter, decided on rejection; and at the sitting of -March 13, 1791, deputy Voidel delivered a very spirited speech; his view -was that the nation had unhappy folk to succour more worthy of their -concern than a man whose life had begun with roguery and villainy. The -Assembly sided with him; not only was Latude’s pension not increased, -but on consideration, the pension granted by Louis XVI. was altogether -withdrawn.</p> - -<p>Horror and infamy! “What madness has seized on the minds of the -representatives of the most generous nation in the world!... To slay a -hapless wretch the mere sight of whom awakens pity and warms into life -the most sluggish sensibility ... for death is not so terrible as the -loss of honour!†The valiant Latude will not abide the stroke of such an -insult. Ere long he has brought Voidel to retract; in the heart of the -Assembly<a name="page_232" id="page_232"></a> he gains an influential supporter in the Marshal de Broglie. -The Constituent Assembly is replaced by the Legislative, and Latude -returns to the charge. He is admitted to the bar of the House on January -26, 1792; the matter is re-committed and gone into a second time on -February 25. We should like to be able to quote at length the speech -which Latude himself composed for his advocate; here is a portion of the -peroration:—</p> - -<p>“That a man, without any outside assistance, should have been able to -escape three times, once from the Bastille and twice from Vincennes, -yes, gentlemen, I venture to say he could not have succeeded except by a -miracle, or else that Latude has more than extraordinary genius. Cast -your eyes on this ladder of rope and wood, and on all the other -instruments which Latude constructed with a mere knife, which you see -here in the centre of this chamber. I resolved to bring before your own -eyes this interesting object, which will for ever win admiration from -men of intelligence. Not a single stranger comes to Paris without going -to see this masterpiece of intelligence and genius, as well as his -generous deliverer, Madame Legros. We have resolved to give you, -gentlemen, the pleasure of seeing this celebrated woman, who -unremittingly for forty months set despotism at defiance, and vanquished -it by dint of virtue. Behold her there at the bar with M. de Latude, -behold that incomparable woman, for ever to be the glory and the -ornament of her sex!â€</p> - -<p>It is not surprising that the Legislative Assembly was<a name="page_233" id="page_233"></a> deeply moved by -this eloquent harangue and this exhibition of the lady, as touching as -unexpected. It unanimously voted Latude a pension of 2000 livres, -without prejudice to the pension of 400 livres previously awarded. -Henceforth Latude will be able to say: “The whole nation adopted me!â€</p> - -<p>However, the little mishap in the Constituent Assembly was to be the -only check that Latude suffered in the course of his glorious martyr’s -career. Presented to the Society of “Friends of the Constitution,†he -was elected a member by acclamation, and the Society sent a deputation -of twelve members to carry the civic crown to Madame Legros. The leader -of the deputation said, in a voice broken by emotion, “This day is the -grandest day of my life.†A deputation from the principal theatres of -Paris offered Latude free admission to all performances, “so that he -might go often and forget the days of his mourning.†He was surrounded -by the highest marks of consideration; pleaders begged him to support -their cases before the tribunals with the moral authority bestowed on -him by his virtue. He took advantage of this to bring definitively -before the courts his claims against the heirs of the Marquise de -Pompadour. Citizen Mony argued the case for the first time before the -court of the sixth arrondissement on July 16, 1793; on September 11 the -case came again before the magistrates: Citizens Chaumette, Laurent, and -Legrand had been designated by the Commune of Paris as counsel for the -defence, and the whole Commune was present at the hearing.<a name="page_234" id="page_234"></a> Latude -obtained 60,000 livres, 10,000 of which were paid him in cash.</p> - -<p>And now his life became more tranquil. Madame Legros continued to lavish -her care on him. The 50,000 livres remaining due to him from the heirs -of the Marquise were paid in good farm lands situated in La Beauce, the -profits of which he regularly drew.</p> - -<p>Let us hasten to add that France did not find in Latude an ungrateful -child. The critical situation in which the nation was then struggling -pained him deeply. He sought the means of providing a remedy, and in -1799 brought out a “Scheme for the valuation of the eighty departments -of France to save the Republic in less than three months,†and a “Memoir -on the means of re-establishing the public credit and order in the -finances of France.â€</p> - -<p>When the estates of Madame de Pompadour were sequestrated, the farms -Latude had received were taken from him; but he induced the Directory to -restore them. He was less fortunate in his requisition for a licence for -a theatre and a gaming-house. But he found consolation. The subsidies he -went on extorting from right and left, the proceeds of his farms, the -sale of his books, and the money brought in by the exhibition of his -ropeladder, which was exhibited by a showman in the different towns of -France and England, provided him with a very comfortable income.</p> - -<p>The Revolution became a thing of the past. Latude hailed the dawning -glory of Bonaparte, and when<a name="page_235" id="page_235"></a> Bonaparte became Napoleon, Latude made his -bow to the emperor. We have a very curious letter in which he marks out -for Napoleon I. the line of conduct he should pursue to secure his own -welfare and the good of France. It begins as follows:—</p> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Sire</span>,—I have been five times buried alive, and am well acquainted with -misfortune. To have a heart more sympathetic than the common run of men -it is necessary to have suffered great ills.... At the time of the -Terror I had the delightful satisfaction of saving the lives of -twenty-two poor wretches.... To petition Fouquet d’Etinville on behalf -of the royalists was to persuade him that I was one myself. When I -braved death in order to save the lives of twenty-two citizens, judge, -great Emperor, if my heart can do ought but take great interest in you, -the saviour of my beloved country.â€</p> - -<p>We are given some details of the last years of Latude’s life in the -<i>Memoirs</i> of his friend, the Chevalier de Pougens, and in the <i>Memoirs</i> -of the Duchess d’Abrantès. The Chevalier tells us that at the age of -seventy-five years he still enjoyed good health; he was “active and gay, -and appeared to enjoy to the full the delights of existence. Every day -he took long walks in Paris without experiencing the least fatigue. -People were amazed to find <i>no trace</i> of the cruel sufferings he had -undergone in the cells during a captivity of thirty-five years.†His -popularity suffered no diminution under the Empire. Junot awarded him a -pension from funds at his disposal.<a name="page_236" id="page_236"></a> One day the general presented him -to his wife, along with Madame Legros, whose side Latude never left. -“When he arrived,†says the Duchess d’Abrantès, “I went to greet him -with a respect and an emotion that must have been truly edifying. I took -him by the hand, conducted him to a chair, and put a cushion under his -feet; in fact, he might have been my grandfather, whom I could not have -treated better. At table I placed him on my right. But,†adds the -Duchess, “my enchantment was of short duration. He talked of nothing but -his own adventures with appalling loquacity.â€</p> - -<p>At the age of eighty, a few months before his death, Latude wrote in the -most familiar terms to his protector, the Chevalier de Pougens, a member -of the Institute: “Now I assure you in the clearest possible words, that -if within ten days of the present time, the 11th Messidor, you have not -turned up in Paris (the Chevalier was staying at his country estate), I -shall start the next day and come to you with the hunger of a giant and -the thirst of a cabby, and when I have emptied your cellar and eaten you -out of house and home you will see me play the second act of the comedy -of <i>Jocrisse</i><a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a>; you will see me run off with your plates, and dishes, -and tankards,<a name="page_237" id="page_237"></a> and bottles—empty, you may be sure—and fling all your -furniture out of the window!â€</p> - -<p>On July 20, 1804, Latude compiled one more circular, addressed to the -sovereigns of Europe: the kings of Prussia, Sweden, and Denmark, the -Archduke Charles, brother of the Emperor; and to the President of the -United States. To each of them he sent a copy of his <i>Memoirs</i>, -accompanied by the famous scheme for replacing with muskets the pikes -with which the sergeants were armed. He explained to each of the -sovereigns that as the country he ruled was profiting by this child of -his genius, it was only just that he should reap some benefit.</p> - -<p>Jean Henri, surnamed Danry, alias Danger, alias Jedor, alias Masers -d’Aubrespy, alias De Masers de Latude, died of pneumonia at Paris, on -January 1, 1805, aged eighty years.<a name="page_238" id="page_238"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br /><br /> -<small>THE FOURTEENTH OF JULY.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind">I<small>N</small> the remarkable book entitled <i>Paris during the Revolution</i>, M. -Adolphe Schmidt writes: “All the purely revolutionary events, the events -of the Fourteenth of July, of October 5 and 6, 1789, were the work of an -obscure minority of reckless and violent revolutionists. If they -succeeded, it was only because the great majority of the citizens -avoided the scene of operations or were mere passive spectators there, -attracted by curiosity, and giving in appearance an enhanced importance -to the movement.†Further on he says: “After the fall of the -Gironde,<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> Dutard expressed himself in these terms: ‘If, out of 50,000 -Moderates, you succeed in collecting a compact body of no more than -3000, I shall be much astonished; and if out of these 3000 there are to -be found only 500 who are agreed, and courageous enough to express their -opinion, I shall be still more astonished.<a name="page_239" id="page_239"></a> And these, in truth, must -expect to be Septembrised.’<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> ‘Twelve maniacs, with their blood well -up, at the head of the Sansculotte section,’ writes Dutard in another -report, ‘would put to flight the other forty-seven sections of Paris.’ -Mercier, after the fall of the Gironde, thus expresses himself in regard -to the reign of Terror: ‘Sixty brigands deluged France with blood: -500,000 men within our walls were witnesses of their atrocities, and -were not brave enough to oppose them.’â€</p> - -<p>To enable the reader to understand the extraordinary and improbable -event which is the subject of this chapter, it would be necessary to -begin by explaining the circumstances and describing the material and -moral state of things in which it happened; and that, unhappily, would -occupy much space. Let us take the two principal facts, see what they -led to, and then come to the events of the Fourteenth of July.</p> - -<p>For its task of governing France, the royal power had in its hands no -administrative instrument, or, at any rate, administrative instruments -of a very rudimentary character. It ruled through tradition and -sentiment. The royal power had been created by the affection and -devotion of the nation, and in this devotion and affection lay its whole -strength.</p> - -<p>What, actually and practically, were the means of government in the -hands of the king? “Get rid of <i>lettres de cachet</i>,†observed -Malesherbes, “and you<a name="page_240" id="page_240"></a> deprive the king of all his authority, for the -<i>lettre de cachet</i> is the only means he possesses of enforcing his will -in the kingdom.†Now, for several years past, the royal power had -practically renounced <i>lettres de cachet</i>. On the other hand, during the -course of the eighteenth century, the sentiments of affection and -devotion of which we have spoken had become enfeebled, or at least had -changed their character. So it was that on the eve of the Revolution the -royal power, which stood in France for the entire administration, had, -if the expression may be allowed, melted into thin air.</p> - -<p>Below the royal power, the lords in the country, the upper ten in the -towns, constituted the second degree in the government. The same remarks -apply here also. And unhappily it is certain that, over the greater part -of France, the territorial lords had forgotten the duties which their -privileges and their station imposed. The old attachment of the -labouring classes to them had almost everywhere disappeared, and in many -particulars had given place to feelings of hostility.</p> - -<p>Thus on the eve of ’89 the whole fabric of the state had no longer any -real existence: at the first shock it was bound to crumble into dust. -And as, behind the fragile outer wall, there was no solid structure—no -administrative machine, with its numerous, diverse, and nicely-balanced -parts, like that which in our time acts as a buffer against the shocks -of political crises,—the first blow aimed at the royal power was bound -to plunge the whole country into a state of disorganization<a name="page_241" id="page_241"></a> and -disorder from which the tyranny of the Terror, brutal, blood-stained, -overwhelming as it was, alone could rescue it.</p> - -<p>Such is the first of the two facts we desire to make clear. We come now -to the second. Ever since the year 1780, France had been almost -continually in a state of famine. The rapidity and the abundance of the -international exchanges which in our days supply us constantly from the -remotest corners of the world with the necessaries of life, prevent our -knowing anything of those terrible crises which in former days swept -over the nations. “The dearth,†writes Taine, “permanent, prolonged, -having already lasted ten years, and aggravated by the very outbreaks -which it provoked, went on adding fuel to all the passions of men till -they reached a blaze of madness.†“The nearer we come to the Fourteenth -of July,†says an eye witness, “the greater the famine becomes.†“In -consequence of the bad harvest,†writes Schmidt, “the price of bread had -been steadily rising from the opening of the year 1789. This state of -things was utilized by the agitators who aimed at driving the people -into excesses: these excesses in turn paralyzed trade. Business ceased, -and numbers of workers found themselves without bread.â€</p> - -<p>A few words should properly be said in regard to brigandage under the -<i>ancien régime</i>. The progress of manners and especially the development -of executive government have caused it utterly to disappear. The -reader’s imagination will supply all we have not space to<a name="page_242" id="page_242"></a> say. He will -recollect the lengths of daring to which a man like Cartouche<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> could -go, and recall what the forest of Bondy<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> was at the gates of Paris.</p> - -<p>So grew up towards the end of the <i>ancien régime</i> what Taine has so -happily called a spontaneous anarchy. In the four months preceding the -capture of the Bastille, one can count more than three hundred riots in -France. At Nantes, on January 9, 1789, the town hall was invaded, and -the bakers’ shops pillaged. All this took place to the cries of “Vive le -roi!†At Bray-sur-Seine, on May 1, peasants armed with knives and clubs -forced the farmers to lower the price of corn. At Rouen, on May 28, the -corn in the market place was plundered. In Picardy, a discharged -carabineer put himself at the head of an armed band which attacked the -villages and carried off the corn. On all sides houses were looted from -roof to cellar. At Aupt, M. de Montferrat, defending himself, was “cut -into little pieces.†At La Seyne, the mob brought a coffin in front of -the house of one of the principal burgesses; he was told to prepare for -death, and they would do him the honour to bury him. He escaped, and his -house was sacked. We cull these facts haphazard from among hundreds of -others.</p> - -<p>The immediate neighbourhood of Paris was plunged<a name="page_243" id="page_243"></a> in terror. The batches -of letters, still unpublished, preserved in the National Archives throw -the most vivid light on this point. Bands of armed vagabonds scoured the -country districts, pillaging the villages and plundering the crops. -These were the “Brigands,†a term which constantly recurs in the -documents, and more and more frequently as we approach the 14th of July. -These armed bands numbered three, four, five hundred men. At Cosne, at -Orleans, at Rambouillet, it was the same story of raids on the corn. In -different localities of the environs of Paris, the people organized -themselves on a military basis. Armed burghers patrolled the streets -against the “brigands.†From all sides the people rained on the king -demands for troops to protect them. Towns like Versailles, in dread of -an invasion by these ruffians, implored the king for protection: the -letters of the municipal council preserved in the National Archives are -in the highest degree instructive.</p> - -<p>At this moment there had collected in the outskirts of Paris those -troops whose presence was in the sequel so skilfully turned to account -by the orators of the Palais-Royal. True, the presence of the troops -made them uneasy. So far were the soldiers from having designs against -the Parisians that in the secret correspondence of Villedeuil we find -the court constantly urging that they should be reserved for the -safeguarding of the adjoining districts, which were every day exposed to -attack, and for the safe conduct of the convoys of corn coming up to -Versailles and Paris. Bands mustered<a name="page_244" id="page_244"></a> around the capital. In the first -weeks of May, near Villejuif, a troop of from five to six hundred -ruffians met intending to storm Bicêtre and march on Saint-Cloud. They -came from distances of thirty, forty, and fifty leagues, and the whole -mass surged around Paris and was swallowed up there as into a sewer. -During the last days of April the shopmen saw streaming through the -barriers “a terrific number of men, ill clad and of sinister aspect.†By -the first days of May, it was noticed that the appearance of the mob had -altogether changed. There was now mingled with it “a number of strangers -from all the country parts, most of them in rags, and armed with huge -clubs, the mere aspect of them showing what was to be feared.†In the -words of a contemporary, “one met such physiognomies as one never -remembered having seen in the light of day.†To provide occupation for a -part of these ill-favoured unemployed, whose presence everybody felt to -be disquieting, workshops were constructed at Montmartre, where from -seventeen to eighteen thousand men were employed on improvised tasks at -twenty sous a day.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile the electors chosen to nominate deputies to the National -Assembly had been collecting. On April 22, 1789, Thiroux de Crosne, the -lieutenant of police, speaking of the tranquillity with which the -elections were being carried on, added: “But I constantly have my eye on -the bakers.â€</p> - -<p>On April 23, de Crosne referred to the irritation which was showing -itself among certain groups of workmen in<a name="page_245" id="page_245"></a> the Suburb Saint-Antoine -against two manufacturers, Dominique Henriot, the saltpetre-maker, and -Réveillon, the manufacturer of wall-papers. Henriot was known, not only -for his intelligence, but for his kindliness; in years of distress he -had sacrificed a portion of his fortune for the support of the workmen; -as to Réveillon, he was at this date one of the most remarkable -representatives of Parisian industry. A simple workman to begin with, he -was in 1789 paying 200,000 livres a year in salaries to 300 workers; -shortly before, he had carried off the prize founded by Necker for the -encouragement of useful arts. Henriot and Réveillon were said to have -made offensive remarks against the workmen in the course of the recent -electoral assemblies. They both denied, however, having uttered the -remarks attributed to them, and there is every reason to believe that -their denials were genuine.</p> - -<p>During the night of April 27 and the next day, howling mobs attacked the -establishments of Henriot and Réveillon, which were thoroughly -plundered. Commissary Gueullette, in his report of May 3, notes that a -wild and systematic devastation was perpetrated. Only the walls were -left standing. What was not stolen was smashed into atoms. The -“brigands‗the expression used by the Commissary—threw a part of the -plant out of the windows into the street, where the mob made bonfires of -it. Part of the crowd were drunk; nevertheless they flung themselves -into the cellars, and the casks were stove in. When casks and bottles -were<a name="page_246" id="page_246"></a> empty, the rioters attacked the flasks containing colouring -matter; this they absorbed in vast quantities, and reeled about with -fearful contortions, poisoned. When these cellars were entered next day, -they presented a horrible spectacle, for the wretches had come to -quarrelling and cutting each other’s throats. “The people got on to the -roofs,†writes Thiroux de Crosne, “whence they rained down upon the -troops a perfect hailstorm of tiles, stones, &c.; they even set rolling -down fragments of chimneys and bits of timber; and although they were -fired upon several times and some persons were killed, it was quite -impossible to master them.â€</p> - -<p>The riot was not quelled by the troops until 10 o’clock that night; more -than a hundred persons were left dead in the street. M. Alexandre Tuetey -has devoted some remarkable pages to Réveillon’s affair; he has -carefully studied the interrogatories of rioters who were arrested. The -majority, he says, had been drunk all day. Réveillon, as is well known, -only found safety by taking refuge in the Bastille. He was the only -prisoner whom the Bastille received throughout the year 1789.</p> - -<p>In the night following these bacchanalian orgies, the agents of the -Marquis du Châtelet, colonel of the Gardes Françaises, having crept -along one of the moats, “saw a crowd of brigands†collected on the -further side of the Trône gate. Their leader was mounted on a table, -haranguing them.</p> - -<p>We come upon them again in the report of Commissary Vauglenne, quoted by -M. Alexandre Tuetey. “On<a name="page_247" id="page_247"></a> April 29, Vauglenne took the depositions of -bakers, confectioners, and pork butchers of the Marais, who had been -robbed by veritable bands of highwaymen, who proceed by burglary and -violence; they may possibly be starving men, but they look and act -uncommonly like gentlemen of the road.â€</p> - -<p>Meanwhile, in the garden of the Palais-Royal, Camille Desmoulins was -haranguing groups of the unemployed and ravenous outcasts, who were -pressing round him with wide glaring eyes. Desmoulins vociferates: “The -beast is in the trap; now to finish him!... Never a richer prey has ever -been offered to conquerors! Forty thousand palaces, mansions, châteaux, -two-fifths of the wealth of France will be the prize of valour. Those -who have set up as our masters will be mastered in their turn, the -nation will be purged!†It is easy to understand that in Paris the alarm -had become as acute as in the country; everyone was in terror of the -“brigands.†On June 25 it was decided to form a citizen militia for the -protection of property. “The notoriety of these disorders,†we read in -the minutes of the electors, “and the excesses committed by several mobs -have decided the general assembly to re-establish without delay the -militia of Paris.†But a certain time was necessary for the organization -of this civil guard. On June 30, the doors of the Abbaye, where some -Gardes Françaises had been locked up, some for desertion, others for -theft, were broken in by blows from hatchets and hammers. The prisoners -were led in triumph to the<a name="page_248" id="page_248"></a> Palais-Royal, where they were fêted in the -garden. The extent of the disorders was already so great that the -government, powerless to repress them, had perforce to grant a general -pardon. From that day there was no longer any need to capture the -Bastille, the <i>ancien régime</i> was lost.</p> - -<p>The disturbances at the Palais-Royal, the rendezvous of idlers, light -women, and hot-headed fools, were becoming ever more violent. They began -to talk of setting fire to the place. If some honest citizen plucked up -courage to protest he was publicly whipped, thrown into the ponds, and -rolled in the mud.</p> - -<p>On July 11, Necker was dismissed from the ministry and replaced by -Breteuil. At this time Necker was very popular; Breteuil was not, though -he ought to have been, particularly in the eyes of supporters of a -revolutionary movement. Of all the ministers of the <i>ancien régime</i>, and -of all the men of his time, Breteuil was the one who had done most for -the suppression of <i>lettres de cachet</i> and of state prisons. It was he -who had closed Vincennes and the Châtimoine tower of Caen, who had got -the demolition of the Bastille decided on, who had set Latude at -liberty, and how many other prisoners! who had drawn up and made -respected, even in the remotest parts of the kingdom, those admirable -circulars which will immortalize his name, by which he ordered the -immediate liberation of all prisoners whose detention was not absolutely -justified, and laid down such rigorous formalities for the future, that -the arbitrary character of <i>lettres de cachet</i> may<a name="page_249" id="page_249"></a> be said to have been -destroyed by them. Nevertheless the orators of the Palais-Royal -succeeded in persuading many people that the advent of Breteuil to the -ministry presaged a “St. Bartholomew of patriots.†The agitation became -so vehement, the calumnies against the court and the government were -repeated with so much violence, that the court, in order to avoid the -slightest risk of the outbreak of a “St. Bartholomew,†ordered all the -troops to be withdrawn and Paris to be left to itself.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile, Camille Desmoulins was continuing to thunder forth: “I have -just sounded the people. My rage against the despots was turned to -despair. I did not see the crowds, although keenly moved and dismayed, -strongly enough disposed to insurrection.... I was rather lifted on to -the table than mounted there myself. Scarcely was I there than I saw -myself surrounded by an immense throng. Here is my short address, which -I shall never forget: ‘Citizens! there is not a moment to lose. I come -from Versailles; M. Necker is dismissed; this dismissal is the alarm -bell of a St. Bartholomew of patriots; this evening all the Swiss and -German battalions will march from the Champ de Mars to cut our throats. -Only one resource remains to us: we must fly to arms!’â€</p> - -<p>The Parisians were in an abject state of fright, but it was not the -Swiss and German battalions which terrified them. The author of the -<i>Memorable Fortnight</i>, devoted heart and soul as he was to the -revolutionary movement,<a name="page_250" id="page_250"></a> acknowledges that during the days from the 12th -to the 14th of July, all respectable people shut themselves up in their -houses. And while the troops and decent people were retiring, the dregs -were coming to the surface. During the night of July 12, the majority of -the toll gates, where the town dues were collected, were broken open, -plundered, and set on fire. “Brigands,†armed with pikes and clubs, -scoured the streets, threatening the houses in which the trembling and -agitated citizens had shut themselves. Next day, July 13, the shops of -the bakers and wine merchants were rifled. “Girls snatched the earrings -from women who went by; if the ring resisted, the ear was torn in two.†-“The house of the lieutenant of police was ransacked, and Thiroux de -Crosne had the utmost difficulty in escaping from the bands armed with -clubs and torches. Another troop, with murderous cries, arrived at the -Force, where prisoners for debt were confined: the prisoners were set -free. The Garde-Meuble was ransacked. One gang broke in with their axes -the door of the Lazarists, smashed the library, the cupboards, the -pictures, the windows, the physical laboratory, dived into the cellar, -stove in the wine-casks and got gloriously drunk. Twenty-four hours -afterwards some thirty dead and dying were found there, men and women, -one of the latter on the point of childbirth. In front of the house the -street was full of débris and of brigands, who held in their hands, some -eatables, others a pitcher, forcing wayfarers to drink and filling for -all and sundry. Wine flowed in<a name="page_251" id="page_251"></a> torrents.†Some had possessed themselves -of ecclesiastical robes, which they put on, and in this attire yelled -and gesticulated down the street. In the minute books of the electors we -read at this date: “On information given to the committee that the -brigands who had been dispersed showed some disposition to reassemble -for the purpose of attacking and pillaging the Royal Treasury and the -Bank, the committee ordered these two establishments to be guarded.†On -the same day, they luckily succeeded in disarming more than a hundred -and fifty of these roisterers, who, drunk with wine and brandy, had -fallen asleep inside the Hôtel de Ville. Meanwhile the outskirts of -Paris were no safer than the city itself, and from the top of the towers -of the Bastille they could see the conflagrations which were started in -various quarters.</p> - -<p>The organization of the citizen militia against these disorders was -becoming urgent. When evening came, the majority of the districts set -actively to work. Twelve hundred good citizens mustered in the Petit -Saint-Antoine district. It was a motley crew: tradesmen and artisans, -magistrates and doctors, writers and scholars, cheek by jowl with -navvies and carpenters. The future minister of Louis XVI., Champion de -Villeneuve, filled the post of secretary. The twelve hundred citizens, -as we read in the minutes, “compelled to unite by the too well founded -alarm inspired in all the citizens by the danger which seems to threaten -them each individually, and by the imminent necessity of taking prompt -measures<a name="page_252" id="page_252"></a> to avert its effects, considering that a number of -individuals, terrified perhaps by the rumours which doubtless -evil-disposed persons have disseminated, are traversing, armed and in -disorder, all the streets of the capital, and that the ordinary town -guard either mingles with them or remains a passive spectator of the -disorder it cannot arrest; considering also that the prison of the Force -has been burst into and opened for the prisoners, and that it is -threatened to force open in the same way the prisons which confine -vagabonds, vagrants, and convicts ... in consequence, the assembled -citizens decide to organize themselves into a citizen militia. Every man -will carry while on duty whatever arms he can procure, save and except -pistols, which are forbidden as dangerous weapons.... There will always -be two patrols on duty at a time, and two others will remain at the -place fixed for headquarters.†Most of the other districts imitated the -proceedings of the Petit-Saint-Antoine. They sent delegates to the Hôtel -des Invalides to ask for arms. The delegates were received by Besenval, -who would have been glad to grant them what they requested; but he must -have proper instructions. He writes in his <i>Memoirs</i> that the delegates -were in a great state of fright, saying that the “brigands†were -threatening to burn and pillage their houses. The author of the -<i>Memorable Fortnight</i> dwells on the point that the militia of Paris was -formed in self-defence against the excesses of the brigands. Speaking of -the minute book of the Petit-Saint-Antoine district, an excellent -authority, M. Charavay,<a name="page_253" id="page_253"></a> writes: “The burgesses of Paris, less alarmed -at the plans of the court than at the men to whom the name of <i>brigands</i> -had already been given, organized themselves into a militia to resist -them: that was their only aim. The movement which on the next day swept -away the Bastille might perhaps have been repressed by the National -Guard if its organization had had greater stability.†The fact could not -have been better put.</p> - -<p>The Hôtel de Ville was attacked, and one of the electors, Legrand, only -cleared it of the hordes who were filling it with their infernal uproar -by ordering six barrels of powder to be brought up, and threatening to -blow the place up if they did not retire.</p> - -<p>During the night of July 13, the shops of the bakers and wine-sellers -were pillaged. The excellent Abbé Morellet, one of the Encyclopædists, -who, as we have seen, was locked up in the Bastille under Louis XV., -writes: “I spent a great part of the night of the 13th at my windows, -watching the scum of the population armed with muskets, pikes, and -skewers, as they forced open the doors of the houses and got themselves -food and drink, money and arms.†Mathieu Dumas also describes in his -<i>Souvenirs</i> these ragged vagabonds, several almost naked, and with -horrible faces. During these two days and nights, writes Bailly, Paris -ran great risk of pillage, and was only saved by the National Guard.</p> - -<p>The proceedings of these bandits and the work of the National Guard are -described in a curious letter from an English doctor, named Rigby, to -his wife. “It was<a name="page_254" id="page_254"></a> necessary not only to give arms to those one could -rely on, but to disarm those of whom little protection could be expected -and who might become a cause of disorder and harm. This required a good -deal of skill. Early in the afternoon we began to catch a glimpse here -and there among the swarms of people, where we saw signs of an -irritation which might soon develop into excesses, of a man of decent -appearance, carrying a musket with a soldierly air. These slowly but -surely increased in number; their intention was evidently to pacify and -at the same time to disarm the irregular bands. They had for the most -part accomplished their task before nightfall. Then the citizens who had -been officially armed occupied the streets almost exclusively: they were -divided into several sections, some mounting guard at certain points, -others patrolling the streets, all under the leadership of captains. -When night came, only very few of those who had armed themselves the -evening before could be seen. Some, however, had refused to give up -their arms, and during the night it was seen how well founded had been -the fears they had inspired, for they started to pillage. But it was too -late to do so with impunity. The looters were discovered and seized, and -we learnt next morning that several of these wretches, taken redhanded, -had been executed.†Indeed, the repressive measures of the citizens were -not wanting in energy. Here and there brigands were strung up to the -lamp-posts, and then despatched, as they hung there, with musket shots.<a name="page_255" id="page_255"></a></p> - -<p>The author of the <i>Authentic History</i>, who left the best of the -contemporary accounts of the taking of the Bastille which we possess, -says rightly enough: “The riot began on the evening of July 12.†There -was thus a combination of disorders and “brigandage†in which the -capture of the Bastille, though it stands out more prominently than the -other events, was only a part, and cannot be considered by itself.</p> - -<p>The morning of the Fourteenth dawned bright and sunny. A great part of -the population had remained up all night, and daylight found them still -harassed with anxiety and alarm. To have arms was the desire of all; the -citizens and supporters of order, so as to protect themselves; the -brigands, a part of whom had been disarmed, in order to procure or -recover the means of assault and pillage. There was a rush to the -Invalides, where the magazines of effective arms were. This was the -first violent action of the day. The mob carried off 28,000 muskets and -twenty-four cannon. And as it was known that other munitions of war were -deposited in the Bastille, the cry of “To the Invalides!†was succeeded -by the cry “To the Bastille!â€</p> - -<p>We must carefully distinguish between the two elements of which the -throng flocking to the Bastille was composed. On the one hand, a horde -of nameless vagabonds, those whom the contemporary documents invariably -style the “brigandsâ€; and, on the other hand, the respectable -citizens—these certainly formed the minority—who desired arms for the -equipment of<a name="page_256" id="page_256"></a> the civil guard. The sole motive impelling this band to -the Bastille was the wish to procure arms. On this point all documents -of any value and all the historians who have studied the matter closely -are in agreement. There was no question of liberty or of tyranny, of -setting free the prisoners or of protesting against the royal authority. -The capture of the Bastille was effected amid cries of “Vive le roi!†-just as, for several months past in the provinces, the granaries had -been plundered.</p> - -<p>About 8 o’clock in the morning, the electors at the Hôtel de Ville -received some inhabitants of the Suburb Saint-Antoine who came to -complain that the district was threatened by the cannon trained on it -from the towers of the Bastille. These cannon were used for firing -salutes on occasions of public rejoicing, and were so placed that they -could do no harm whatever to the adjacent districts. But the electors -sent some of their number to the Bastille, where the governor, de -Launey, received the deputation with the greatest affability, kept them -to lunch, and at their request withdrew the cannon from the embrasures. -To this deputation there succeeded another, which, however, was quite -unofficial, consisting of three persons, with the advocate Thuriot de la -Rosière at the head. They were admitted as their predecessors had been. -Thuriot was the eloquent spokesman, “in the name of the nation and the -fatherland.†He delivered an ultimatum to the governor and harangued the -garrison, consisting of 95 Invalides and 30 Swiss soldiers. Some<a name="page_257" id="page_257"></a> -thousand men were thronging round the Bastille, vociferating wildly. The -garrison swore not to fire unless they were attacked. De Launey said -that without orders he could do no more than withdraw the cannon from -the embrasures, but he went so far as to block up these embrasures with -planks. Then Thuriot took his leave and returned to the Hôtel de Ville, -the crowd meanwhile becoming more and more threatening.</p> - -<p class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_288_lg.png"> -<img class="enlargeimage" -src="images/enlarge-image.jpg" -alt="enlarge-image" -title="enlarge-image" -width="18" -height="14" /> -</a><br /><img src="images/i_288_sml.png" width="550" height="344" alt="The Capture of the Bastille. - -From an anonymous contemporary painting now in the Hôtel Carnavalet." /> -<br /> -<span class="caption">The Capture of the Bastille.<br /> -From an anonymous contemporary painting now in the Hôtel Carnavalet.</span> -</p> - -<p>“The entrance to the first courtyard, that of the barracks, was open,†-says M. Fernand Bournon in his admirable account of the events of this -day; “but de Launey had ordered the garrison to retire within the -enclosure, and to raise the outer drawbridge by which the court of the -governor was reached, and which in the ordinary way used to be lowered -during the day. Two daring fellows dashed forward and scaled the roof of -the guard-house, one of them a soldier named Louis Tournay: the name of -the other is unknown. They shattered the chains of the drawbridge with -their axes, and it fell.â€</p> - -<p>It has been said in a recent work, in which defects of judgment and -criticism are scarcely masked by a cumbrous parade of erudition, that -Tournay and his companion performed their feat under the fire of the -garrison. At this moment the garrison did not fire a single shot, -contenting themselves with urging the besiegers to retire. “While M. de -Launey and his officers contented themselves with threats, these two -vigorous champions succeeded in breaking in the doors and in lowering -the outer drawbridge; then the horde<a name="page_258" id="page_258"></a> of brigands advanced in a body and -dashed towards the second bridge, which they wished to capture, firing -at the troops as they ran. It was then for the first time that M. de -Launey, perceiving his error in allowing the operations at the first -bridge to be managed so quietly, ordered the soldiers to fire, which -caused a disorderly stampede on the part of the rabble, which was more -brutal than brave; and it is at this point that the calumnies against -the governor begin. Transposing the order of events, it has been -asserted that he had sent out a message of peace, that the people had -advanced in reliance on his word, and that many citizens were -massacred.†This alleged treachery of de Launey, immediately hawked -about Paris, was one of the events of the day. It is contradicted not -only by all the accounts of the besieged, but by the besiegers -themselves, and is now rejected by all historians.</p> - -<p>A wine-seller named Cholat, aided by one Baron, nicknamed La Giroflée, -had brought into position a piece of ordnance in the long walk of the -arsenal. They fired, but the gun’s recoil somewhat seriously wounded the -two artillerymen, and they were its only victims. As these means were -insufficient to overturn the Bastille, the besiegers set about devising -others. A pretty young girl named Mdlle. de Monsigny, daughter of the -captain of the company of Invalides at the Bastille, had been -encountered in the barrack yard. Some madmen imagined that she was -Mdlle. de Launey. They dragged her to the edge of the moat, and gave the -garrison to<a name="page_259" id="page_259"></a> understand by their gestures that they were going to burn -her alive if the place was not surrendered. They had thrown the unhappy -child, who had fainted, upon a mattress, to which they had already set -light. M. de Monsigny saw the hideous spectacle from a window of the -towers, and, desperately rushing down to save his child, he was killed -by two shots. These were tricks in the siege of strongholds of which -Duguesclin would never have dreamed. A soldier named Aubin Bonnemère -courageously interposed and succeeded in saving the girl.</p> - -<p>A detachment of Gardes Françaises, coming up with two pieces of -artillery which the Hôtel de Ville had allowed to be removed, gave a -more serious aspect to the siege. But the name of Gardes Françaises must -not give rise to misapprehension: the soldiers of the regular army under -the <i>ancien régime</i> must not be compared with those of the present day. -The regiment of Gardes Françaises in particular had fallen into a -profound state of disorganization and degradation. The privates were -permitted to follow a trade in the city, by this means augmenting their -pay. It is certain that in the majority of cases the trade they followed -was that of the bully. “Almost all the soldiers in the Guards belong to -this class,†we read in the <i>Encyclopédie méthodique</i>, “and many men -indeed only enlist in the corps in order to live on the earnings of -these unfortunates.†The numerous documents relating to the Gardes -Françaises preserved in the archives of the<a name="page_260" id="page_260"></a> Bastille give the most -precise confirmation to this statement. We see, for example, that the -relatives of the engraver Nicolas de Larmessin requested a <i>lettre de -cachet</i> ordering their son to be locked up in jail, where they would pay -for his keep, “because he had threatened to enlist in the Gardes -Françaises.â€</p> - -<p>From the fifteen cannon placed on the towers, not a single shot was -fired during the siege. Within the château, three guns loaded with grape -defended the inner drawbridge; the governor had only one of them fired, -and that only once. Not wishing to massacre the mob, de Launey -determined to blow up the Bastille and find his grave among the ruins. -The Invalides Ferrand and Béquart flung themselves upon him to prevent -him from carrying out his intention. “The Bastille was not captured by -main force,†says Elie, whose testimony cannot be suspected of -partiality in favour of the defenders; “it surrendered before it was -attacked, on my giving my word of honour as a French officer that all -should escape unscathed if they submitted.â€</p> - -<p>We know how this promise was kept, in spite of the heroic efforts of -Elie and Hulin, to whom posterity owes enthusiastic homage. Is the mob -to be reproached for these atrocious crimes? It was a savage horde, the -scum of the population. De Launey, whose confidence and kindness had -never faltered, was massacred with every circumstance of horror. “The -Abbé Lefèvre,†says Dusaulx, “was an involuntary witness of his last -moments: ‘I saw him fall,’ he told me, ‘without being able to help<a name="page_261" id="page_261"></a> him; -he defended himself like a lion, and if only ten men had behaved as he -did at the Bastille, it would not have been taken.’†His murderers -slowly severed his head from his trunk with a penknife. The operation -was performed by a cook’s apprentice named Desnot, “who knew, as he -afterwards proudly said, how to manage a joint.†The deposition of this -brute should be read. It has been published by M. Guiffrey in the <i>Revue -historique</i>. To give himself courage, Desnot had gulped down brandy -mixed with gunpowder, and he added that what he had done was done in the -hope of obtaining a medal.</p> - -<p>“We learnt by-and-by,†continues Dusaulx, “of the death of M. de -Losme-Salbray, which all good men deplored.†De Losme had been the good -angel of the prisoners during his term of office as major of the -Bastille: there are touching details showing to what lengths he carried -his kindliness and delicacy of feeling. At the moment when the mob was -hacking at him, there happened to pass the Marquis de Pelleport, who had -been imprisoned in the Bastille for several years; he sprang forward to -save him: “Stop!†he cried, “you are killing the best of men.†But he -fell badly wounded, as also did the Chevalier de Jean, who had joined -him in the attempt to rescue the unfortunate man from the hands of the -mob. The adjutant Miray, Person the lieutenant of the Invalides, and -Dumont, one of the Invalides, were massacred. Miray was led to the -Grève, where the mob had resolved to execute him. Struck<a name="page_262" id="page_262"></a> with fists and -clubs, stabbed with knives, he crawled along in his death agony. He -expired, “done to death with pin-pricks,†before arriving at the place -of execution. The Invalides Asselin and Béquart were hanged. It was -Béquart who had prevented de Launey from blowing up the Bastille. “He -was gashed with two sword-strokes,†we read in the <i>Moniteur</i>, “and a -sabre cut had lopped off his wrist. They carried the hand in triumph -through the streets of the city—the very hand to which so many citizens -owed their safety.†“After I had passed the arcade of the Hôtel de -Ville,†says Restif de la Bretonne, who has left so curious a page about -the 14th of July, “I came upon some cannibals: one—I saw him with my -own eyes—brought home to me the meaning of a horrible word heard so -often since: he was carrying at the end of a <i>taille-cime</i><a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> the -bleeding entrails of a victim of the mob’s fury, and this horrible -top-knot caused no one to turn a hair. Farther on I met the captured -Invalides and Swiss: from young and pretty lips—I shudder at it -still—came screams of ‘Hang them! Hang them!’â€</p> - -<p>Further, they massacred Flesselles, the provost of the guilds, accused -of a treacherous action as imaginary as that of de Launey. They cut the -throat of Foulon, an old man of seventy-four years, who, as Taine tells -us, had spent during the preceding winter 60,000 francs in order to -provide the poor with work. They assassinated Berthier, one of the -distinguished men of the time. Foulon’s head was cut off; they tore -Berthier’s heart<a name="page_263" id="page_263"></a> from his body to carry it in procession through -Paris—charming touch!—in a bouquet of white carnations. For the fun -was growing fast and furious. De Launey’s head was borne on a pike to -the Palais Royal, then to the new bridge, where it was made to do -obeisance three times to the statue of Henri IV., with the words, -“Salute thy master!†At the Palais Royal, two of the conquerors had -merrily set themselves down at a dining-table in an entresol. As we -garnish our tables with flowers, so these men had placed on the table a -trunkless head and gory entrails; but as the crowd below cried out for -them, they shot them gaily out of the window.</p> - -<p>Those who had remained in front of the Bastille had dashed on in quest -of booty. As at the pillage of the warehouses of Réveillon and Henriot, -and of the convent of the Lazarists, the first impulse of the conquerors -was to bound forward to the cellar. “This rabble,†writes the author of -the <i>Authentic History</i>, “were so blind drunk that they made in one body -for the quarters of the staff, breaking the furniture, doors, and -windows. All this time their comrades, taking the pillagers for some of -the garrison, were firing on them.â€</p> - -<p>No one gave a thought to the prisoners, but the keys were secured and -carried in triumph through Paris. The doors of the rooms in which the -prisoners were kept had to be broken in. The wretched men, terrified by -the uproar, were more dead than alive. These victims of arbitrary power -were exactly seven in number. Four were forgers, Béchade, Laroche, La -Corrège, and<a name="page_264" id="page_264"></a> Pujade; these individuals had forged bills of exchange, to -the loss of two Parisian bankers: while their case was being dealt with -in regular course at the Châtelet, they were lodged in the Bastille, -where they consulted every day with their counsel. Then there was the -young Comte de Solages, who was guilty of monstrous crimes meriting -death; he was kept in the Bastille out of regard for his family, who -defrayed his expenses. Finally there were two lunatics, Tavernier and de -Whyte. We know what immense progress has been made during the past -century in the methods of treating lunatics. In those days they locked -them up. Tavernier and de Whyte were before long transferred to -Charenton, where assuredly they were not so well treated as they had -been at the Bastille.</p> - -<p>Such were the seven martyrs who were led in triumphant procession -through the streets, amid the shouts of a deeply moved people.</p> - -<p>Of the besiegers, ninety-eight dead were counted, some of whom had met -their death through the assailants’ firing on one another. Several had -been killed by falling into the moat. Of this total, only nineteen were -married, and only five had children. These are details of some interest.</p> - -<p>There was no thought of burying either the conquerors or the conquered. -At midnight on Wednesday the 15th, the presence of the corpses of the -officers of the Bastille, still lying in the Place de Grève, was -notified to the commissaries of the Châtelet. In his admirable work<a name="page_265" id="page_265"></a> M. -Furnand Bournon has published the ghastly report that was drawn up on -that night. It is a fitting crown to the work of the great day: “We, the -undersigned commissaries, duly noted down the declaration of the said -Sieur Houdan, and having then gone down into the courtyard of the -Châtelet (whither the corpses had just been carried), we found there -seven corpses of the male sex, the first without a head, clothed in a -coat, vest, breeches, and black silk stockings, with a fine shirt, but -no shoes; the second also without a head, clothed in a vest of red -stuff, breeches of nankeen with regimental buttons, blue silk stockings -with a small black pattern worked in; the third also headless, clothed -in a shirt, breeches, and white cotton stockings; the fourth also -headless, clothed in a blood-stained shirt, breeches, and black -stockings; the fifth clad in a shirt, blue breeches, and white gaiters, -with brown hair, apparently about forty years old, and having part of -his forearm cut off and severe bruises on his throat; the sixth clothed -in breeches and white gaiters, with severe bruises on his throat; and -the seventh, clothed in a shirt, breeches, and black silk stockings, -disfigured beyond recognition.â€</p> - -<p>Meanwhile the majority of the victors, the first moments of intoxication -having passed, were hiding themselves like men who had committed a -crime. The disorder in the city was extreme. “The commissioners of the -districts,†writes the Sicilian ambassador, “seeing the peril in which -the inhabitants were placed before this enormous number of armed men, -including brigands<a name="page_266" id="page_266"></a> and men let out of prison on the previous days, -formed patrols of the National Guard. They proclaimed martial law, or -rather, they issued one solitary law declaring that whoever robbed or -set fire to a house would be hanged. Indeed, not a day passed without -five and even as many as ten persons suffering this penalty. To this -salutary expedient we owe our lives and the safety of our houses.â€</p> - -<p>More than one conqueror of the Bastille was hanged in this way, which -was a great pity, for two days later his glorious brow might have been -crowned with laurels and flowers!</p> - -<p>It has been said that the Bastille was captured by the people of Paris. -But the number of the besiegers amounted to no more than a thousand, -among whom, as Marat has already brought to our notice, there were many -provincials and foreigners. As to the Parisians, they had come in great -numbers, as they always do, to see what was going on. We have this too -on the testimony of Marat. “I was present at the taking of the -Bastille,†writes the Chancellor de Pasquier also: “what has been called -the ‘fight’ was not serious, and of resistance there was absolutely -none. A few musket shots were fired to which there was no reply, and -four or five cannon shots. We know the results of this boasted victory, -which has brought a shower of compliments upon the heads of the -so-called conquerors: the truth is that this great fight did not give a -moment’s uneasiness to the numerous spectators who had hurried up to see -the<a name="page_267" id="page_267"></a> result. Among them there was many a pretty woman; they had left -their carriages at a distance in order to approach more easily. I was -leaning on the end of the barrier which closed in the garden skirting -Beaumarchais’ garden in the direction of the Place de la Bastille. By my -side was Mdlle. Contat, of the Comédie Française: we stayed to the end, -and I gave her my arm to her carriage. As pretty as any woman could be, -Mdlle. Contat added to the graces of her person an intelligence of the -most brilliant order.â€</p> - -<p>By next day there was quite another story. The Bastille had been -“stormed†in a formidable and heroic assault lasting a quarter of an -hour. The guns of the assailants had made a breach in its walls. These, -it is true, were still standing intact; but that did not signify, the -guns had made a breach, unquestionably! The seven prisoners who had been -set free had been a disappointment, for the best will in the world could -not make them anything but scoundrels and lunatics; some one invented an -eighth, the celebrated Comte de Lorges, the white-headed hero and -martyr. This Comte de Lorges had no existence; but that fact also is -nothing to the purpose: he makes an admirable and touching story. There -was talk of instruments of torture that had been discovered: “an iron -corslet, invented to hold a man fast by all his joints, and fix him in -eternal immobility:†it was really a piece of knightly armour dating -from the middle ages, taken from the magazine of obsolete arms which was -kept at the Bastille. Some one discovered also<a name="page_268" id="page_268"></a> a machine “not less -destructive, which was brought to the light of day, but no one could -guess its name or its special useâ€; it was a secret printing-press -seized in the house of one François Lenormand in 1786. Finally, while -digging in the bastion, some one came upon the bones of Protestants who -had once been buried there, the prejudices of the time not allowing -their remains to be laid in the consecrated ground of the cemetery: the -vision of secret executions in the deepest dungeons of the Bastille was -conjured up in the mind of the discoverers, and Mirabeau sent these -terrible words echoing through France: “The ministers were lacking in -foresight, they forgot to eat the bones!â€</p> - -<p>The compilation of the roll of the conquerors of the Bastille was a -laborious work. A great number of those who had been in the thick of the -fray did not care to make themselves known: they did not know but that -their laurel-crowned heads might be stuck aloft! It is true that these -bashful heroes were speedily replaced by a host of fine fellows -who—from the moment when it was admitted that the conquerors were -heroes, deserving of honours, pensions, and medals—were fully persuaded -that they had sprung to the assault, and in the very first rank. The -final list contained 863 names.</p> - -<p>Victor Fournel in a charming book has sung the epic, at once ludicrous -and lachrymose, of the men of the 14th of July. The book, which ought to -be read, gives a host of delightful episodes it is impossible to -abridge. In the sequel these founders of<a name="page_269" id="page_269"></a> liberty did not shine either -through the services they rendered to the Republic, or through their -fidelity to the immortal principles. The Hulins—Hulin, however, had -done nobly in trying to save de Launey—the Palloys, the Fourniers, the -Latudes, and how many others! were the most servile lackeys of the -Empire, and those of them who survived were the most assiduous servants -of the Restoration. Under the Empire, the conquerors of the Bastille -tried to secure the Legion of Honour for the whole crew. They went about -soliciting pensions even up to 1830, and at that date, after forty-three -years, there were still 401 conquerors living. In 1848 the conquerors -made another appearance. There was still mention of pensions for the -conquerors of the Bastille in the budget of 1874—let us save the -ladder, the ladder of Latude!</p> - -<p>This is the amusing side of their story. But there is a painful side -too: their rivalries with the Gardes Françaises, who charged them with -filching the glory from them, and with the “volunteers of the Bastille.†-The heroes were acquainted with calumny and opprobrium. There were, too, -deadly dissensions among their own body. There were the true conquerors, -and others who, while they were true conquerors, were nevertheless not -true: there were always “traitors†among the conquerors, as well as -“patriots.†On July 1, 1790, two of the conquerors were found beaten to -death near Beaumarchais’ garden, in front of the theatre of their -exploits. Next day there was a violent quarrel between four conquerors -and some soldiers. In December two<a name="page_270" id="page_270"></a> others were assassinated near the -Champs de Mars. Early in 1791 two were wounded, and a third was -discovered with his neck in a noose, in a ditch near the military -school. Such were the nocturnal doings on the barriers.</p> - -<p>It remains to explain this amazing veering round of opinion, this -legend, of all things the least likely, which transformed into great men -the “brigands†of April, June, and July, 1789.</p> - -<p>The first reason is explained in the following excellent passage from -<i>Rabagas</i><a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a>:—</p> - -<div class="blockquot2"><p><i>Carle.</i>—But how then do you distinguish a riot from a revolution?</p> - -<p><i>Boubard.</i>—A riot is when the mob is defeated ... they are all -curs. A revolution is when the mob is the stronger: they are all -heroes!</p></div> - -<p>During the night of July 14, the Duke de la Rochefoucauld woke Louis -XVI. to announce to him the capture of the Bastille. “It’s a revolt -then,†said the king. “Sire,†replied the duke, “it is a revolution.â€</p> - -<p>The day on which the royal power, in its feebleness and irresolution, -abandoned Paris to the mob, was the day of its abdication. The Parisians -attempted to organize themselves into a citizen militia in order to -shoot down the brigands. The movement on the Bastille was a stroke of -genius on the part of the latter—instinctive, no doubt, but for all -that a stroke of genius. The people now recognized its masters, and with -its usual facility it hailed the new régime with adulation. “From that -moment,†said a deputy, “there was an end<a name="page_271" id="page_271"></a> of liberty, even in the -Assembly; France was dumb before thirty factionaries.â€</p> - -<p>What rendered the national enthusiasm for the conquerors more easy was -precisely all those legends to which credence was given, in all -sincerity, by the most intelligent people in France—the legends on the -horrors of the Bastille and the cruelties of arbitrary power. For fifty -years they had been disseminated throughout the kingdom, and had taken -firm root. The pamphlets of Linguet and Mirabeau, the recent stupendous -success of the <i>Memoirs of Latude</i>, had given these stories renewed -strength and vigour. Compelled to bow before the triumphant mob, people -preferred to regard themselves—so they silenced their conscience—as -hailing a deliverer. There was some sincerity in this movement of -opinion, too. The same districts which on July 13 took arms against the -brigands could exclaim, after the crisis had passed: “The districts -applaud the capture of a fortress which, regarded hitherto as the seat -of despotism, dishonoured the French name under a popular king.â€</p> - -<p>In his edition of the <i>Memoirs of Barras</i>, M. George Duruy has well -explained the transformation of opinion. “In the <i>Memoirs</i>, the capture -of the Bastille is merely the object of a brief and casual mention. -Barras only retained and transmits to us one single detail. He saw -leaving the dungeons the ‘victims of arbitrary power, saved at last from -rack and torture and from living tombs.’ Such a dearth of information is -the more likely<a name="page_272" id="page_272"></a> to surprise us in that Barras was not only a spectator -of the event, but composed, in that same year 1789, an account of it -which has now been discovered. Now his narrative of 1789 is as -interesting as the passage in the <i>Memoirs</i> is insignificant. The -impression left by these pages, written while the events were vividly -pictured in his mind, is, we are bound to say, that the famous capture -of the Bastille was after all only a horrible and sanguinary saturnalia. -There is no word of heroism in this first narrative: nothing about -‘victims of arbitrary power’ snatched from ‘torture and living tombs’; -but on the other hand, veritable deeds of cannibalism perpetrated by the -victors. That is what Barras saw, and what he recorded on those pages -where, at that period of his life, he noted down day by day the events -of which he was a witness. Thirty years slip by. Barras has sat on the -benches of the ‘Montagne.’<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> He has remained an inflexible -revolutionist. He gathers his notes together in view of <i>Memoirs</i> he -intends to publish. At this time, the revolutionist version of the -capture of the Bastille is officially established. It is henceforth -accepted that the Bastille fell before an impulse of heroism on the part -of the people of Paris, and that its fall brought to light horrible -mysteries of iniquity. This legend, which has so profoundly distorted -the event, was contemporary with the event itself, a spontaneous fruit -of the popular imagination. And Barras, having to speak of the capture -in his<a name="page_273" id="page_273"></a> <i>Memoirs</i>, discovers his old narrative among his papers, and -reads it, I imagine, with a sort of stupefaction. What! the capture of -the Bastille was no more than that!—and he resolutely casts it aside.â€</p> - -<p>In the provinces, the outbreak had a violent counterpart. “There -instantly arose,†writes Victor Fournel, “a strange, extraordinary, -grotesque panic, which swept through the greater part of France like a -hurricane of madness, and which many of us have heard our grand-fathers -tell stories about under the name of the ‘day of the brigands’ or ‘the -day of the fear.’ It broke out everywhere in the second fortnight of -July, 1789. Suddenly, one knew not whence, an awful rumour burst upon -the town or village: the brigands are here, at our very gates: they are -advancing in troops of fifteen or twenty thousand, burning the standing -crops, ravaging everything! Dust-stained couriers appear, spreading the -terrible news. An unknown horseman goes through at the gallop, with -haggard cheeks and dishevelled hair: ‘Up, to arms, they are here!’ Some -natives rush up: it is only too true: they have seen them, the bandits -are no more than a league or two away! The alarm bell booms out, the -people fly to arms, line up in battle order, start off to reconnoitre. -In the end, nothing happens, but their terrors revive. The brigands have -only turned aside: every man must remain under arms.†In the frontier -provinces, there were rumours of foreign enemies. The Bretons and -Normans shook in fear of an English descent: in<a name="page_274" id="page_274"></a> Champagne and Lorraine -a German invasion was feared.</p> - -<p>Along with these scenes of panic must be placed the deeds of violence, -the assassinations, plunderings, burnings, which suddenly desolated the -whole of France. In a book which sheds a flood of light on these facts, -Gustave Bord gives a thrilling picture of them. The châteaux were -invaded, and the owner, if they could lay hands on him, was roasted on -the soles of his feet. At Versailles the mob threw themselves on the -hangman as he was about to execute a parricide, and the criminal was set -free: the state of terror in which the town was plunged is depicted in -the journals of the municipal assembly. On July 23, the governor of -Champagne sends word that the rising is general in his district. At -Rennes, at Nantes, at Saint-Malo, at Angers, at Caen, at Bordeaux, at -Strasburg, at Metz, the mob engaged in miniature captures of the -Bastille more or less accompanied with pillage and assassination. Armed -bands went about cutting down the woods, breaking down the dikes, -fishing in the ponds.<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> The disorganization was complete.</p> - -<p>Nothing could more clearly show the character of the government under -the <i>ancien régime:</i> it was wholly dependent on traditions. Nowhere was -there a concrete organization to secure the maintenance of order and -the<a name="page_275" id="page_275"></a> enforcement of the king’s decrees. France was a federation of -innumerable republics, held together by a single bond, the sentiment of -loyalty every citizen felt towards the crown. One puff of wind sent the -crown flying, and then disorder and panic bewilderment dominated the -whole nation. The door was open to all excesses, and the means of -checking them miserably failed. Under the <i>ancien régime</i>, devotion to -the king was the whole government, the whole administration, the whole -life of the state. And thus arose the necessity for the domination of -the Terror, and the legislative work of Napoleon.</p> - -<p class="c">THE END.</p> - -<p><a name="page_276" id="page_276"></a></p> - -<p><a name="page_277" id="page_277"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX</h2> - -<p class="c"><a href="#A">A</a>, -<a href="#B">B</a>, -<a href="#C">C</a>, -<a href="#D">D</a>, -<a href="#E">E</a>, -<a href="#F">F</a>, -<a href="#G">G</a>, -<a href="#H">H</a>, -<a href="#J">J</a>, -<a href="#K">K</a>, -<a href="#L">L</a>, -<a href="#M">M</a>, -<a href="#N">N</a>, -<a href="#P">P</a>, -<a href="#Q">Q</a>, -<a href="#R">R</a>, -<a href="#S">S</a>, -<a href="#T">T</a>, -<a href="#V">V</a></p> - -<p class="nind"> -<a name="A" id="A"></a>A<small>LLÈGRE</small>, Latude’s fellow prisoner, <a href="#page_154">154</a>, <a href="#page_185">185-192</a>, <a href="#page_217">217</a>.<br /> -Ameilhon, city librarian, <a href="#page_055">55</a>.<br /> -Argenson, D’, <a href="#page_060">60</a>, <a href="#page_072">72</a>, <a href="#page_095">95</a>, <a href="#page_175">175</a>, <a href="#page_182">182</a>.<br /> -Arsenal library, <a href="#page_055">55</a>, <a href="#page_056">56</a>.<br /> -Atrocities of the mob, <a href="#page_258">258-266</a>.<br /> -Avedick, Armenian patriarch, <a href="#page_133">133</a>.<br /> -<br /> -<a name="B" id="B"></a>B<small>ARRAS</small>, <a href="#page_272">272</a>.<br /> -Bastille, its situation, <a href="#page_047">47</a>;<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">appearance, <a href="#page_048">48</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">repute, <a href="#page_049">49</a>, <a href="#page_050">50</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">archives, <a href="#page_050">50-56</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">origin, <a href="#page_057">57</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">site, <a href="#page_058">58</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">construction, <a href="#page_059">59</a>, <a href="#page_060">60</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">additions to, <a href="#page_061">61</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">appearance in later days, <a href="#page_061">61</a>, <a href="#page_062">62</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">early uses, <a href="#page_063">63</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">becomes state prison, <a href="#page_063">63</a>, <a href="#page_064">64</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">prisoners, <a href="#page_065">65</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">its administration, <a href="#page_066">66</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">gradual transformation, <a href="#page_067">67</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">character of prisoners, <a href="#page_068">68</a>, <a href="#page_069">69</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">secretary, <a href="#page_070">70</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">office of lieutenant of police, <a href="#page_071">71</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his duties, <a href="#page_071">71</a>, <a href="#page_072">72</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">becomes like modern prisons, <a href="#page_077">77</a>, <a href="#page_078">78</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">abolition of torture, <a href="#page_078">78</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">duration of prisoners’ detention, <a href="#page_080">80</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">expenses, <a href="#page_081">81</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">plans for altering, <a href="#page_081">81-83</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a <i>prison de luxe</i>, <a href="#page_085">85</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">treatment of prisoners, <a href="#page_086">86</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the rooms, <a href="#page_087">87</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">manner of prisoners’ entrance, <a href="#page_088">88</a>, <a href="#page_089">89</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">cells, <a href="#page_092">92</a>, <a href="#page_093">93</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">tower rooms, <a href="#page_093">93</a>, <a href="#page_094">94</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">furniture, <a href="#page_095">95</a>, <a href="#page_096">96</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">examination of prisoners, <a href="#page_096">96</a>, <a href="#page_097">97</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">indemnified if innocent, <a href="#page_098">98</a>, <a href="#page_099">99</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">allowed companions, <a href="#page_100">100</a>, <a href="#page_101">101</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">prison fare, <a href="#page_102">102-107</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">clothes, <a href="#page_107">107</a>, <a href="#page_108">108</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">books, <a href="#page_108">108</a>, <a href="#page_109">109</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">exercise, <a href="#page_109">109</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">diversions, <a href="#page_109">109</a>, <a href="#page_110">110</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">funerals, <a href="#page_110">110</a>, <a href="#page_111">111</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">liberation, <a href="#page_111">111</a>, <a href="#page_112">112</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the Iron Mask, <a href="#page_114">114-146</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">men of letters, <a href="#page_147">147-165</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">capture, <a href="#page_238">238-272</a>.</span><br /> -Berryer, <a href="#page_175">175</a>, <a href="#page_176">176</a>, <a href="#page_178">178</a>, <a href="#page_184">184</a>, <a href="#page_188">188</a>, <a href="#page_189">189</a>, <a href="#page_193">193</a>.<br /> -Besmaus, de, <a href="#page_070">70</a>.<br /> -Binguet, <a href="#page_171">171</a>, <a href="#page_179">179</a>.<br /> -Bread riots, <a href="#page_242">242</a>, <a href="#page_243">243</a>.<br /> -Breteuil, <a href="#page_078">78</a>, <a href="#page_248">248</a>.<br /> -Brigands, <a href="#page_241">241</a>, <a href="#page_245">245</a>, <a href="#page_250">250</a>.<br /> -Burgaud, <a href="#page_135">135</a>.<br /> -<br /> -<a name="C" id="C"></a>C<small>AMPAN</small>, Madame de, <a href="#page_144">144</a>, <a href="#page_145">145</a>.<br /> -Carutti’s theory of Iron Mask, <a href="#page_134">134</a>.<br /> -Cellamare conspiracy, <a href="#page_072">72</a>, <a href="#page_073">73</a>.<br /> -Character of French government and society, <a href="#page_239">239-241</a>.<br /> -Chevalier, major, <a href="#page_049">49</a>, <a href="#page_051">51</a>, <a href="#page_120">120</a>, <a href="#page_121">121</a>, <a href="#page_187">187</a>, <a href="#page_189">189</a>, <a href="#page_194">194</a>.<br /> -Citizen militia, <a href="#page_251">251-253</a>.<br /> -Clothes of prisoners, <a href="#page_107">107</a>, <a href="#page_108">108</a>.<br /> -Crosne, de, lieutenant of police, <a href="#page_244">244-246</a>.<br /> -<br /> -<a name="D" id="D"></a>D’A<small>UBRESPY</small>, Jeanneton, <a href="#page_169">169</a>, <a href="#page_201">201</a>.<br /> -Dauger suggested as Iron Mask, <a href="#page_135">135</a>.<br /> -Desmoulins, <a href="#page_247">247</a>, <a href="#page_249">249</a>.<br /> -Diderot, <a href="#page_165">165</a>.<br /> -Diversions of prisoners, <a href="#page_109">109</a>, <a href="#page_110">110</a>.<br /> -Du Junca’s journal, <a href="#page_069">69</a>, <a href="#page_089">89</a>, <a href="#page_090">90</a>, <a href="#page_114">114-116</a>, <a href="#page_122">122</a>.<br /> -Dusaulx, <a href="#page_051">51</a>.<a name="page_278" id="page_278"></a><br /> -<br /> -<a name="E" id="E"></a>E<small>NCYCLOPÆDIA</small>, <a href="#page_080">80</a>.<br /> -Estrades, Abbé d’, <a href="#page_138">138-142</a>.<br /> -<br /> -<a name="F" id="F"></a>F<small>OOD</small> of prisoners, <a href="#page_102">102-107</a>.<br /> -Funerals, <a href="#page_110">110</a>.<br /> -<br /> -<a name="G" id="G"></a>G<small>AMES</small> of prisoners, <a href="#page_101">101</a>, <a href="#page_102">102</a>.<br /> -Gleichen, baron, <a href="#page_130">130</a>.<br /> -Griffet, Father, <a href="#page_120">120</a>.<br /> -<br /> -<a name="H" id="H"></a>H<small>EISS</small>, Baron, first to suggest true solution of Iron Mask, <a href="#page_136">136</a>.<br /> -Henriot, <a href="#page_245">245</a>.<br /> -Houdon, sculptor, <a href="#page_082">82</a>.<br /> -<br /> -<a name="J" id="J"></a>J<small>ULY</small> 14th, <a href="#page_255">255-276</a>.<br /> -Jung’s theory of Iron Mask, <a href="#page_134">134</a>.<br /> -<br /> -<a name="K" id="K"></a>K<small>INGSTON</small>, Duchess of, <a href="#page_225">225</a>, <a href="#page_227">227</a>.<br /> -<br /> -<a name="L" id="L"></a>L<small>A</small> B<small>EAUMELLE</small>, <a href="#page_152">152-155</a>.<br /> -Lagrange-Chancel, <a href="#page_132">132</a>.<br /> -La Reynie, <a href="#page_071">71</a>.<br /> -Latude, <a href="#page_168">168-237</a>.<br /> -Launay, Mdlle. de, <i>see</i> Staal, Madame de.<br /> -Launey, de, governor, <a href="#page_256">256</a>, <a href="#page_258">258</a>, <a href="#page_260">260</a>.<br /> -Lauzun, <a href="#page_091">91</a>.<br /> -Legros, Madame de, <a href="#page_223">223-226</a>, <a href="#page_232">232</a>, <a href="#page_233">233</a>.<br /> -Lenoir, lieutenant of police, <a href="#page_186">186</a>.<br /> -<i>Lettres de cachet</i>, <a href="#page_240">240</a>.<br /> -Lieutenancy of police created, <a href="#page_097">97</a>.<br /> -Linguet, <a href="#page_163">163-165</a>.<br /> -Loiseleur’s theory of Iron Mask, <a href="#page_134">134</a>.<br /> -Loquin’s theory of Iron Mask, <a href="#page_133">133</a>.<br /> -Losme, de, <a href="#page_261">261</a>.<br /> -Louis XIV. and Iron Mask, <a href="#page_137">137-140</a>.<br /> -Louis XV. and Iron Mask, <a href="#page_144">144</a>.<br /> -Louis XVI. and Iron Mask, <a href="#page_144">144</a>.<br /> -Louvois, <a href="#page_070">70</a>, <a href="#page_141">141</a>.<br /> -<br /> -<a name="M" id="M"></a>M<small>AISONROUGE</small>, king’s lieutenant, <a href="#page_073">73-76</a>.<br /> -Malesherbes, <a href="#page_078">78</a>, <a href="#page_156">156</a>, <a href="#page_216">216</a>.<br /> -Man in the Iron Mask, documents, <a href="#page_114">114-125</a>;<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">legends, <a href="#page_125">125-136</a>;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">true solution, <a href="#page_136">136-146</a>.</span><br /> -Marmontel, <a href="#page_158">158-163</a>.<br /> -Mattioli, the Iron Mask, <a href="#page_136">136-146</a>.<br /> -Maurepas, <a href="#page_144">144</a>, <a href="#page_173">173-175</a>.<br /> -Mirabeau, <a href="#page_166">166</a>, <a href="#page_167">167</a>.<br /> -Morellet, <a href="#page_155">155-158</a>, <a href="#page_253">253</a>.<br /> -Moyria, de, <a href="#page_218">218-220</a>.<br /> -<br /> -<a name="N" id="N"></a>N<small>ECKER</small>, <a href="#page_248">248</a>.<br /> -<br /> -<a name="P" id="P"></a>P<small>ALATINE</small>, Madame, <a href="#page_125">125</a>.<br /> -Palteau, M. de, <a href="#page_118">118</a>, <a href="#page_119">119</a>.<br /> -Papon’s theory of Iron Mask, <a href="#page_127">127</a>.<br /> -Parlement, <a href="#page_076">76</a>, <a href="#page_077">77</a>.<br /> -Pensions to prisoners, <a href="#page_098">98</a>, <a href="#page_099">99</a>.<br /> -Pompadour, Madame de, <a href="#page_173">173</a>, <a href="#page_206">206</a>.<br /> -Pontchartrain, <a href="#page_069">69</a>.<br /> -Puget, king’s lieutenant, <a href="#page_083">83</a>.<br /> -<br /> -<a name="Q" id="Q"></a>Q<small>UESNAY</small>, Dr., <a href="#page_175">175</a>, <a href="#page_177">177</a>, <a href="#page_178">178</a>.<br /> -<br /> -<a name="R" id="R"></a>R<small>AVAISSON</small>, librarian, <a href="#page_054">54</a>, <a href="#page_055">55</a>, <a href="#page_134">134</a>.<br /> -Register of St. Paul’s church, <a href="#page_117">117</a>, <a href="#page_142">142</a>, <a href="#page_143">143</a>.<br /> -Regnier’s lines, <a href="#page_059">59</a>.<br /> -Renneville’s meals, <a href="#page_103">103</a>, <a href="#page_104">104</a>.<br /> -Réveillon, <a href="#page_245">245</a>, <a href="#page_246">246</a>.<br /> -Ricarville, companion of the Iron Mask, <a href="#page_123">123</a>, <a href="#page_124">124</a>.<br /> -Richelieu, Cardinal, <a href="#page_063">63-66</a>.<br /> -Richelieu, Duke de, <a href="#page_076">76</a>, <a href="#page_129">129</a>, <a href="#page_130">130</a>.<br /> -Rigby, Dr., <a href="#page_253">253</a>, <a href="#page_254">254</a>.<br /> -Risings in the provinces, <a href="#page_273">273</a>.<br /> -Rochebrune, commissary, <a href="#page_195">195</a>.<br /> -Rohan, Cardinal de, <a href="#page_222">222</a>.<br /> -<br /> -<a name="S" id="S"></a>S<small>ADE</small>, Marquis de, <a href="#page_095">95</a>.<br /> -Saint-Mars, governor, <a href="#page_087">87</a>, <a href="#page_115">115-119</a>, <a href="#page_127">127</a>, <a href="#page_142">142</a>.<br /> -Saint-Marc, detective, <a href="#page_169">169</a>, <a href="#page_176">176</a>, <a href="#page_180">180</a>, <a href="#page_183">183</a>, <a href="#page_192">192</a>.<br /> -Sartine, de, <a href="#page_049">49</a>, <a href="#page_202">202</a>, <a href="#page_203">203</a>, <a href="#page_207">207</a>, <a href="#page_210">210</a>, <a href="#page_215">215</a>.<br /> -Sauvé, Madame de, her dress, <a href="#page_108">108</a>.<br /> -Solages, de, <a href="#page_084">84</a>.<br /> -Staal, Madame de, <a href="#page_073">73-76</a>, <a href="#page_094">94</a>, <a href="#page_095">95</a>, <a href="#page_102">102</a>.<a name="page_279" id="page_279"></a><br /> -<br /> -<a name="T" id="T"></a>T<small>AULÈS</small>, de, <a href="#page_132">132</a>.<br /> -Tavernier, <a href="#page_106">106</a>.<br /> -Theories on Iron Mask, <a href="#page_125">125-136</a>.<br /> -Thuriot de la Rosière, <a href="#page_256">256</a>.<br /> -Tirmont, companion of Iron Mask, <a href="#page_123">123</a>, <a href="#page_124">124</a>.<br /> -<br /> -<a name="V" id="V"></a>V<small>IEUX</small>-M<small>AISONS</small>, Madame de, <a href="#page_128">128</a>.<br /> -Villette, Marquis de, <a href="#page_224">224</a>.<br /> -Vinache’s library, <a href="#page_109">109</a>.<br /> -Vincennes, <a href="#page_165">165-167</a>, <a href="#page_180">180</a>.<br /> -Voltaire, <a href="#page_099">99</a>, <a href="#page_126">126</a>, <a href="#page_128">128</a>, <a href="#page_129">129</a>, <a href="#page_148">148-152</a>.<br /> -</p> - -<p><a name="page_280" id="page_280"></a></p> - -<p class="c">LONDON:<br /> -GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, LD.<br /> -ST. JOHN’S HOUSE, CLERKENWELL, E.C.</p> - -<div class="footnotes"><p class="cb">FOOTNOTES:</p> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The castle of Tours, 147 miles south-west of Paris, which -Louis XI. made his favourite residence. See Scott’s <i>Quentin -Durward</i>.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Jean Balue (1471-1491), chaplain to Louis XI. For -traitorously divulging the king’s schemes to his enemy, the Duke of -Burgundy, he was for eleven years shut up in the castle of Loches, in an -iron-bound wooden cage.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> A French author (1624-1693) who was involved in the fall of -Louis XIV.’s dishonest finance minister, Fouquet, in 1661, and was -imprisoned for five years in the Bastille, amusing himself with reading -the Fathers of the Church and taming a spider. See Kitchin’s <i>History of -France</i>, iii. 155-157.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Antoine de Caumont, duc de Lauzun (1633-1723), a courtier -of Louis XIV., whose favours to the Duke made Louvois, the minister, his -bitter enemy. He was twice imprisoned in the Bastille, the second time -at the instance of Madame de Montespan. He commanded the French -auxiliaries of James II. in Ireland. See Macaulay’s <i>History</i>, Chaps. -IX., XII., XV.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> A game played with a sort of box, in the top of which are -cut holes of equal size, and with metal discs or balls, the object being -to pitch the balls into the holes from a distance. A similar game may be -seen at any English country fair.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> The famous president of the Cour des Aides and Minister of -the Interior, renowned for his consistent support of the people against -oppression. He was banished in 1771 for remonstrating against the abuses -of law; but returning to Paris to oppose the execution of Louis XVI., he -was guillotined in 1794.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Antonio del Giudice, prince de Cellamare (1657-1733), the -Spanish ambassador, was the instigator of a plot against the Regent in -1718. See Kitchin, <i>ib.</i> iii. 474.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> The Hôtel des Invalides, residence of pensioned soldiers, -&c. still a well-known building of Paris.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> A château, four miles east of Paris, notable as the place -where St. Louis, the royal lawgiver of France, dispensed justice. The -<i>donjon</i> still exists, serving now as a soldier’s barracks.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> One of the first prisons on the system of solitary -confinement in cells erected in Paris. It dates from 1850.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> The Abbé de Buquoy (1653-1740) owed his imprisonment -originally to having been found in company with dealers in contraband -salt when the <i>gabelle</i>, or salt-tax, compelled the French people to buy -salt, whether they wanted it or not, at a price <i>two thousand times</i> its -true value. He was a man of very eccentric views, one of which was that -woman was man’s chief evil, and that was why, when the patriarch Job was -stripped of children, flocks, herds, &c., his wife was left to him!—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> The madhouse, eight miles east of Paris.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> A château originally outside Paris, now included in the -city itself, once used as a hospital and jail, now a hospital for aged -and indigent poor and for lunatics. The first experiments with the -guillotine were tried there.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> See <i>infra</i>, p. 83.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> The title rôle in a comedy by Henri Mounier, entitled -<i>Grandeur et décadence de M. Joseph Prudhomme</i> (1852). He is a -writing-master, very vain, given (like Mr. Micawber) to tall talk and -long-winded periods. He has become typical of “much cry and little -wool.†As an officer of the National Guard he says, “This sabre -constitutes the finest day in my life! I accept it, and if ever I find -myself at the head of your phalanxes, I shall know how to use it in -defence of our institutions—and, if need arise, to fight for -them!‗T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> In the early days of the Revolution, Paris was divided -into sections or wards, and as the <i>pike</i> had played a great part in the -recent disturbances, one of the wards was known as the “Pike†-section.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> A disciple of the Marquis de Sade (see p. 35), a notorious -debauchee, whose book <i>Justine</i> was a disgusting mixture of brutality -and obscenity.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> The pseudonym of Beffroy de Reigny (1757-1811), author of -farces, and of a <i>Précis historique de la prise de la Bastille</i>.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> The name given to the constitutional struggles of the -nobles and the Parlement of Paris against Mazarin and the royal power -(1648-1654). The name is derived from <i>fronde</i>, a sling. A wit of the -Parlement, one Bachaumont, “told the lawyers of that august body that -they were like schoolboys playing in the town ditches with their slings, -who run away directly the watchman appears, and begin again when his -back is turned.†See Kitchin, iii. pp. 102-128.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> See <i>Monte-Cristo</i>.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Delivered to the French Association for the Advancement of -Science in 1893.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> The battle fought on August 10, 1557, in which Egmont with -a combined force of Spaniards, Flemish, and English (sent by Queen Mary) -routed Constable Montmorency and the finest chivalry of France. It was -in commemoration of this victory that Philip II. built the palace of the -Escurial, shaped like a gridiron because the battle was fought on St. -Lawrence’s day.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> The following unpublished letter from Pontchartrain to -Bernaville, intimating his probable nomination as governor of the -Bastille, shows exactly what Louis XIV.’s government demanded of the -head of the great state prison:- -</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p class="r"> -“Versailles, September 28, 1707.<br /> -</p> - -<p>“I have received your letter of yesterday. I can only repeat what I -have already written: to pay constant attention to what goes on in -the Bastille; to neglect none of the duties of a good governor; to -maintain order and discipline among the soldiers of the garrison, -seeing that they keep watch with all the necessary exactitude, and -that their wages are regularly paid; to take care that the -prisoners are well fed and treated with kindness, preventing them, -however, from having any communication with people outside and from -writing letters; finally, to be yourself especially prompt in -informing me of anything particular that may happen at the -Bastille. You will understand that in following such a line of -action you cannot but please the king, and perhaps induce him to -grant you the post of governor; on my part, you may count on my -neglecting no means of representing your services to His Majesty in -the proper light. -</p> - -<p class="r">“I am, &c.,<br /> - -“<span class="smcap">Pontchartrain</span>.â€<br /> -</p></div></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> The appellation of the eldest brother of the reigning -king.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Under the <i>ancien régime</i>, there being no Minister of the -Interior (Home Secretary), each of the ministers (the War Minister, -Minister for Foreign Affairs, &c.) had a part of France under his -charge. The Minister of Paris was usually what we should call the Lord -Chamberlain.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> The court which up to the time of the Revolution was the -seat of justice, presided over by the Provost of Paris. It held its -sittings in the castle known as the Châtelet.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> A judicial, not a legislative body. It was constantly in -antagonism to the king.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> The famous Encyclopædia edited by D’Alembert and Diderot. -It occupied twenty years of the life of the latter, and went through -many vicissitudes; its free criticism of existing institutions provoking -the enmity of the government. Voltaire was one of its largest -contributors.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> This raised Linguet’s indignation. “The consideration of -this enormous expense has given to some ministers, among others to M. -Necker, a notion of reform; if this should come to anything, it would be -very disgraceful to spring from no other cause. ‘Suppress the Bastille -out of economy!’ said on this subject, a few days ago, one of the -youngest and most eloquent orators of England.â€</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> The Hôtel Carnavalet, museum in Paris, where a large -number of documents and books are preserved relating to the history of -the city.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> It may be noted that the different escapes contributed to -the gradual tightening of the rules of the Bastille. After the escape of -the Comte de Bucquoy, such ornaments as the prisoners could attach cords -to were at once removed, and knives were taken from them; after the -escape of Allègre and Latude, bars of iron were placed in the chimneys, -and so forth.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> The second of the four principal officers of the Bastille. -The officers were: (1) the governor; (2) the king’s lieutenant; (3) the -major; (4) the adjutant. There was also a doctor, a surgeon, a -confessor, &c. The garrison consisted of Invalides.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> The most surprising instance is that of an Englishman, who -returned spontaneously from England to become a prisoner in the -Bastille. “On Thursday, May 22, 1693, at nightfall, M. de Jones, an -Englishman, returned from England, having come back to prison for -reasons concerning the king’s service. He was located outside the -château, in a little room where M. de Besmaus keeps his library, above -his office, and he is not to appear for some days for his examination, -and is to be taken great care of.‗Du Junca’s Journal.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> This was not the Lauzun already mentioned, but his nephew, -Armand Louis de Gontaut, duke de Biron (1747-1793), who was notorious -throughout Europe for his gallantries.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> An official of the royal council, whose function -originally was to examine and report on petitions to the king. He became -a sort of superior magistrate’s clerk.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> “1751, March 2. I have received a letter from Dr. Duval -(secretary to the lieutenant of police), in which he tells me that M. -Berryer (lieutenant of police) is struck with the cost of the clothes -supplied to the prisoners for some time past; but, as you know, I only -supply things when ordered by M. Berryer, and I try to supply good -clothes, so that they may last and give the prisoners -satisfaction.‗Letter from Rochebrune, commissary to the Bastille, to -Major Chevalier.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> These extracts are translated literally, in order to -preserve the clumsy constructions of the unlettered official.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> Step-sister of Louis XIV. The following extracts from her -correspondence show how, even in circles that might have been expected -to be well informed, the legend had already seized on people’s -imaginations:— -</p><p> -“Marly, October 10, 1711. A man remained long years in the Bastille, and -has died there, masked. At his side he had two musketeers ready to kill -him if he took off his mask. He ate and slept masked. No doubt there was -some reason for this, for otherwise he was well treated and lodged, and -given everything he wished for. He went to communion masked; he was very -devout and read continually. No one has ever been able to learn who he -was.†-</p><p> -“Versailles, October 22, 1711. I have just learnt who the masked man -was, who died in the Bastille. His wearing a mask was not due to -cruelty. He was an English lord who had been mixed up in the affair of -the Duke of Berwick (natural son of James II.) against King William. He -died there so that the king might never know what became of him.â€</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> The insurgents who rose for the king against the -Revolutionists in Brittany: see Balzac’s famous novel. The movement -smouldered for a great many years.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> The Gregorian calendar was abolished by the National -Convention in 1793, who decreed that September 22, 1792, should be -regarded as the first day of a new era. The year was divided into twelve -months, with names derived from natural phenomena. Nivose (snowy) was -the fourth of these months. Thus, the period mentioned in the text -includes from December 21, 1800, to January 19, 1801.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> Since M. Funck-Brentano’s book was published, his -conclusions have been corroborated by Vicomte Maurice Boutry in a study -published in the <i>Revue des Etudes historiques</i> (1899, p. 172). The -Vicomte furnishes an additional proof. He says that the Duchess de -Créquy, in the third book of her <i>Souvenirs</i>, gives a <i>résumé</i> of a -conversation on the Iron Mask between Marshal de Noailles, the Duchess -de Luynes, and others, and adds: “The most considerable and best -informed persons of my time always thought that the famous story had no -other foundation than the capture and captivity of the Piedmontese -Mattioli.‗T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> “I have seen these ills, and I am not twenty yet.â€</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> These verses were, of course, in Latin.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> Palissot was a dramatist and critic who in his comedy <i>Les -Philosophes</i> had bitterly attacked Rousseau, Diderot, and the -Encyclopædists generally.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> The old prison of Paris. It was the debtors’ prison, -famous also for the number of actors who were imprisoned there under the -<i>ancien régime</i>. It was demolished in 1780.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a></p> -<p class="c">“Not unto us, O Lord, but unto Thy name give glory!</p> -<p class="c">“Know our heart and search out our ways.â€</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> “The victory is won!‗T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> Charenton was under the direction of a religious order -known as the <i>Frères de la Charité</i>, who undertook the care of sick and -weak-minded poor.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> This was Elizabeth Chudleigh (1720-1788), the notorious -beauty who privately married the Hon. Augustus Hervey, afterwards Earl -of Bristol, separated from him after three years, and became the -mistress of the second Duke of Kingston, whom she bigamously married. -After his death she was tried by the House of Lords for bigamy, and fled -to France to escape punishment. Her gallantries and eccentricities were -the talk of Europe.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> Instructed by his misfortunes and his captivity how to -vanquish the efforts and the rage of tyrants, he taught the French how -true courage can win liberty.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> Jocrisse is the stock French type of the booby, and as -such is a character in many comedies. He breaks a plate, for instance; -his master asks him how he managed to be so clumsy, and he instantly -smashes another, saying, “<i>Just like that!</i>†His master asks him to be -sure and wake him early in the morning; Jocrisse answers: “Right, sir, -depend on me; <i>but of course you’ll ring</i>!‗T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> The Girondists (so called from Gironde, a district of -Bordeaux) were the more sober republican party in the Assembly, who were -forced by circumstances to join the Jacobins against Louis XVI. With -their fall from power in the early summer of 1792 the last hope of the -monarchy disappeared.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> Referring to the horrible massacres of September, 1792, -when about 1400 victims perished.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> The French Dick Turpin. Of good education, he formed when -quite a youth a band of robbers, and became the terror of France. Like -Turpin, he is the subject of dramas and stories.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> A forest near Paris, on the line to Avricourt. It was a -famous haunt of brigands. There is a well-known story of a dog which -attacked and killed the murderer of its master there.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> Literally “cut-topâ€: we have no equivalent in -English.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> A five-act comedy by Victorien Sardou.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> The nickname given to the Jacobins, the extreme -revolutionists, who sat on the highest seats on the left in the National -Assembly.—T.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> Which were the strict preserves of the aristocrats: to -fish in them was as great a crime as to shoot a landlord’s rabbit was, a -few years ago, in England.—T.</p></div> - -</div> -<hr class="full" /> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Legends of the Bastille, by Frantz Funck-Brentano - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEGENDS OF THE BASTILLE *** - -***** This file should be named 43231-h.htm or 43231-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/2/3/43231/ - -Produced by Chris Curnow, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Legends of the Bastille - -Author: Frantz Funck-Brentano - -Translator: George Maidment - -Release Date: July 16, 2013 [EBook #43231] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEGENDS OF THE BASTILLE *** - - - - -Produced by Chris Curnow, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - DOWNEY & CO.'S - - _NEW PUBLICATIONS_. - - - =MEDICINE AND THE MIND.= Translated from the French of MAURICE DE - FLEURY by S. B. COLLINS, M.D. 16_s._ - - *** This work has been crowned by the French Academy. - - =OLD LONDON TAVERNS.= By EDWARD CALLOW. Illustrated. 6_s._ - - =THE GOOD QUEEN CHARLOTTE.= By PERCY FITZGERALD. With a Photogravure - reproduction of Gainsborough's Portrait and other Illustrations. - Demy 8vo. 10_s._ 6_d._ - - =THE LIFE OF JOHN MYTTON.= By NIMROD. An entirely new edition printed - from new type. With 20 Coloured Plates reproduced from Alken's - Drawings. 42_s._ net. - - =GOSSIP OF THE CENTURY.= By Mrs. PITT BYRNE. 4 vols. with numerous - Illustrations. 42_s._ - - =THE ACTOR AND HIS ART.= By STANLEY JONES. Crown 8vo. With Cover - designed by H. MITCHELL. 3_s._ 6_d._ - - - - - LEGENDS OF THE BASTILLE - -[Illustration: MODEL OF THE BASTILLE, CARVED IN ONE OF THE STONES OF THE -FORTRESS. - -_One of these models, made by the instructions of the architect Palloy, -was sent to the chief-town of every department in France._] - - - - - Legends of - the Bastille - - BY - FRANTZ FUNCK-BRENTANO - - _WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY VICTORIEN SARDOU_ - - AUTHORISED TRANSLATION BY - GEORGE MAIDMENT - - WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS - - LONDON - DOWNEY & CO. LIMITED - 1899 - - - - -BIBLIOGRAPHY - - - _Legendes et Archives de la Bastille._ Paris: Hachette et Cie., - 1898; second edition, 1899. Crowned by the French Academy. - - _Die Bastille in der Legende und nach historischen Documenten._ - German translation by Oscar Marschall von Bieberstein. Breslau: - Schottlaender, 1899. - - - - -TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE - - -In his own entertaining way, Mr. Andrew Lang has recently been taking -the scientific historian to task, and giving him a very admirable lesson -on "history as she ought to be wrote." But though the two professors to -whom he mainly addresses himself are Frenchmen, it would be doing an -injustice to France to infer that she is the _alma mater_ of the modern -dryasdust. The exact contrary is the case: France is rich in historical -writers like the Comte d'Haussonville, M. de Maulde la Claviere, M. -Gaston Boissier, to name only a few, who know how to be accurate without -being dull. - -M. Funck-Brentano, whom I have the honour of introducing here to the -English public, belongs to the same class. Of literary parentage and -connections--his uncle is Professor Lujo Brentano, whose work on the -English trade gilds is a standard--he entered in his twentieth year the -Ecole des Chartes, the famous institution which trains men in the -methods of historical research. At the end of his three years' course, -he was appointed to succeed Francois Ravaisson in the work of -classifying the archives of the Bastille in the Arsenal Library,--a work -which occupied him for more than ten years. One fruit of it is to be -seen in the huge catalogue of more than one thousand pages, printed -under official auspices and awarded the Prix Le Dissez de Penanrum by -the Academie des Sciences morales et politiques. Another is the present -work, which has been crowned by the French Academy. Meanwhile M. -Funck-Brentano had been pursuing his studies at the Sorbonne and at -Nancy, and his French thesis for the doctorate in letters was a volume -on the origins of the Hundred Years' War, which obtained for him the -highest possible distinction for a work of erudition in France, the -Grand Prix Gobert. This volume he intends to follow up with two others, -completing a social rather than a military history of the war, and this -no doubt he regards as his _magnum opus_. He is known also as a lecturer -in Belgium and Alsace as well as in Paris, and being general secretary -of the Societe des Etudes historiques and deputy professor of history at -the College of France as well as sub-librarian of the Arsenal Library, -he leads a busy life. - -Trained in the rigorous methods of the Ecole des Chartes and inspired by -the examples of Fustel de Coulanges and M. Paul Meyer, M. Funck-Brentano -has developed a most interesting and conscientious method of his own. He -depends on original sources, and subjects these to the most searching -critical tests; but this is a matter of course: his individuality -appears in regard to the publication of the results of his researches. -When he has discoveries of importance to communicate, he gives them to -the world first in the form of articles or studies in reviews of -standing, thus preparing public opinion, and at the same time affording -opportunities for the search-light of criticism to play on his work. -Some of the chapters of this book thus appeared in the various _revues_, -and have subsequently gone through a severe process of pruning and -amending. It is now eleven years since the first appearance, in the -pages of the _Revue des deux Mondes_, of the study of Latude which, in a -much altered shape, now forms one of the most interesting portions of -this book. The coming autumn will see the publication in France of a -striking work by M. Funck-Brentano on the amazing poison-dramas at Louis -XIV.'s court, and of this book also the several sections have been -appearing at intervals for several years past. - -The present work, as I have already said, is the fruit of many years of -research. Its startling revelations, so well summarized in M. Victorien -Sardou's Introduction, have revolutionized public opinion in France, and -in particular the solution of the old problem of the identity of the Man -in the Iron Mask has been accepted as final by all competent critics. -The _Athenaeum_, in reviewing the book in its French form the other day, -said that it must be taken cautiously as an ingenious bit of special -pleading, and that the Bastille appears in M. Funck-Brentano's pages in -altogether too roseate hues, suggesting further that no such results -could be obtained without prejudice from the same archives as those on -which Charpentier founded his _La Bastille devoilee_ in 1789. This -criticism seems to me to ignore several important points. Charpentier's -book, written in the heat of the revolutionary struggle, is not a -history, but a political pamphlet, which, in the nature of the case, was -bound to represent the Bastille as a horror. Moreover, Charpentier could -only have depended superficially on the archives, which, as M. -Funck-Brentano shows, were thrown into utter disorder on the day of the -capture of the Bastille. The later writer, on the other hand, approached -the subject when the revolutionary ardours had quite burnt out, and with -the independent and dispassionate mind of a trained official. He spent -thirteen years in setting the rediscovered archives in order, after his -predecessor Ravaisson had already spent a considerable time at the same -work. He was able, further (as Charpentier certainly was not), to -complete and check the testimony of the archives by means of the memoirs -of prisoners--the Abbe Morellet, Marmontel, Renneville, Dumouriez, and a -host of others. In these circumstances it would be surprising if his -conclusions were not somewhat different from those of Charpentier a -hundred years ago. - -The gravamen of the _Athenaeun's_ objection is that M. Funck-Brentano's -description of the treatment of prisoners in the Bastille applies only -to the favoured few, the implication being that M. Funck-Brentano has -shut his eyes to the cases of the larger number. But surely the reviewer -must have read the book too rapidly. M. Funck-Brentano shows, by means -of existing and accessible documents, that the fact of being sent to the -Bastille at all was itself, in the eighteenth century at least, a mark -of favour. Once at the Bastille, the prisoner, whoever he might be, was -treated without severity, unless he misbehaved. Prisoners of no social -importance, such as Renneville, Latude (a servant's love-child), -Tavernier (son of a house-porter), were fed and clothed and cared for -much better than they would have been outside the prison walls. A young -man named Estival de Texas, who was being exiled to Canada because he -was a disgrace to his family, wrote to the minister of Paris on June 22, -1726, from the roadstead of La Rochelle: "Your lordship is sending me to -a wild country, huddled with mean wretches, and condemned to a fare very -different from what your lordship granted me in the Bastille." Here was -a friendless outcast looking back regretfully on his prison fare! On -February 6, 1724, one of the king's ministers wrote to the lieutenant -of police: "I have read to the duke of Bourbon the letter you sent me -about the speeches of M. Queheon, and his royal highness has instructed -me to send you an order and a _lettre de cachet_ authorizing his removal -to the Bastille. But as he thinks that this is _an honour the fellow -little deserves_, he wishes you to postpone the execution of the warrant -for three days, in order to see if Queheon will not take the hint and -leave Paris as he was commanded." It is on such documents as these, -which are to be seen in hundreds at the Arsenal Library in Paris, that -M. Funck-Brentano has founded his conclusions. Anyone who attacks him on -his own ground is likely to come badly off. - -With M. Funck-Brentano's permission, I have omitted the greater part of -his footnotes, which are mainly references to documents inaccessible to -the English reader. On the other hand, I have ventured to supply a few -footnotes in explanation of such allusions as the Englishman not reading -French (and the translation is intended for no others) might not -understand. On the same principle I have attempted rhymed renderings of -two or three scraps of verse quoted from Regnier and Voltaire, to whom I -make my apologies. The proofs have had the advantage of revision by M. -Funck-Brentano, who is, however, in no way responsible for any -shortcomings. The Index appears in the English version alone. - -The portrait of Latude and the views of the Bastille are reproduced from -photographs of the originals specially taken by M. A. Bresson, of 40 Rue -de Passy, Paris. - -GEORGE MAIDMENT. - -_August, 1899._ - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - -INTRODUCTION 1 - - -CHAPTER I. - -THE ARCHIVES 47 - - -CHAPTER II. - -HISTORY OF THE BASTILLE 57 - - -CHAPTER III. - -LIFE IN THE BASTILLE 85 - - -CHAPTER IV. - -THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK 114 - - -CHAPTER V. - -MEN OF LETTERS IN THE BASTILLE 147 - - I. VOLTAIRE 148 - - II. LA BEAUMELLE 152 - -III. THE ABBE MORELLET 155 - - IV. MARMONTEL 158 - - V. LINGUET 163 - - VI. DIDEROT 165 - -VII. THE MARQUIS DE MIRABEAU 166 - - -CHAPTER VI. - -LATUDE 168 - - -CHAPTER VII. - -THE FOURTEENTH OF JULY 238 - -INDEX 277 - - - - -LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - -Model of the Bastille _Frontispiece_ - -Facsimile of Du Junca's note regarding the -entry of the Iron Mask _Facing page_ 115 - -Facsimile of Du Junca's note regarding the -death of the Iron Mask " 116 - -Facsimile of the Iron Mask's burial certificate " 142 - -Facsimile of the cover of Latude's explosive box " 173 - -Facsimile of Latude's writing with blood on linen " 188 - -Portrait of Latude " 229 - -The Capture of the Bastille " 257 - - - - -INTRODUCTION - - -At the great Exhibition of 1889 I visited, in company with some friends, -the reproduction of the Bastille, calculated to give all who saw it--and -the whole world must have seen it--an entirely false impression. - -You had barely cleared the doorway when you saw, in the gloom, an old -man enveloped in a long white beard, lying on the "sodden straw" of -tradition, rattling his chains and uttering doleful cries. And the guide -said to you, not without emotion, "You see here the unfortunate Latude, -who remained in this position, with both arms thus chained behind his -back, for thirty-five years!" - -This information I completed by adding in the same tone: "And it was in -this attitude that he so cleverly constructed the ladder, a hundred and -eighty feet long, which enabled him to escape." - -The company looked at me with surprise, the guide with a scowl, and I -slipped away. - -The same considerations that prompted my intervention have suggested to -M. Funck-Brentano this work on the Bastille, in which he has set the -facts in their true light, and confronted the legends which everyone -knows with the truth of which many are in ignorance. - -For in spite of all that has been written on the subject by Ravaisson, -in the introduction to his _Archives of the Bastille_, by Victor -Fournel, in his _Men of the Fourteenth of July_, and by other writers, -the popular idea of the internal administration of the Bastille in 1789 -holds by the description of Louis Blanc: "Iron cages, recalling -Plessis-les-Tours[1] and the tortures of Cardinal La Balue![2]--underground -dungeons, the loathsome haunts of toads, lizards, enormous rats, -spiders--the whole furniture consisting of one huge stone covered with a -little straw, where the prisoner breathed poison in the very air.... -Enveloped in the shades of mystery, kept in absolute ignorance of the -crime with which he was charged, and the kind of punishment awaiting -him, he ceased to belong to the earth!" - -If this Bastille of melodrama ever had any existence, the Bastille of -the eighteenth century bore the least possible resemblance to it. In -1789, these dungeons on the ground floor of the fortress, with windows -looking on the moats, were no longer reserved, as under Louis XV., for -prisoners condemned to death, dangerous madmen, or prisoners who had -been insolent, obstreperous, or violent; nor for warders guilty of -breaches of discipline. At the time of Necker's first ministry, the use -of these dungeons had been abolished altogether. - -The prisoner, put through an interrogation in the early days of his -detention, was never left in ignorance of the "delinquency" with which -he was charged, and had no reason to be concerned about the kind of -punishment awaiting him; for there had been neither torture nor -punishment of any kind at the Bastille for a hundred years. - -Instead of a dungeon or a cage of iron, every prisoner occupied a room -of fair size, its greatest defect being that it was rather poorly -lighted by a narrow window, secured by bars, some of them projecting -inwards. It was sufficiently furnished; and there was nothing to hinder -the prisoner from getting in more furniture from outside. Moreover, he -could procure whatever clothing and linen he desired, and if he had no -means to pay for them, money was supplied. Latude complained of -rheumatism, and furs were at once given him. He wanted a dressing-gown -of "red-striped calamanco"; the shops were ransacked to gratify him. A -certain Hugonnet complained that he had not received the shirts "with -embroidered ruffles" which he had asked for. A lady named Sauve wanted a -dress of white silk spotted with green flowers. In all Paris there was -only a white dress with green stripes to be found, with which it was -hoped that she would be satisfied. - -Every room was provided with a fireplace or a stove. Firewood was -supplied, and light; the prisoner could have as many candles as he -pleased. Paper, pens, and ink were at his disposal; though he was -deprived of them temporarily if he made bad use of them, like Latude, -who scribbled all day long only to heap insults in his letters on the -governor and the lieutenant of police. He could borrow books from the -library, and was at liberty to have books sent in from outside. La -Beaumelle had six hundred volumes in his room. He might breed birds, -cats, and dogs--by no means being reduced to taming the legendary spider -of Pellisson,[3] which figures also in the story of Lauzun,[4] and, -indeed, of all prisoners in every age. Instruments of music were -allowed. Renneville played the fiddle, and Latude the flute. There were -concerts in the prisoners' rooms and in the apartments of the governor. - -Every prisoner could work at embroidery, at the turning lathe, or the -joiner's bench, at pleasure. All whose conduct was irreproachable were -allowed to come and go, to pay each other visits, to play at -backgammon, cards, or chess in their rooms; at skittles, bowls, or -_tonneau_[5] in the courtyard. La Rouerie asked for a billiard table for -himself and his friends, and he got it. - -The prisoners were permitted to walk on the platform of the fortress, -from which they could see the people passing up and down the Rue -Saint-Antoine and the vicinity, and watch the animated crowds on the -boulevard at the hours when fashionable people were accustomed to take -their drives. By the aid of telescopes and big letters written on boards -they were able to communicate with the people of the neighbourhood, and, -like Latude, to keep up a secret correspondence with the grisettes of -the district. Michelet, with too obvious a design, declares that under -Louis XVI. the regulations of the prison were more severe than under -Louis XV., and that this promenade on the platform was done away with. -There is not a word of truth in it. The promenade was forbidden only to -those prisoners who, like the Marquis de Sade, took advantage of it to -stir up riots among the passers-by; and from the accession of Louis -XVI. and the visitation of Malesherbes,[6] the rule of the prison grew -milder day by day. - -Certain of the prisoners were invited to dine with the governor, and to -walk in his gardens, in excellent company. Some were allowed to leave -the fortress, on condition of returning in the evening; others were even -allowed to remain out all night! - -Those who had servants could have them in attendance if the servants -were willing to share their captivity. Or they had room-mates, as was -the case with Latude and Allegre. - -In regard to food, the prisoners are unanimous in declaring that it was -abundant and good. "I had five dishes at dinner," says Dumouriez, "and -five at supper, without reckoning dessert." The Provost de Beaumont -declared that he had quitted the Bastille with regret, because there he -had been able to eat and drink to his heart's content. Poultier -d'Elmotte says: "M. de Launey had many a friendly chat with me, and -sent me what dishes I wished for." Baron Hennequin, a hypochondriac who -found fault with everything, confesses nevertheless that they gave him -more meat than he could eat. The Abbe de Buquoy affirms that he fared -sumptuously, and that it was the king's intention that the prisoners -should be well fed. The splenetic Linguet owns, in his pamphlet, that he -had three good meals a day, and that meat was supplied to him in such -quantities that his suspicions were aroused: "They meant to poison me!" -he says. But he omits to say that de Launey sent him every morning the -menu for the day, on which he marked down with his own hand the dishes -he fancied, "choosing always the most dainty, and in sufficient -quantities to have satisfied five or six epicures." - -In Louis XIV.'s time, Renneville drew up the following list of dishes -served to him: "Oysters, prawns, fowls, capons, mutton, veal, young -pigeons; forcemeat pies and patties; asparagus, cauliflower, green peas, -artichokes; salmon, soles, pike, trout, every kind of fish whether -fresh-water or salt; pastry, and fruits in their season." We find Latude -complaining that the fowls given him were not stuffed! M. -Funck-Brentano tells the amusing story of Marmontel's eating by mistake -the dinner intended for his servant, and finding it excellent. - -Mdlle. de Launay, afterwards Madame de Staal, who was imprisoned for -complicity in the Cellamare[7] plot, relates that on the first evening -of her sojourn in the Bastille, she and her maid were both terrified by -the strange and prolonged sound, beneath their feet, of a mysterious -machine, which conjured up visions of an instrument of torture. When -they came to inquire, they found that their room was over the kitchen, -and the terrible machine was the roasting-jack! - -The prisoners were not only allowed to receive visits from their -relations and friends, but to keep them to dinner or to make up a -rubber. Thus Madame de Staal held receptions in the afternoon, and in -the evening there was high play. "And this time," she says, "was the -happiest in my life." - -Bussy-Rabutin received the whole court, and all his friends--especially -those of the fair sex. M. de Bonrepos--an assumed name--was so -comfortable in the Bastille that when he was directed to retire to the -Invalides,[8] he could only be removed by force. - -"I there spent six weeks," says Morellet, "so pleasantly, that I chuckle -to this day when I think of them." And when he left, he exclaimed: "God -rest those jolly tyrants!" - -Voltaire remained there for twelve days, with a recommendation from the -lieutenant of police that he should be treated with all the -consideration "due to his genius." - -The objection may be raised that these cases are all of great lords or -men of letters, towards whom the government of those days was -exceptionally lenient. (How delightful to find writers put on the same -footing with peers!) But the objection is groundless. - -I have referred to Renneville and Latude, prisoners of very little -account. The one was a spy; the other a swindler. In the three-volume -narrative left us by Renneville, you hear of nothing but how he kept -open house and made merry with his companions. They gambled and smoked, -ate and drank, fuddled and fought, gossiped with their neighbours of -both sexes, and passed one another pastry and excellent wine through the -chimneys. How gladly the prisoners in our jails to-day would accommodate -themselves to such a life! Renneville, assuredly, was not treated with -the same consideration as Voltaire; but, frankly, would you have wished -it? - -As to Latude--who was supplied with dressing-gowns to suit his -fancy--the reader will see from M. Funck-Brentano's narrative that no -one but himself was to blame if he did not dwell at Vincennes[9] or in -the Bastille on the best of terms--or even leave his prison at the -shortest notice, by the front gate, and with a well-lined pocket. - -For that was one of the harsh measures of this horrible Bastille--to -send away the poor wretches, when their time was expired, with a few -hundred livres in their pockets, and to compensate such as were found to -be innocent! See what M. Funck-Brentano says of Sube, who, for a -detention of eighteen days, received 3000 livres (L240 to-day), or of -others, who, after an imprisonment of two years, were consoled with an -annual pension of 2400 francs of our reckoning. Voltaire spent twelve -days in the Bastille, and was assured of an annual pension of 1200 -livres for life. What is to be said now of our contemporary justice, -which, after some months of imprisonment on suspicion, dismisses the -poor fellow, arrested by mistake, with no other indemnity than the -friendly admonition: "Go! and take care we don't catch you again!" - -Some wag will be sure to say that I am making out the Bastille to have -been a palace of delight. We can spare him his little jest. A prison is -always a prison, however pleasant it may be; and the best of cheer is no -compensation for the loss of liberty. But there is a wide difference, it -will be granted, between the reality and the notion generally -held--between this "hotel for men of letters," as some one called it, -and the hideous black holes of our system of solitary confinement. I -once said that I should prefer three years in the Bastille to three -months at Mazas.[10] I do not retract. - - * * * * * - -Linguet and Latude, unquestionably, were the two men whose habit of -drawing the long bow has done most to propagate the fables about the -Bastille, the falsity of which is established by incontrovertible -documents. Party spirit has not failed to take seriously the interested -calumnies of Linguet, who used his spurious martyrdom to advertise -himself, and the lies of Latude, exploiting to good purpose a captivity -which he had made his career. - -Let us leave Linguet, who, after having so earnestly urged the -demolition of the Bastille, had reason to regret it at the Conciergerie -at the moment of mounting the revolutionary tumbril, and speak a little -of the other, this captive who was as ingenious in escaping from prison, -when locked up, as in hugging his chains when offered the means of -release. - -For the bulk of mankind, thirty-five years of captivity was the price -Latude paid for a mere practical joke: the sending to Madame de -Pompadour of a harmless powder that was taken for poison. The punishment -is regarded as terrific: I do not wonder at it. But if, instead of -relying on the gentleman's own fanfaronades, the reader will take the -trouble to look at the biography written by M. Funck-Brentano and amply -supported by documents, he will speedily see that if Latude remained in -prison for thirty-five years, it was entirely by his own choice; and -that his worst enemy, his most implacable persecutor, the author of all -his miseries was--himself. - -If, after the piece of trickery which led to his arrest, he had followed -the advice of the excellent Berryer, who counselled patience and -promised his speedy liberation, he might have got off with a few months -of restraint at Vincennes, where his confinement was so rigorous that he -had only to push the garden gate to be free! - -That was the first folly calculated to injure his cause, for the new -fault was more serious than the old. He was caught; he was locked in the -cells of the Bastille: but the kind-hearted Berryer soon removed him. -Instead of behaving himself quietly, however, our man begins to grow -restless, to harangue, to abuse everybody, and on the books lent him to -scribble insulting verses on the Pompadour. But they allow him an -apartment, then give him a servant, then a companion, Allegre. And then -comes the famous escape. One hardly knows which to wonder at the most: -the ingenuity of the two rogues, or the guileless management of this -prison which allows them to collect undisturbed a gimlet, a saw, a -compass, a pulley, fourteen hundred feet of rope, a rope ladder 180 feet -long, with 218 wooden rungs; to conceal all these between the floor and -the ceiling below, without anyone ever thinking to look there; and, -after having cut through a wall four and a half feet thick, to get clear -away without firing a shot! - -They were not the first to get across those old walls. Renneville -mentions several escapes, the most famous being that of the Abbe de -Buquoy.[11] But little importance seems to have been attached to them. - -With Allegre and Latude it was a different matter. The passers-by must -have seen, in the early morning, the ladder swinging from top to bottom -of the wall, and the escape was no longer a secret. The Bastille is -discredited. It is possible, then, to escape from it. The chagrined -police are on their mettle. There will be laughter at their expense. The -fugitives are both well known, too. They will take good care to spread -the story of their escape, with plenty of gibes against the governor, -the lieutenant of police, the ministry, the favourite, the king! This -scandal must be averted at any cost; the fugitives must be caught! - -And we cannot help pitying these two wretches who, after a flight so -admirably contrived, got arrested so stupidly: Allegre at Brussels, -through an abusive letter written to the Pompadour; Latude in Holland, -through a letter begging help from his mother. - -Latude is again under lock and key, and this time condemned to a -stricter confinement. And then the hubbub begins again: outcries, -demands, acts of violence, threats! He exasperates and daunts men who -had the best will in the world to help him. He is despatched to the -fortress of Vincennes, and promised his liberty if he will only keep -quiet. His liberation, on his own showing, was but a matter of days. He -is allowed to walk on the bank of the moat. He takes advantage of it to -escape again! - -Captured once more, he is once more lodged at Vincennes, and the whole -business begins over again. But they are good enough to consider him a -little mad, and after a stay at Charenton,[12] where he was very well -treated, he at last gets his dismissal, with the recommendation to -betake himself to his own part of the country quietly. Ah, that would -not be like Latude! He scampers over Paris, railing against De Sartine, -De Marigny; hawking his pamphlets; claiming 150,000 livres as -damages!--and, finally, extorting money from a charitable lady by -menaces! - -This is the last straw. Patience is exhausted, and he is clapped into -Bicetre[13] as a dangerous lunatic. Imagine his fury and disgust! - -Let us be just. Suppose, in our own days, a swindler, sentenced to a few -months' imprisonment, insulting the police, the magistrates, the court, -the president; sentenced on this account to a longer term, escaping -once, twice, a third time; always caught, put in jail again, sentenced -to still longer terms: then when at last released, after having done his -time, scattering broadcast insulting libels against the chief of police, -the ministers, the parliament, and insisting on the President of the -Republic paying him damages to the tune of 150,000 francs; to crown it -all, getting money out of some good woman by working on her fears! You -will agree with me that such a swaggering blade would not have much -difficulty in putting together thirty-five years in jail! - -But these sentences would of course be public, and provide no soil for -the growth of those legends to which closed doors always give rise. Yet -in all that relates to the causes and the duration of the man's -imprisonment, his case would be precisely that of Latude--except that -for him there would be no furs, no promenading in the gardens, no -stuffed fowls for his lunch! - -Besides some fifty autograph letters from Latude, addressed from Bicetre -to his good angel, Madame Legros, in which he shows himself in his true -character, an intriguing, vain, insolent, bragging, insupportable -humbug, I have one, written to M. de Sartine, which Latude published as -a pendant to the pamphlet with which he hoped to move Madame de -Pompadour to pity, and in which every phrase is an insult. This letter -was put up at public auction, and these first lines of it were -reproduced in the catalogue:-- - -"I am supporting with patience the loss of my best years and of my -fortune. I am enduring my rheumatism, the weakness of my arm, and a ring -of iron around my body for the rest of my life!" - -A journalist, one of those who learn their history from Louis Blanc, had -a vision of Latude for ever riveted by a ring of iron to a pillar in -some underground dungeon, and exclaimed with indignation: "A ring of -iron! How horrible!" - -And it was only a linen band! - -That fabulous iron collar is a type of the whole legend of the -unfortunate Latude! - - * * * * * - -Everything connected with the Bastille has assumed a fabulous character. - -What glorious days were those of the 13th and 14th of July, as the -popular imagination conjures them up in reliance on Michelet, who, in a -vivid, impassioned, picturesque, dramatic, admirable style, has -written, not the history, but the romance of the French Revolution! - -Look at his account of the 13th. He shows you all Paris in revolt -against Versailles, and with superb enthusiasm running to arms to try -issues with the royal army. It is fine as literature. Historically, it -is pure fiction. - -The Parisians were assuredly devoted to the "new ideas," that is, the -suppression of the abuses and the privileges specified in the memorials -of the States General; in a word, to the reforms longed for by the whole -of France. But they had no conception of gaining them without the -concurrence of the monarchy, to which they were sincerely attached. That -crowd of scared men running to the Hotel de Ville to demand arms, who -are represented by the revolutionary writers as exasperated by the -dismissal of Necker and ready to undermine the throne for the sake of -that Genevan, were much less alarmed at what was hatching at Versailles -than at what was going on in Paris. If they wished for arms, it was for -their own security. The dissolution of the National Assembly, which was -regarded as certain, was setting all minds in a ferment, and -ill-designing people took advantage of the general uneasiness and -agitation to drive matters to the worst extremities, creating disorder -everywhere. The police had disappeared; the streets were in the hands of -the mob. Bands of ruffians--among them those ill-favoured rascals who -since the month of May had been flocking, as at a word of command, into -Paris from heaven knows where, and who had already been seen at work, -pillaging Reveillon's[14] establishment--roamed in every direction, -insulting women, stripping wayfarers, looting the shops, opening the -prisons, burning the barriers. On July 13 the electors of Paris resolved -on the formation of a citizen militia for the protection of the town, -and the scheme was adopted on the same day by every district, with -articles of constitution, quoted by M. Funck-Brentano, which specify the -intentions of the signatories. It was expressly in self-defence against -the "Brigands," as they were called, that the citizen militia was -formed: "To protect the citizens," ran the minutes of the -Petit-Saint-Antoine district, "against the dangers which threaten them -each individually." "In a word," says M. Victor Fournel, "the -dominating sentiment was fear. Up till the 14th of July, the Parisian -middle-classes showed far more concern at the manifold excesses -committed by the populace after Necker's dismissal than at the schemes -of the court." And M. Jacques Charavay, who was the first to publish the -text of the minutes in question, says not a word too much when he draws -from them this conclusion: "The movement which next day swept away the -Bastille might possibly have been stifled by the National Guard, if its -organization had had greater stability." - -All that was wanting to these good intentions was direction, a man at -the helm, and particularly the support of Besenval. But his conduct was -amazing! He left Versailles with 35,000 men and an order signed by the -king--obtained not without difficulty--authorizing him "to repel force -by force." Now let us see a summary of his military operations:-- - -On the 13th, towards four o'clock in the afternoon, a skirmish of the -German regiment on the Place Vendome, where it came into collision with -the "demonstration"--as we should say to-day--which was displaying busts -of Necker and the Duke of Orleans, and dispersed it. - -At six o'clock, a march of the same horse soldiers to the -swinging-bridge of the Tuileries, where they had five or six chairs -thrown at their head; and the massacre, by M. de Lambesc, of the -legendary grey-beard who, an hour after, was describing his tragic end -at the Palais-Royal! - -At nine o'clock, a military promenade of the same regiment along the -boulevards. A volley from the Gardes Francaises slew two of their -number, and the regiment beat a retreat without returning fire, to the -great surprise of M. de Maleissye, officer of the Guards. For, by his -own confession, if the cavalry had charged, it would easily have routed -the Gardes Francaises "in the state of drunkenness in which they then -were." - -And Besenval, terrified at such a resistance, assembled all his troops, -shut himself up with them in the Champ de Mars, and did not move another -step! - -We ask ourselves, "Was he a fool? or was he a traitor?" He was a fool, -for he thought he had "three hundred thousand men" in front of him, took -every excited person for a rebel, and did not understand that out of -every hundred Parisians there were ninety who were relying on him to -bring the mutineers to reason. - -He had no confidence in his troops, he said. - -It was rather for them to have no confidence in him, and to lose heart -utterly at such a spectacle of cowardice. But he was slandering them. -One solitary regiment showed disloyalty. And if he had only given the -Swiss the word to march, their conduct on August 10 gives ample proof -that they could have been depended on. - -"And then," says he again, "I was fearful of letting loose civil war!" - -Indeed! And so a soldier going to suppress a revolt is not to run the -risk of fighting! - -Last reason of all: "I requested orders from Versailles--and did not get -them!" - -What, then, had he in his pocket? - -Finally, after having sent word to Flesselles and De Launey to maintain -their position till he arrived, and after having allowed the arms of the -Invalides to be looted under his eyes without a single effort to save -them, he waited till the Bastille was taken before making up his mind to -leave the Champ de Mars, and to return quietly to Versailles with his -35,000 men, who had not fired a shot! - -Ah! those were the days for rioting! - - * * * * * - -"On July 13," says Michelet, "Paris was defending herself." (Against -whom?) "On the 14th, she attacked! A voice wakened her and cried, 'On, -and take the Bastille!' And that day was the day of the entire People!" - -Admirable poetry; but every word a lie! - -Listen to Marat, who is not open to suspicion, and who saw things at -closer quarters. "The Bastille, badly defended, was captured by a -handful of soldiers and a gang of wretches for the most part Germans and -provincials. The Parisians, those everlasting star-gazers, came there -out of curiosity!" - -In reality, Michelet's "entire people" reduces itself to a bare thousand -assailants, of whom three hundred at most took part in the fight: Gardes -Francaises and deserters of all arms, lawyers' clerks, and citizens who -had lost their heads: fine fellows who thought themselves engaged in -meritorious work in rushing on these inoffensive walls; bandits -attracted by the riot which promised them theft and murder with -impunity. And a number of mere spectators--spectators above all! - -"I was present," says Chancellor Pasquier, "at the taking of the -Bastille. What is called the fight was not serious. The resistance was -absolutely nil. The truth is, that this grand fight did not cause an -instant's alarm to the spectators, who had flocked up to see the result. -Among them there were many ladies of the greatest elegance. In order to -get more easily to the front they had left their carriages at a -distance. By my side was Mdlle. Contat, of the Comedie Francaise. We -stayed to see the finish, and then I escorted her on my arm to her -carriage in the Place Royale." - -"The Bastille was not taken; truth must be told, it surrendered." It is -Michelet himself who makes this statement, and he adds: "what ruined it -was its own evil conscience!" - -It would be too simple to acknowledge that it was the incapacity of its -governor. - -There is no connoisseur in old prints but is acquainted with those -last-century views which represent the taking of the Bastille. The -platform of the fortress bristles with cannon all firing together, -"belching forth death,"--without the slightest attention on the part of -the assailants, for all the balls from this artillery, passing over -their heads, would only kill inoffensive wayfarers without so much as -scratching a single one of the besiegers! - -And the Bastille did not fire a single shot in self-defence! - -In the morning, at the request of Thuriot de la Roziere, De Launey had -readily consented to the withdrawal of the fifteen cannon of the -platform from their embrasures, and had blocked up the embrasures with -planks. Of the three guns which later on he ranged batterywise before -the entrance gate, not one was effective, and the discharge attributed -to one of them came from a piece of ordnance on the wall. - -He placed such absolute reliance on succour from Besenval that, on -evacuating the arsenal and getting the whole garrison together into the -Bastille--eighty-two Invalides and M. de Flue's thirty-two Swiss--he had -forgotten to increase his stock of provisions. Now, the Bastille had no -reserve of provisions. Every morning, like a good housewife, it received -the goods ordered the night before, brought by the different purveyors; -on this day, they were intercepted. So it happened that at three o'clock -in the afternoon the garrison was without its usual rations, and the -Invalides, who had been for a week past going in and out of all the inns -in the neighbourhood, and were disposed to open the doors to their good -friends of the suburbs, used the scantiness of their rations as a -pretext for mutiny, for refusing to fight, and for muddling the brains, -never very clear, of the unhappy De Launey. - -"On the day of my arrival," says De Flue, "I was able to take this man's -measure from the absolutely imbecile preparations which he made for the -defence of his position. I saw clearly that we should be very poorly led -in case of attack. He was so struck with terror at the idea of it that, -when night came on, he took the shadows of trees for enemies! Incapable, -irresolute, devoting all his attention to trifles and neglecting -important duties--such was the man." - -Abandoned by Besenval, instead of cowing his Invalides into obedience by -his energy, and maintaining his position to famishing point behind walls -over which the balls of the besiegers flew without killing more than -one man, De Launey lost his head, made a feint of firing the powder -magazine, capitulated, and opened his gates to men who, as Chateaubriand -says, "could never have cleared them if he had only kept them shut." - -If this poor creature had done his duty, and Besenval had done his, -things would have had quite a different complexion. That is not to say -that the Revolution would have been averted--far from it! The Revolution -was legitimate, desirable, and, under the generous impulse of a whole -nation, irresistible. But it would have followed another bent, and would -have triumphed at a slighter cost, with less ruin and less bloodshed. -The consequences of the 14th of July were disastrous. The mere words, -"The Bastille is taken!" were the signal for the most frightful -disorders throughout France. It seemed as though those old walls were -dragging down with them in their fall all authority, all respect, all -discipline; as though the floodgates were being opened to every kind of -excess. Peasants went about in bands, ravaging, pillaging, firing the -chateaux, the burghers' houses, and burning alive those who fell into -their hands. The soldiers mutinied, insulted their chiefs, and fell to -carousing with the malefactors whom they set free. There was not a town -or village where the mob did not put on menacing airs, where decent -people were not molested by the brawlers of the clubs and the -street-corners. Such violence led to a rapid reaction, and there were -numerous defections--of men who, on the very eve of the outbreak, among -the magistracy, the army, the clergy, the nobility, though sympathizing -with the new ideas, abruptly cut themselves loose from the movement, -like the good Duke de la Rochefoucauld, who exclaimed, "Liberty is not -entered by such a door as this!" Hovering between the desire and the -fear of granting the promised reforms, urged on one side to resistance, -on the other to submission, and more than ever destitute of all -political acumen and all will power, the king went to Paris, and, -bending before the revolt, approved of the assassination of his most -faithful servants--and took, on that fatal day, his first step towards -the scaffold! Henceforth, under the pressure of the populace, to whom -its first success had shown the measure of its strength, and who became -every day more exacting, more threatening, the Revolution was to go on -in its perverse course, stumbling at every step, until it came to the -orgy of '93, which, properly speaking, was only the systematizing of -brigandage. Malouet was right indeed: what we symbolize in our festival -of the 14th of July is not the rising sun, the dawn of Liberty; it is -the first lurid lightning flash of the Terror! - -Doctor Rigby, after having walked up and down the whole afternoon in the -Jardin Monceau without the least idea of what was going on in the Suburb -Saint-Antoine, returned in the evening to his house near the -Palais-Royal. He saw the mob reeling in drunkenness. Men and women were -laughing, crying, and embracing one another: "The Bastille is taken! At -last we are free!" And not the least enthusiastic were those very men of -the citizen militia who, ready yesterday to fight the insurrection, were -to-day hailing its triumph! The first sabre brandished by the first -national guard was in point of fact that of Joseph Prudhomme![15] - -All at once this delirious crowd shudders, parts asunder with cries of -horror! - -Down the Rue Saint-Honore comes a yelling mob of wine-soaked -malefactors, bearing along, at the ends of two pikes, the still bleeding -heads of De Launey and De Flesselles! - -And the silly folk, so madly rejoiced by the fall of an imaginary -tyranny which has not even the wits to defend itself, go their several -ways, struck dumb with consternation. - -For here the Real is making its entrance! - - * * * * * - -Do not fancy that because the Bastille has opened its gates, the legends -which give it so cruel a name are going to vanish into thin air, like -the phantoms of an ancient chateau when light is let in. - -While Michelet's "entire Paris" is making short work of the Invalides -who surrendered the place; cutting in pieces the man who prevented its -blowing up; slaughtering Major de Losme, the friend and benefactor of -the prisoners; torturing the hapless De Launey, who, from the Bastille -to the Hotel de Ville, stabbed, slashed, hacked with sabres and pikes -and bayonets, is finally decapitated by the aid of a short knife--an -episode which Michelet skilfully slurs over--while all the criminals of -the district, crowding along in the wake of the combatants, are rushing -to the official buildings, looting, smashing, throwing into the moats -furniture, books, official papers, archives, the remnants of which will -be collected with such difficulty--some good people are saying to -themselves: "But come now, there are some prisoners! Suppose we go and -set them free?" - -Here let us see what Louis Blanc has to say:-- - -"Meanwhile the doors of the cells" (he insists on the cells) "were burst -in with a mighty effort; the prisoners were free! Alas! for three of -them it was too late! The first, whose name was the Comte de Solages, a -victim for seven years of the incomprehensible vengeance of an -implacable father, found neither relatives who would consent to -acknowledge him, nor his property, which had become the prey of covetous -collateral heirs! The second was called Whyte. Of what crime was he -guilty, accused, of, at any rate, suspected? No one has ever known! The -man himself was questioned in vain. In the Bastille he had lost his -reason. The third, Tavernier, at the sight of his deliverers, fancied he -saw his executioners coming, and put himself on the defensive. Throwing -their arms round his neck they undeceived him; but next day he was met -roaming through the town, muttering wild and whirling words. He was -mad!" - -As many wilful errors as there are words! - -The Comte de Solages was an execrable libertine, confined at the request -of his family for "atrocious and notorious crimes." His relatives -nevertheless had the humanity to take him in after his deliverance, and -it was with them that he died in 1825. - -Whyte and Tavernier did not go mad in the Bastille. They were in the -Bastille because they were mad; and the second was, further, implicated -in an assassination. Finding shelter with a perruquier of the -neighbourhood, he set about smashing all his host's belongings, which -necessitated his banishment to Charenton, where Whyte soon rejoined him. -It was not worth the trouble of changing their quarters! - -Four other prisoners who were set free, Correge, Bechade, Pujade, and -Laroche, were imprisoned for forgery. And so Louis Blanc is careful -silently to pass them over! - -Ten days before, another victim of tyranny had been groaning in -irons--the Marquis de Sade, who, from the height of the platform, used -to provoke the passers-by with the aid of a speaking trumpet. De Launey -was compelled to transfer him to Vincennes, thus depriving the victors -of the glory of liberating the future author of _Justine_. The Republic -took its revenge in making him later secretary of the "Pike" ward,[16] -an office for which he was marked out by his virtues! - -But of all these prisoners the most celebrated, the most popular, the -man whose misfortunes all Paris deplored, was the famous Comte de -Lorges, who, according to the biographical sketch devoted to him by the -unknown author of his deliverance, had been shut up for thirty-two -years. The story must be read in the pamphlet of Citizen Rousselet, -conqueror of the Bastille: "The tide of humanity penetrates into ways -narrowed by mistrust. An iron door opens: what does one see? Is this a -man? Good heavens! this old man loaded with irons! the splendour of his -brow, the whiteness of his beard hanging over his breast! What majesty! -the fire still flashing from his eyes seems to shed a gentle light in -this lugubrious abode!" - -Surprised at seeing so many armed men, he asks them if Louis XV. is -still alive. They set him free, they lead him to the Hotel de Ville. - -For fifteen days all Paris went to visit the black dungeon in which this -unhappy wretch had been shut up for so many years without other light -than that which escaped "from his eyes"! A stone from that dungeon had a -place in the Curtius Museum. His portrait was published. A print -represents him at the moment when his chains were broken, seated on a -chair in his cell, a pitcher of water by his side! - -And this hapless greybeard--he was never seen! He never existed! - -In reality there were in the Bastille, on the 14th of July, only seven -prisoners--two madmen, a _Sadique_,[17] and four forgers. But about -their number and their right to imprisonment Michelet remains dumb: to -discuss that would spoil his epic! And he excels in making the most of -everything that can support his case, and in ignoring everything that -damages it. And so he contents himself with speaking of the two who had -"gone mad"!--a prevarication worthy of Louis Blanc, nay, unworthy even -of him! - -The conquerors were somewhat surprised at the small number of victims, -more surprised still to find them comfortably installed in rooms, some -of which were furnished with arm-chairs in Utrecht velvet! The author of -_The Bastille Unmasked_ exclaims: "What! No corpses! No skeletons! No -men in chains!" "The taking of the Bastille," said "Cousin Jacques,"[18] -"has opened the eyes of the public on the kind of captivity experienced -there." - -But in this he was greatly mistaken. Legends die hard! A Bastille -without cells, dungeons, cages of iron! Public opinion did not admit -that it could have been deceived on that point. - -"Several prisoners," says the _History of Remarkable Events_, "were set -at liberty; but some, and perhaps the greater number, had already died -of hunger, because men could not find their way about this monstrous -prison. Some of these prisoners confined within four walls received food -only through holes cut in the wall. A party of prisoners was found -starved to death, because their cells were not discovered till several -days had elapsed!" - -Another pamphlet on the underground cells discovered in the Bastille, -resuscitating an old fable which had already done duty for the Cardinal -de Richelieu, shows us a prisoner taken from his cell and led by the -governor into "a room which had nothing sinister in its appearance. It -was lit by more than fifty candles. Sweet-scented flowers filled it with -a delicious perfume. The tyrant chatted amicably with his prisoner.... -Then he gave the horrible signal: a bascule let into the floor opened, -and the wretched man disappeared, falling upon a wheel stuck with razors -and set in motion by invisible hands." And the author winds up with this -magnificent reflection:--"Such a punishment, so basely contrived, is not -even credible--and yet it was at Paris, in that beautiful and -flourishing city, that this took place!" - -Dorat-Cubieres, who was one of the literary disgraces of the eighteenth -century, goes further! He saw, with his own eyes, one of those dens -where the captive, shut up with enough bread to last him a week, had -thereafter nothing else to subsist on but his own flesh. "In this den," -he says, "we came upon a horrible skeleton, the sight of which made me -shrink back with horror!" - -And the popular picture-mongers did not fail to propagate these -insanities. I have an engraving of the time nicely calculated to stir -sensitive hearts. Upon the steps of a gloomy cellar the conquerors are -dragging along a man whom his uniform shows to be one of the defenders -of the Bastille, and are pointing out to him an old man being carried -away, another being cut down from the ceiling where he is hanging by the -arms; yet others lying on a wheel furnished with iron teeth, chained to -it, twisted into horrible contortions by abominable machines; and in a -recess behind a grating appears the skeleton--which Dorat-Cubieres never -saw! - -The non-existence of these dungeons and holes with skeletons was too -great a shock to settled beliefs. This Bastille _must_ contain concealed -below ground some unknown cells where its victims were moaning! And -naturally enough, when one bent down the ear, one heard their despairing -appeals! But after having pierced through vaults, sunk pits, dug, -sounded everywhere, there was no help for it but to give up these -fancies, though--an agreeable thing to have to say!--with regret. - -They fell back then on instruments of torture. For though the rack had -been abolished for a hundred years, how was it possible to conceive of -the Bastille without some slight instruments of torture? - -They had no difficulty in finding them--"chains," says Louis Blanc, -"which the hands of many innocent men had perhaps worn, machines of -which no one could guess the use: an old iron corslet which seemed to -have been invented to reduce man to everlasting immobility!" - -As a matter of fact, these chains belonged to two statuettes of -prisoners which stood on either side of the great clock in the -courtyard. The machines, the use of which no one could guess, were the -fragments of a clandestine printing-press that had been pulled to -pieces. And the iron corslet was a piece of fifteenth-century armour! - -Skeletons, too, were missing, though indeed some bones were found in the -apartment of the surgeon of the fortress; but the utmost bad faith could -not but be compelled to acknowledge that these were anatomical -specimens. Happily for the legend, a more serious discovery was made: -"two skeletons, chained to a cannon-ball," as the register of the -district of Saint-Louis la Culture declared. - -They both came to light in the rubbish dug out during the construction -of the bastion afterwards turned into a garden for the governor. "One," -says the report of Fourcroy, Vicq-d'Azyr, and Sabatier, instructed to -examine them, "was found turned head downwards on the steps of a steep -staircase, entirely covered with earth, and appears to be that of a -workman who had fallen by accident down this dark staircase, where he -was not seen by the men working at the embankment. The other, carefully -buried in a sort of ditch, had evidently been laid there a long time -previously, before there was any idea of filling up the bastion." - -As to the cannon-ball, it must have dated back to the Fronde.[19] - -But skeletons were necessary! They had found some: they might as well -profit by them! - -The demolisher of the Bastille, that charlatan Palloy, exhibited them to -the veneration of the faithful in a cellar by the light of a funereal -lamp, after which they were honoured with a magnificent funeral, with -drums, clergy, a procession of working men, between two lines of -National Guards, from the Bastille to the Church of St. Paul. And -finally, in the graveyard adjoining the church, they raised to them, -amid four poplars, a monument of which a contemporary print has -preserved the likeness. - -After such a ceremony, dispute if you dare the authenticity of the -relics! - - * * * * * - -The memory of the Man in the Iron Mask is so closely bound up with the -story of the Bastille that M. Funck-Brentano could not neglect this -great enigma about which for two hundred years so much ink has been -spilt. He strips off this famous mask--which, by the way, was of -velvet--and shows us the face which the world has been so anxious to -see: the face of Mattioli, the confidant of the Duke of Mantua and the -betrayer of both Louis XIV. and his own master. - -M. Funck-Brentano's demonstration is so convincing as to leave no room -for doubt. But one dare not hope that the good public will accept his -conclusions as final. To the public, mystery is ever more attractive -than the truth. There is a want of prestige about Mattioli; while about -a twin brother of Louis XIV.--ah, _there_ is something that appeals to -the imagination! - -And then there are the guides, the showmen, to reckon with--those -faithful guardians of legends, whose propaganda is more aggressive than -that of scholars. When you reflect that every day, at the Isles of -Saint-Marguerite, the masked man's cell is shown to visitors by a good -woman who retails all the traditional fables about the luxurious life of -the prisoner, his lace, his plate, and the attentions shown him by M. -de Saint-Mars, you will agree that a struggle with this daily discourse -would be hopeless. And you would not come off with a whole skin! - -I was visiting the Chateau d'If before the new buildings were erected. -The show-woman of the place, another worthy dame, pointed out to us the -ruined cells of the Abbe Faria and Edmond Dantes.[20] And the spectators -were musing on the story as they contemplated the ruins. - -"It seems to me," I said, "that these cells are rather near one another, -but surely Alexandre Dumas put them a little farther apart!" - -"Oh, well!" replied the good creature, withering me with a glance of -contempt, "if, when I'm relating gospel truth, the gentleman begins -quoting a novelist--!" - -To come nearer home. Follow, one of these days, a batch of Cook's -tourists at Versailles, shown round by an English cicerone. You will see -him point out the window from which Louis XVI. issued, on a flying -bridge, to reach his scaffold, erected in the marble court! The guide is -no fool. He knows well enough that the Place de la Concorde would not -appeal to the imagination of his countrymen; while it is quite natural -to them to draw a parallel in their minds between the scaffold of Louis -XVI. at Versailles and that of Charles I. at Whitehall. - -And the conclusion of the whole matter is this: that whatever may be -said or written, nothing will prevail against the popular beliefs that -the Bastille was "the hell of living men," and that it was taken by -storm. Legends are the history of the people, especially those which -flatter their instincts, prejudices, and passions. You will never -convince them of their falsity. - -M. Funck-Brentano must also expect to be treated as a "reactionary," for -such is, to many people, any one who does not unreservedly decry the -_ancien regime_. It had, assuredly, its vices and abuses, which the -Revolution swept away--to replace them by others, much more tolerable, -to be sure; but that is no reason for slandering the past and painting -it blacker than it really was. The fanatical supporters of the -Revolution have founded in its honour a sort of cult whose intolerance -is often irritating. To hear them you would fancy that before its birth -there was nothing but darkness, ignorance, iniquity, and wretchedness! -And so we are to give it wholehearted admiration, and palliate its -errors and its crimes; even gilding, as Chateaubriand said, the iron of -its guillotine. These idolaters of the Revolution are very injudicious. -By endeavouring to compel admiration for all that it effected, good and -ill without distinction, they provoke the very unreasonable inclination -to regard its whole achievement with abhorrence. It could well dispense -with such a surplusage of zeal, for it is strong enough to bear the -truth; and its work, after all, is great enough to need no justification -or glorification by means of legends. - -VICTORIEN SARDOU. - - - - -LEGENDS OF THE BASTILLE - - - - -CHAPTER I. - -THE ARCHIVES. - - -"The Bastille," wrote Sainte-Foix, "is a castle which, without being -strong, is one of the most formidable in Europe, and about it I shall -say nothing." "Silence is safer than speech on that subject," was the -saying in Paris. - -At the extremity of the Rue Saint-Antoine, as one entered the suburb, -appeared the eight lofty towers, sombre, massive, plunging their -moss-grown feet into pools of muddy water. Their walls were pierced at -intervals with narrow, iron-barred windows: they were crowned with -battlements. Situated not far from the Marais, the blithe and wealthy -quarter, and quite near to the Suburb Saint-Antoine, where industry -raised its perpetual hum, the Bastille, charged with gloom and silence, -formed an impressive contrast. - -The common impression it made is conveyed by Restif de la Bretonne in -his _Nights of Paris_: "It was a nightmare, that awesome Bastille, on -which, as I passed each evening along the Rue Saint-Gilles, I never -dared to turn my eyes." - -The towers had an air of mystery, harsh and melancholy, and the royal -government threw mystery like a cloud around them. At nightfall, when -the shutters were closed, a cab would cross the drawbridge, and from -time to time, in the blackness of night, funeral processions, vague -shadows which the light of a torch set flickering on the walls, would -make their silent exit. How many of those who had entered there had ever -been seen again? And if perchance one met a former prisoner, to the -first question he would reply that on leaving he had signed a promise to -reveal nothing of what he had seen. This former prisoner had, as a -matter of fact, never seen anything to speak of. Absolute silence was -imposed upon the warders. "There is no exchanging of confidences in this -place," writes Madame de Staal, "and the people you come across have all -such freezing physiognomies that you would think twice before asking the -most trifling question." "The first article of their code," says -Linguet, "is the impenetrable mystery which envelops all their -operations." - -We know how legends are formed. Sometimes you see them open out like -flowers brilliant under the sun's bright beams, you see them blossom -under the glorious radiance that lights up the life of heroes. The man -himself has long gone down into the tomb; the legend survives; it -streams across the ages, like a meteor leaving its trail of light; it -grows, broadens out, with ever-increasing lustre and glow: in this light -we see Themistocles, Leonidas, Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, Napoleon. - -Or may be, on the contrary, the legend is born in some remote corner, -covered with shade and silence. There men have lived their lives, there -it has been their lot to suffer. Their moans have risen in solitude and -confinement, and the only ears that heard them were harder than their -stone walls. These moans, heard by no compassionate soul, the great -resounding soul of the people catches up, swelling them with all its -might. Soon, among the mass of the people, there passes a blast -irresistible in its strength, like the tempest that upheaves the -restless waves. Then is the sea loosed from its chains: the tumultuous -breakers dash upon the affrighted shore: the sea-walls are all swept -away! - -In a letter written by Chevalier, the major of the Bastille, to Sartine, -the chief of the police, he spoke of the common gossip on the Bastille -that was going about. "Although utterly false," he said, "I think it -very dangerous on account of its dissemination through the kingdom, and -that has now been going on for several years." No attention was paid to -Chevalier's warning. Mystery continued to be the rule at the Bastille -and in all that related to it. "The mildness of manners and of the -government," writes La Harpe, "had caused needlessly harsh measures in -great part to disappear. They lived on in the imagination of the -people, augmented and strengthened by the tales which credulity and hate -seize upon." Ere long the _Memoirs_ of Latude and of Linguet appeared. -Latude concealed his grievous faults, to paint his long sufferings in -strokes of fire. Linguet, with his rare literary talent, made of the -Bastille a picture dark in the extreme, compressing the gist of his -pamphlet into the sentence: "Except perhaps in hell, there are no -tortures to approach those of the Bastille." At the same period, the -great Mirabeau was launching his powerful plea against _lettres de -cachet_, "arbitrary orders." These books produced a mighty -reverberation. The Revolution broke out like a clap of thunder. The -Bastille was disembowelled. The frowning towers crumbled stone by stone -under the picks of the demolishers, and, as if they had been the -pedestal of the _ancien regime_, that too toppled over with a crash. - -One of the halls of the Bastille contained, in boxes carefully arranged, -the entire history of the celebrated fortress from the year 1659, at -which date the foundation of this precious store of archives had been -begun. There were collected the documents concerning, not only the -prisoners of the Bastille, but all the persons who had been lodged -there, either under sentence of exile, or simply arrested within the -limits of the generality of Paris in virtue of a _lettre de cachet_. - -The documents in this store-room had been in charge of archivists, who -throughout the eighteenth century had laboured with zeal and -intelligence at putting in order papers which, on the eve of the -Revolution, were counted by hundreds of thousands. The whole mass was -now in perfect order, classified and docketed. The major of the chateau, -Chevalier, had even been commissioned to make these documents the basis -of a history of the prisoners. - -The Bastille was taken. In the disorder, what was the fate of the -archives? The ransacking of the papers continued for two days, writes -Dusaulx, one of the commissioners elected by the Assembly for the -preservation of the archives of the Bastille. "When, on Thursday the -16th, my colleagues and myself went down into the sort of cellar where -the archives were, we found the boxes in very orderly arrangement on the -shelves, but they were already empty. The most important documents had -been carried off: the rest were strewn on the floor, scattered about the -courtyard, and even in the moats. However, the curious still found some -gleanings there." The testimony of Dusaulx is only too well confirmed. -"I went to see the siege of the Bastille," writes Restif de la Bretonne; -"when I arrived it was all over, the place was taken. Infuriated men -were throwing papers, documents of great historical value, from the top -of the towers into the moats." Among these papers, some had been burnt, -some torn, registers had been torn to shreds and trailed in the mud. The -mob had invaded the halls of the chateau: men of learning and mere -curiosity hunters strove eagerly to get possession of as many of these -documents as possible, in which they thought they were sure to find -startling revelations. "There is talk of the son of a celebrated -magistrate," writes Gabriel Brizard, "who went off with his carriage -full of them." Villenave, then twenty-seven years of age and already a -collector, gathered a rich harvest for his study, and Beaumarchais, in -the course of a patriotic ramble through the interior of the captured -fortress, was careful to get together a certain number of these papers. - -The papers purloined from the archives on the day of the capture and the -day following became dispersed throughout France and Europe. A large -packet came into the hands of Pierre Lubrowski, an attache in the -Russian embassy. Sold in 1805, with his whole collection, to the Emperor -Alexander, the papers were deposited in the Hermitage Palace. To-day -they are preserved in the Imperial Library at St. Petersburg. - -Fortunately, the custody of the captured fortress was entrusted on July -15 to the company of arquebusiers, which received orders to prevent the -removal of any more papers. On July 16 one of the members present at a -sitting of the Electoral Assembly, sprang forward to the table and -cried, "Ah, gentlemen, let us save the papers! It is said that the -papers of the Bastille are being plundered; let us hasten to collect the -remnants of these old title-deeds of an intolerable despotism, so that -we may inspire our latest posterity with their horror!" There was -rapturous applause. A committee was nominated, consisting of Dusaulx, De -Chamseru, Gorneau, and Cailleau. Let us follow the style of the period: -"Before the Bastille the commissioners received a triumphant reception. -Amid the cheers of the people, who had been informed of their mission, -ten distinguished men of letters besought them to lead the commissioners -into the heart of that famous fortress, so long detested." When they got -into the Bastille, the commissioners were not long in perceiving that -they were a little behind the fair: "Many boxes were empty, and there -was an immense heap of papers in complete disorder." - -The question of the papers of the Bastille grew day by day -extraordinarily popular. The Electoral Assembly had just appointed -commissioners to collect them; La Fayette, commander of the National -Guards, imposed a similar duty on the St. Elizabeth district; Bailly, -the mayor of Paris, delegated Dusaulx to the same office. In the -Constituent Assembly, the Comte de Chatenay-Lanty proposed that the -municipality of Paris should be instructed to get together the papers -found at the Bastille, so that they might be arranged, and that extracts -from them might be printed and published, "in order to keep for ever -alive in the hearts of Frenchmen, by means of this reading, the -detestation of arbitrary orders and the love of liberty"! This book was -to be the preface to the constitution. Finally, the district of St. Roch -took the initiative in calling upon the electors to restore to the -nation the papers carried off from the Bastille by Beaumarchais. - -In the sitting of July 24, the Electoral Assembly passed a resolution -enjoining such citizens as were in possession of papers from the -Bastille to bring them back to the Hotel de Ville. The appeal was -responded to, and the restitutions were numerous. - -When the pillage and destruction had been stopped and possession had -been regained of a part of the stolen documents, the papers were -consigned to three different depositories; but it was not long before -they were deposited all together in the convent of St. Louis la Culture. -At length, on November 2, 1791, the Commune of Paris resolved to have -the precious documents placed in the city library. The decision was so -much the more happy in that the transfer, while placing the papers under -the guardianship of trained men and genuine librarians, did not -necessitate removal, since the city library at that date occupied the -same quarters as the archives of the Bastille, namely, the convent of -St. Louis la Culture. - -To the revolutionary period succeeded times of greater calm. The -archives of the Bastille, after being the object of so much discussion, -and having occupied the Constituent Assembly, the Electoral Assembly, -the Paris Commune, the press, Mirabeau, La Fayette, Bailly, all Paris, -the whole of France, fell into absolute oblivion. They were lost from -sight; the very recollection of them was effaced. In 1840, a young -librarian named Francois Ravaisson discovered them in the Arsenal -library at the bottom of a veritable dungeon. How had they got stranded -there? - -Ameilhon, the city librarian, had been elected on April 22, 1797, keeper -of the Arsenal library. Anxious to enrich the new depository of which he -had become the head, he obtained a decree handing over the papers of the -Bastille to the Arsenal library. The librarians recoiled in dismay -before this invasion of documents, more than 600,000 in number and in -the most admired disorder. Then, having put their heads together, they -had the papers crammed into a dusty back-room, putting off the sorting -of them from day to day. Forty years slipped away. And if it happened -that some old antiquary, curious and importunate, asked to be allowed to -consult the documents he had heard spoken of in his youth, he was -answered--no doubt in perfect good faith--that they did not know what he -was talking about. - -In 1840 Francois Ravaisson had to get some repairs done in his kitchen -at the Arsenal library. The slabs of the flooring were raised, when -there came to view, in the yawning hole, a mass of old papers. It -happened by the merest chance that, as he drew a leaf out of the heap, -Ravaisson laid his hand on a _lettre de cachet_. He understood at once -that he had just discovered the lost treasure. Fifty years of laborious -effort have now restored the order which the victors of the 14th of July -and successive removals had destroyed. The archives of the Bastille -still constitute, at the present day, an imposing collection, in spite -of the gaps made by fire and pillage in 1789, for ever to be regretted. -The administration of the Arsenal library has acquired copies of the -documents coming from the Bastille which are preserved at St. -Petersburg. The archives of the Bastille are now open to inspection by -any visitor to the Arsenal library, in rooms specially fitted up for -them. Several registers had holes burnt in them on the day of the -capture of the Bastille, their binding is scorched black, their leaves -are yellow. In the boxes the documents are now numbered, and they are -daily consulted by men of letters. The catalogue has been compiled and -published recently, through the assiduity of the minister of public -instruction. - -It is by the light of these documents, of undeniable genuineness and -authority, that the black shade which so long brooded over the Bastille -has at length been dispelled. The legends have melted away in the clear -light of history, as the thick cloak of mist with which night covers the -earth is dissipated by the morning sun; and enigmas which mankind, -wearied of fruitless investigations, had resigned itself to declare -insoluble, have now at last been solved. - - - - -CHAPTER II. - -HISTORY OF THE BASTILLE. - - -Julius Caesar describes a structure three stories high which his -legionaries used rapidly to erect in front of towns they were besieging. -Such was the remote origin of the "bastides" or "bastilles," as these -movable fortresses were called in the Middle Ages. Froissart, speaking -of a place that was being invested, says that "bastides were stationed -on the roads and in the open country" in such a manner that the town -could get no food supplies. It was not long before the designation was -applied to the fixed towers erected on the ramparts for the defence of -the towns, and more particularly to those which were constructed at the -entrance gates. - -In 1356, the chroniclers mention some important works that had been done -on the circumvallations of Paris. These were constructions interrupting -the wall at intervals, and so placed as to protect either an entrance -gate or the wall itself. The special designations of _eschiffles_, -_guerites_, or _barbacanes_ were applied to such of these buildings as -rose between two gates of the city, while the _bastilles_ or _bastides_ -were those which defended the gates. The first stone of the edifice -which for more than four centuries was to remain famous under the name -of the Bastille was laid on April 22, 1370, by the mayor of Paris in -person, Hugh Aubriot, the object being to strengthen the defences of the -city against the English. To reproach the king, Charles V., with the -construction of a cruel prison would be almost as reasonable as to -reproach Louis-Philippe with the construction of the fortress of Mont -Valerien. We borrow these details from M. Fernand Bournon's excellent -work on the Bastille in the _Histoire generale de Paris_. - -"The Bastille," writes M. Bournon, "at the time of its capture on July -14, 1789, was still identical, except in some trifling particulars, with -the work of the architects of the fourteenth century." The Place de la -Bastille of the present day does not correspond exactly to the site of -the fortress. Mentally to restore that site it is necessary to take away -the last houses of the Rue Saint-Antoine and the Boulevard Henri IV.; -the ground they occupy was then covered with the chateau and its glacis. -The round towers, however, must have extended considerably in advance of -the line of the houses and have encroached upon the pavement. The plan -reproducing the site exactly is to-day marked by lines of white stones, -by means of which all Parisians may get some notion of it if they go to -the Place de la Bastille. - -M. Auge de Lassus, who drew so largely upon the works of M. Bournon and -ourselves for his lecture on the Bastille,[21] will permit us in our -turn to borrow from him the description he gave of the Bastille, so far -as its construction is concerned. Prints of the commonest kind which -have circulated in thousands, the more recent reconstruction which in -1889 gave Paris so much entertainment, have familiarized us with the -aspect of the Bastille, whose eight circular towers, connected by -curtains of equal height, give us the impression of a box all of a -piece, or, if you prefer it, an enormous sarcophagus. The eight towers -all had their names. There were the Corner, the Chapel, and the Well -towers, names readily accounted for by their position or by details of -their construction. Then came the Bertaudiere and Baziniere towers, -baptized by the names of two former prisoners. The Treasure tower was so -called because it had received on many occasions, notably under Henri -IV., the custody of the public money. The excellent poet Mathurin -Regnier alludes to this fact in these oft-quoted lines:-- - - "Now mark these parsons, sons of ill-got gain, - Whose grasping sires for years have stolen amain, - Whose family coffers vaster wealth conceal, - Than fills that royal store-house, the Bastille." - -The seventh tower was known as the County tower, owing its name, as M. -Bournon conjectures, to the feudal dignity called the County of Paris. -"The hypothesis," he adds, "derives the greater weight from the fact -that the mayors of Paris were called, up to the end of the _ancien -regime_, mayors of the town and viscounty of Paris." The eighth tower -bore a name which, for the tower of a prison, is very remarkable. It was -called the Tower of Liberty. This odd appellation had come to it from -the circumstance that it had been the part of the Bastille where -prisoners were lodged who enjoyed exceptionally favourable treatment, -those who had the "liberty" of walking during the day in the courtyards -of the chateau. These prisoners were said to be "in the liberty of the -court"; the officers of the chateau called them the "prisoners of the -liberty" in contradistinction to the prisoners "in durance"; and that -one of the eight towers in which they were lodged was thus, quite -naturally, called "the Tower of Liberty." - -The towers of the Chapel and the Treasure, which were the oldest, had -flanked the original gateway, but this was soon walled up, leaving -however in the masonry the outline of its arch, and even the statues of -saints and crowned princes that had been the only ornaments of its bare -walls. "In accordance with custom," says M. Auge de Lassus, "the -entrance to the Bastille was single and double at the same time; the -gate for vehicles, defended by its drawbridge, was flanked by a smaller -gate reserved for foot passengers, and this, too, was only accessible -when a small drawbridge was lowered." - -In the first of the two courtyards of the Bastille, D'Argenson had -placed a monumental clock held up by large sculptured figures -representing prisoners in chains. The heavy chains fell in graceful -curves around the clock-face, as a kind of ornamentation. D'Argenson and -his artists had a ferocious taste. - -On the morrow of the defeat at St. Quentin,[22] the fear of invasion -decided Henri II., under the advice of Coligny, to strengthen the -Bastille. It was then, accordingly, that there was constructed, in front -of the Saint-Antoine gate, the bastion which was at a later date to be -adorned with a garden for the prisoners to walk in. - -Around the massive and forbidding prison, in the course of the -seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, quite a little town sprang up and -flourished, as in the Middle Ages happened around lofty and impressive -cathedrals. Barbers, cobblers, drink-sellers, poulterers, cheesemongers, -and general dealers had their shops there. These new buildings -encroached on the Rue Saint-Antoine, and extended as far as the convent -of the Visitation, the chapel of which, converted into a Protestant -place of worship, still exists. - -"In its latter days," writes M. de Lassus, "the Bastille with its -appendages presented an appearance somewhat as follows:--On the Rue -Saint-Antoine, a gateway of considerable size, and, with its trophies of -arms, making some pretensions to a triumphal arch, gave access to a -first court skirted with shops, and open, at least during the day, to -all comers. People might pass through it freely, but were not allowed to -loiter there. Then appeared a second entrance, a double one for horse -and foot traffic, each gate defended by its drawbridge. Admittance -through this was more difficult, and the sentry's instructions more -rigorous; this was the outer guard. As soon as this entrance was passed, -one came to the court of the governor, who received the more or less -voluntary visitor. On the right stretched the quarters of the governor -and his staff, contiguous to the armoury. Then there were the moats, -originally supplied by the waters of the Seine--at that time people -frequently fell in and were drowned, the moats not being protected by -any railing--in later times they were for the most part dry. Then rose -the lofty towers of the citadel, encircled, nearly a hundred feet up, by -their crown of battlements; and then one found the last drawbridge, most -often raised, at any rate before the carriage gate, the door for foot -passengers alone remaining accessible, under still more rigorous -conditions." - -These conditions, so rigorous for contemporaries--the Czar Peter the -Great himself found them inflexible--are removed for the historian: -thanks to the numerous memoirs left by prisoners, thanks to the -documents relating to the administration of the Bastille now in the -Arsenal library, and to the correspondence of the lieutenants of police, -we shall penetrate into the interior of these well-fenced precincts and -follow the life of the prisoners day by day. - -In its early days, then, the Bastille was not a prison, though it became -such as early as the reign of Charles VI. Yet for two centuries it kept -its character as a military citadel. Sometimes the kings gave lodgment -there to great personages who were passing through Paris. Louis XI. and -Francis I. held brilliant fetes there, of which the chroniclers speak -with admiration. - -It is Richelieu who must be considered the founder of the Bastille--the -Bastille, that is, as a royal prison, the Bastille of the seventeenth -and eighteenth centuries. Before him, imprisonment in the old fortress -was merely casual; it is to him that we must trace the conception of the -state prison as an instrument of government. Here we shall be arrested -by the question, what is to be understood by a state prison? The term, -vague and open to discussion, is explained by M. Bournon. "By a state -prison--taking the Bastille as a particular instance--must be understood -a prison for those who have committed a crime or misdemeanour not -provided for by the common law; for those who, rightly or wrongly, have -appeared dangerous to the safety of the state, whether the nation itself -is concerned, or its head, or a body more or less considerable of -citizens, a body sometimes no larger than the family of the suspect. If -we add to this class of prisoners personages too conspicuous to be -punished for a crime at common law on equal terms with the ordinary -malefactor, and for whom it would appear inevitable that an exceptional -prison should be reserved, we shall have passed in review the different -kinds of delinquents who expiated their misdeeds at the Bastille from -the time of Richelieu to the Revolution." - -The administration of the Bastille, which, up to the reign of Louis -XIII., was entrusted to great lords, dukes, constables, marshals of -France--the Marshal de Bassompierre, the Constable de Luynes, the -Marshal de Vitry, the Duke of Luxemburg, to mention only the last of -them--was placed by Richelieu in the hands of a real jailer, Leclerc du -Tremblay, brother of Pere Joseph.[23] - -Documents throwing any light on the Bastille at the time when the Red -Man, as Victor Hugo named Richelieu, was supreme, are however very -rare. An advocate, Maton de la Varenne, published in 1786, in his -_Revolutions of Paris_, a letter which ostensibly had been written on -December 1, 1642, to Richelieu, at that time ill. In it we read: "I, -whom you are causing to rot in the Bastille for having disobeyed your -commandment, which would have brought upon my soul condemnation to -eternal hell, and would have made me appear in eternity with hands -stained with blood----" It is impossible to guarantee the authenticity -of this document. To us it appears suspicious, the text having been -published at a time when many apocryphal documents were produced as -coming from the archives of the Bastille. More worthy of arresting our -attention is the "return of the prisoners who are in the chateau of the -Bastille," a document of Richelieu's time which M. Bournon discovered in -the archives of the Foreign Office. This catalogue, containing -fifty-three names, is the oldest list of prisoners of the Bastille known -up to the present time. Among the prisoners several are suspected or -convicted of evil designs against "Monsieur le cardinal," some are -accused of an intention to "complot," that is, to conspire against the -throne, or of being spies. There is an "extravagant" priest, a monk who -had "opposed Cluni's election," three hermits, three coiners, the -Marquis d'Assigny, condemned to death, but whose punishment had been -commuted to perpetual imprisonment, a score or so of lords designated as -"madmen, vile scoundrels, evil wretches," or accused of some definite -crime, theft or murder; finally, those whose name is followed by the -simple note, "Queen-mother," or "Monsieur,"[24] whence we may conclude -that the clerk had no exact information about the prisoners of the -cardinal. We shall give later the list of the prisoners in the Bastille -on the day of its capture, July 14, 1789; and the comparison between the -two lists at the two periods, the remotest and the most recent that we -could select, will be instructive. We have also, to assist us in forming -a judgment of the Bastille in Richelieu's time, the memoirs of -Bassompierre and of Laporte, which transport us into a state prison, -elegant, we might almost say luxurious, reserved for prisoners of birth -and breeding, where they lived observing all social usages in their -mutual relations, paying and returning calls. But the Bastille preserved -its military character for many more years, and among the prisoners we -find especially a number of officers punished for breaches of -discipline. Prisoners of war were confined there, and foreign personages -of high rank arrested by way of reprisal, secret agents and spies -employed in France by hostile nations; finally, powerful lords who had -incurred the king's displeasure. The court intrigues under Richelieu and -Mazarin contributed to the diversion of the Bastille from its original -intention: they began to incarcerate there _valets de chambre_ who had -somehow become mixed up in the plots of sovereigns. - -Religious persecution was revived by the government of Louis XIV., and -ere long a whole world of gazetteers and "novelists," the journalists of -the period, were seen swarming like flies in the sun. Louis XIV. was not -precisely a stickler for the liberty of the press, but on the other hand -he shrank from cooping up men of letters, Jansenists and Protestants -convinced of the truth of their beliefs, pell-mell with the vagabonds -and thiefs confined at Bicetre, Saint-Lazare, and the other prisons of -Paris. He threw open to them, too generously no doubt, the portals of -his chateau in the Suburb Saint-Antoine, where they mixed with young men -of family undergoing a mild course of the Bastille at the request of -their parents, and with quarrelsome nobles whom the marshals of France, -anxious to avoid duels, used to send there to forget their animosities. -Further, the reign of Louis XIV. was marked by some great trials which -produced a strange and appalling impression, and threw around the -accused a halo of mystery--trials for magic and sorcery, cases of -poisoning and base coining. The accused parties in these cases were -confined in the Bastille. And here we encounter a fresh departure from -the primitive character of the old fortress; prisoners were sent there -whose cases were tried by the regularly constituted judges. Henceforth -prisoners who appeared before the court of the Arsenal were divided -between the Bastille and the fortress of Vincennes. - -This is the grand epoch in the history of the Bastille: it is now a -veritable prison of state. Writers can speak of its "nobleness." It -shows itself to us in colours at once charming and awe-inspiring, -brilliant, majestic, now filled with sounds of merriment, now veiled -with an appalling silence. From the gloomy regions within the massive -walls there come to us the sounds of song and laughter mingled with -cries of despair, with sobs and tears. This is the period of the Iron -Mask: the period when the governor receives mysterious letters from the -court. "I beg you, sir, to see that, if anyone comes to ask for news of -the prisoner whom Desgrez conducted to the Bastille this morning by -order of the king, nothing be said about him, and that, if possible, in -accordance with the intention of His Majesty and the accompanying -instructions, no one may get to know him or even his name." "M. de -Bernaville (the name of one of the governors of the Bastille), having -given orders for the conveyance of an important prisoner to the prison -of my chateau of the Bastille, I send this letter to inform you of my -intention that you receive him there and keep him closely guarded until -further orders, warning you not to permit him, under any pretext -whatever, to hold communication with any person, either by word of mouth -or in writing." The prisoners surrounded with so absolute a silence -almost all belonged to the same category, namely, distinguished spies, -who seem to have been rather numerous in France at the full tide of -Louis XIV.'s wars, and who were hunted down with an eagerness which grew -in proportion as fortune frowned on the royal armies. We read in the -Journal kept by the King's lieutenant, Du Junca: "On Wednesday, -December 22, about ten o'clock in the morning, M. de la Coste, provost -of the King's armies, came here, bringing and leaving in our custody a -prisoner whom for greater secrecy he caused to enter by our new gate, -which allows us to pass into or out of the garden of the Arsenal at all -hours--the which prisoner, M. d'Estingen by name, a German, but married -in England, was received by the governor by order of the King sent by -the hand of the Marquis de Barbezieux, with explicit instructions to -keep the prisoner's presence a secret and to prevent him from holding -communication with anyone, in speech or writing: the which prisoner is a -widower, without children, a man of intelligence, and doing a brisk -trade in news of what is happening in France, sending his information to -Germany, England, and Holland: a gentlemanly spy." On February 10, 1710, -Pontchartrain wrote to Bernaville, governor of the Bastille: "I cannot -refrain from telling you that you and the Chevalier de la Croix speak a -good deal too much and too openly about the foreign prisoners you have. -Secrecy and mystery is one of your first duties, as I must ask you to -remember. Neither D'Argenson nor any other than those I have apprized -you of should see these prisoners. Give explicit warning to the Abbe -Renaudot and to de la Croix of the necessity of maintaining an -inviolable and impenetrable secrecy." - -It happened also at that period that a prisoner remained in complete -ignorance of the reason of his incarceration: "The prisoner at the -Bastille named J. J. du Vacquay," writes Louvois to the governor, "has -complained to the King that he has been kept there for thirteen years -without knowing the reason: be good enough to let me know what minister -signed the warrant under which he is detained, so that I may report to -His Majesty." - -As the greater part of the papers relating to the arrest were destroyed -as soon as the incarceration was effected, it sometimes happened that in -certain cases the reasons were not known even in the offices of the -ministers. Thus Seignelay writes to the governor, M. de Besmaus: "The -King has commanded me to write and ask you who is a certain prisoner -named Dumesnil, how long he has been at the Bastille, and for what -reason he was placed there." "The demoiselle de Mirail, a prisoner at -the Bastille, having demanded her liberty of the King, His Majesty has -instructed me to write and ask you the reason of her detention; if you -know it, be good enough to inform me at your earliest convenience." -Again, we find Louvois writing to the same effect: "I am sending you a -letter from M. Coquet, in regard to which the King has commanded me to -ask who signed the warrant under which he was sent to the Bastille, and -whether you know the reason of his being sent there." "Sir, I am writing -a line merely to ask you to let me know who is Piat de la Fontaine, who -has been five years at the Bastille, and whether you do not remember why -he was placed there." - -Letters of this kind are, it is true, very rare; yet if one compares the -state of things they disclose with the extraordinary comfort and luxury -with which the prisoners were surrounded, they help to characterize the -celebrated prison at this epoch of its history, namely, the seventeenth -century. - -In 1667 the office of lieutenant of police had been created. The first -to hold the title was Gabriel Nicolas de la Reynie, a man of the -greatest worth. It is very important to note that under the _ancien -regime_ the lieutenant of police had a double function, being at the -same time a subordinate of the minister of Paris[25] and a member of the -Chatelet.[26] His duties were thus of a twofold nature, administrative -and judicial. Now the Bastille, as a state prison, was more especially -an administrative institution; but gradually, owing to the character of -the persons brought there as prisoners, it became difficult to avoid -turning it also into a judicial institution, and the minister of Paris -became accustomed to delegate his subordinate, the lieutenant of police, -to conduct the examination of the prisoners at the Bastille. Though La -Reynie took practically the whole responsibility of the administration -of the Bastille, his visits to the prison itself were nevertheless -relatively rare, and on every occasion a permit signed by Louis XIV. or -by Colbert was necessary. - -La Reynie was succeeded by D'Argenson. Under him the powers of the -lieutenant of police were very largely extended, and the Bastille was -comprised within his jurisdiction. Henceforth the lieutenant of police -will enter the state prison whenever it seems good to him, as lord and -master, accompanied by his subordinates at the Chatelet, clerks and -inspectors of police; the prisoners will be in direct and constant -communication with him, and he will make an inspection of all the -chambers at least once a year. We find that at every change in the -lieutenancy of police, it sufficed for the minister of Paris to send the -name of the new officer to the governor. Dating from this period, the -prison in the Suburb Saint-Antoine remained under the authority of a -magistrate. - -The Regency was a transition period between the reigns of Louis XIV. and -Louis XV., and there was a corresponding transition period in the -history of the Bastille. The incarcerations were less numerous and less -rigorous, but the rule of the prison lost something of that aristocratic -air which had characterized it. The most important episode in the -history of the Bastille during the Regency was the incarceration of -those who were accused of complicity in the Cellamare conspiracy. Among -these was Mdlle de Launay, later to be known as Madame de Staal. She -has left some charming pages about her imprisonment, in which we find, -related with a fluent and subtle pen, the little romance which we -proceed to outline. - -Mdlle de Launay was secretary to the Duchess of Maine. She had had some -part in drawing up the scheme of the Cellamare conspiracy, which, if it -had succeeded, would have placed the king of Spain on the throne of -France. On December 10, 1718, the Regent sent her, with several of her -accomplices, to the Bastille, less with the idea of punishing her for -machinations against the state than to obtain from her details of the -conspiracy. At that period of her life she was of but moderate fortune -and rank, and it would not have been strange if she had been treated -with rigour. She found at the Bastille, on the contrary, unexpected -comfort and consideration. In her _Memoirs_, she writes that her sojourn -at the Bastille was the pleasantest time of her life. Her maid, Rondel, -was permitted to live with her. She was installed in a veritable suite -of rooms. She complained of the mice there, and a cat was given her, to -drive out the mice and provide some amusement. By and by there were -kittens, and the sportive tricks of the numerous little family cheered -her wonderfully, she said. Mdlle de Launay was regularly invited to dine -with the governor; she spent her days in writing and card-playing. The -king's lieutenant, Maisonrouge, a man well on in years, who held, after -the governor, the first place in the administration of the chateau, -conceived a profound and pathetic passion for the fair prisoner. He -declared that nothing would give him greater happiness than to make her -his wife. His apartments happened to be near those of Mdlle de Launay. -Unhappily for the king's lieutenant, there was in the neighbourhood a -third suite, occupied by a young and brilliant nobleman, the Chevalier -de Menil, who also was implicated in the Cellamare affair. The fair -prisoner was not acquainted with him. Maisonrouge impresses us as a man -of great dignity, and rare nobility of character. He spoke to the two -young prisoners about each other, hoping, by bringing them into -communication, to provide them with fresh distractions, more -particularly the lady, whom he loved. The Chevalier de Menil and Mdlle -de Launay could not see each other; they had never met. They began by -exchanging epistles in verse. Like everything that came from her pen, -the verses of Mdlle de Launay were full of animation and charm. The good -Maisonrouge played post between them, happy to see his little friend's -delight in the diversion she owed to him. It was not long before the -verses carried from one room to the other by Maisonrouge began to speak -of love, and this love--surprising as it may seem, but not difficult to -understand in the sequestered life of the Bastille--ere long became real -in the consciousness of the young people, who saw each other in -imagination under the most charming colours. Maisonrouge was soon -induced to contrive an interview between them. It is a delightful -moment. The two captives had never seen each other, yet loved each -other passionately: what will their mutual impressions be? Mdlle de -Launay's impression, when she saw the gay chevalier, was of unmixed -enthusiasm; the chevalier's, maybe, was more subdued; but if it is true, -as someone has said, that to nuns the gardener represents mankind, to a -prisoner every young woman must be an exquisite creature. The interviews -continued under the benevolent eye of Maisonrouge, who watched the -development of Mdlle de Launay's love for Menil--the love of the girl -whom he himself loved intensely, but whose happiness he preferred to his -own. There are delightful details which may be found delightfully -described in Mdlle de Launay's _Memoirs_. It is M. Bournon's opinion -that, according to the testimony of Mdlle de Launay herself, this idyll -of the Bastille had "the denouement that might have been foretold." We -have caught no hint of the sort in the _Memoirs_ of Madame de Staal, but -then, M. Bournon is no doubt the better psychologist. At any rate, the -governor of the Bastille got wind of the diversions of the lovers. He -put his foot down. Menil was transferred to a distant tower, Mdlle de -Launay shed tears, and, incredible as it seems, Maisonrouge, while -redoubling his efforts to please her, sympathized with her lot to the -point of arranging fresh and more difficult interviews with the sparkish -chevalier. Mdlle de Launay left the prison in the spring of 1720, after -having sent to the Regent a detailed statement of the facts of the -conspiracy, which hitherto she had refused to furnish. Once at liberty, -she vainly implored the Chevalier de Menil to fulfil his pledges and -make her his wife. Maisonrouge died in the following year, of -disappointment, says the gay coquette, at his failure to get from her, -during her imprisonment, the promise of marriage which now she would -have been glad enough to fulfil. - -It seems as though under the Regency everything at the Bastille turned -on love--a reflection of the epoch itself. The young Duke de Richelieu -was locked up there because he did not love his wife. The brilliant -nobleman was kept under lock and key for several weeks, "in solitude and -gloom," he says, when suddenly the door of his room flew open and Madame -de Richelieu appeared, a wonder of grace, brightness and charm: "The -fair angel," writes the duke, "who flew from heaven to earth to set -Peter free was not so radiant." - -We have seen how the Bastille had been transformed from a military -citadel into a prison of state. We shall now witness, under the -government of the Duke of Orleans, another transformation, betokened by -an event which is of little apparent importance. The Duke de Richelieu -was imprisoned in the Bastille a second time as the result of a duel: a -judge of the Parlement went there to question him and the Parlement -tried his case. The Parlement[27] at the Bastille, in the prison of the -king! From that moment the fortress continued year by year to grow more -like our modern prisons. "Under the Cardinal de Fleury," writes La -Harpe, "this famous chateau was inhabited by hardly any but Jansenist -writers: it then became the enforced residence of champions of -philosophy and authors of clandestine satires, and acted as a foil to -their obscurity and shame." It became increasingly the practice to -confine there accused persons whose cases were regularly tried at the -Chatelet or even before the Parlement. By the second half of the -eighteenth century accused persons had come to be incarcerated in the -Bastille by direct order of the Chatelet, which would have seemed -incredible to a contemporary of Louis XIV. The summoning officer would -post himself before the towers, and there, while the prisoner pressed -his head close against the bars of the window, the officer would shout -the terms of the writ at him across the moat. The advocates defending -the accused obtained permission to go and consult their clients, and -they were the only persons who were permitted to interview the prisoners -in private. On the appointed day the prisoner was transferred to the law -courts quietly and by night to avoid the curiosity of the crowd. - -Under Louis XVI. the judges of the Parlement visited the Bastille as -they visited the other prisons; at length the minister Breteuil sent -instructions to the officials informing them that no more _lettres de -cachet_ would be issued without stating the duration of the penalty to -which the guilty person was condemned and the grounds for his -punishment. The Bastille was now merely a prison like the others, -except that the prisoners were better treated there. - -In 1713 Voysin, the Secretary of State, wrote to D'Argenson: -"Beaumanielle is not sufficiently deserving of consideration to warrant -his removal from the Chatelet to the Bastille." La Harpe has well -described the transformation which from this time came over the great -state prison by saying that, from the beginning of the century, none of -the prisoners who had been placed there "had merited the honour." His -remark receives corroboration from Linguet: "It is not, in these latter -days especially, for criminals of state that the Bastille is reserved: -it has become in some sort the antichambre of the conciergerie." - -If the glories of the Bastille paled as it grew older, on the other hand -torture, which, it is true, had never been applied except by order of -the courts, had completely disappeared. From the beginning of the -eighteenth century, the cells and chains were merely a temporary -punishment reserved for insubordinate prisoners: from the accession of -Louis XVI. they had fallen into disuse. Breteuil forbade any person -whatever to be placed in the cells, which were the rooms on the lowest -floor of each tower, a sort of damp and gloomy vaults. On September 11, -1775, Malesherbes writes: "No prisoner should be refused material for -reading and writing. The abuse it is pretended that they may make of it -cannot be dangerous, confined so closely as they are. Nor should any -refusal be made to the desire of such as may wish to devote themselves -to other occupations, provided they do not require you to leave in their -hands tools of which they might avail themselves to effect their escape. -If any of them should wish to write to his family and his friends, he -must be permitted to receive replies, and to send replies to their -letters after having read them. In all this you must be guided by your -prudence and your humanity." The reading of the gazettes, formerly -rigidly forbidden, was now authorised. - -It must further be remarked that the number of prisoners confined in the -Bastille was not so large as might be thought. During the whole reign of -Louis XVI. the Bastille received no more than two hundred and forty -prisoners, an average of sixteen a year; while it had room for forty-two -in separate apartments. - -Under Louis XIV., at the period when the government was most liberal in -dispensing its _lettres de cachet_, an average of only thirty prisoners -a year entered the chateau, and their captivity was for the most part of -short duration. Dumouriez informs us in his _Memoirs_ that during his -detention he had never more than eighteen fellow prisoners, and that -more than once he had only six. M. Alfred Begis has drawn up a list of -the prisoners detained in the Bastille from 1781 to 1789. In May, 1788, -it contained twenty-seven prisoners, the highest figure reached during -these eight year; in September, 1782, it contained ten; in April, 1783, -seven; in June of the same year, seven; in December, 1788, nine; in -February, 1789, nine; at the time of its capture, July 14, 1789, there -were seven. - -True, not only men were locked up in the Bastille, but also books when -they appeared dangerous. The royal warrant under which they were -incarcerated was even drawn up on the model of the _lettres de cachet_. -M. Bournon has published a specimen of these. The books were shut up in -a closet between the towers of the Treasure and the County, over an old -passage communicating with the bastion. In 1733 the lieutenant of police -instructed the governor of the Bastille to receive at the chateau "all -the apparatus of a clandestine printing-press which had been seized in a -chamber of the Saint-Victor abbey: the which you will be good enough to -have placed in the store room of the Bastille." When the books ceased to -appear dangerous, they were set at liberty. In this way the -_Encyclopaedia_[28] was liberated after a detention of some years. - -We have just seen that during the reign of Louis XVI. the Bastille did -not receive more than sixteen prisoners a year, on an average. Several -of these were only detained for a few days. From 1783 to 1789 the -Bastille remained almost empty, and would have been absolutely empty if -it had not been decided to place there prisoners who should properly -have been elsewhere. As early as February, 1784, the fortress of -Vincennes, which served as a sort of overflow pipe to the Bastille, had -been shut for lack of prisoners. The system of _lettres de cachet_ was -slipping away into the past. On the other hand, the Bastille was a -source of great expense to the King. The governor alone received 60,000 -livres annually. When you add the salaries and board of the officers of -the garrison, the turnkeys, the physicians, the surgeon, the apothecary, -the chaplains; when you add the food--this alone in 1774 came to 67,000 -livres--and the clothing of the prisoners, and the upkeep of the -buildings, the total will appear outrageous, for the figures given above -must be tripled to represent the value of the present day. So Necker, -seeing that the Bastille was of no further utility, thought of -suppressing it "for economy's sake,"[29] and he was not the only one in -high places to speak of this suppression. The Carnavalet[30] museum -possesses a scheme drawn up in 1784 by Corbet, the superintending -architect to the city of Paris, whence the project has an official -character: it is a scheme for a "Place Louis XVI." to be opened up on -the site of the old fortress. We learn from Millin that other artists -"were occupied with a scheme for erecting a monument on the site of the -Bastille." One of these schemes deserves special mention. Seven of the -eight towers were to be destroyed, the eighth to remain standing, but in -a significant state of dilapidation: on the site of the demolished -towers a monument was to be erected to the glory of Louis XVI. This -monument was to consist of a pedestal formed by piling up chains and -bolts taken from the state prison, above which would rise a statue of -the king, one hand extended towards the ruined tower with the gesture of -a deliverer. It is to be regretted, if not for the beauty, at least, for -the picturesqueness of Paris, that this scheme was never put into -execution. Davy de Chavigne, king's counsellor and auditor to the -treasury, was allowed to present to the Royal Academy of Architecture, -at its sitting on June 8, 1789, "a plan for a monument on the site of -the Bastille, to be decreed by the States General to Louis XVI. as the -restorer of the public liberty." On this subject the famous sculptor -Houdon wrote to Chavigne: "I am very anxious for the plan to be adopted. -The idea of erecting a monument to liberty on the very spot where -slavery has reigned up to the present, appears to me particularly well -conceived, and well calculated to inspire genius. I shall think myself -only too fortunate to be among the artists who will celebrate the epoch -of the regeneration of France." - -We have seen prints, long anterior to 1789--one of them the frontispiece -of the edition of Linguet's _Memoirs_ that appeared in 1783--representing -Louis XVI. extending his hand towards the lofty towers, which workmen -are in the act of demolishing. - -Among the archives of the Bastille are preserved two reports drawn up in -1788 by the king's lieutenant, Puget, the most important personage in -the fortress after the governor. He proposes the suppression of the -state prison, the demolition of the old chateau, and the sale of the -ground for the benefit of the crown. It may be said of these schemes, as -of the plan of the architect Corbet, that they would not have been -propounded if they had not been approved in high places. - -Further, in the year 1784, an ardent supporter of the old state of -things cried: "Oh! if our young monarch ever committed a fault so great, -if he so far belied the most ancient usages of this government, if it -were possible that one day he could be tempted to destroy you" (the -author is apostrophizing the Bastille) "to raise on your ruins a -monument to the liberator-king...." The demolition of the Bastille was -decided on; and it would have been accomplished as a government -undertaking but for the outbreak of the Revolution. - -From January 1 to July 14, 1789, that is to say for more than six -months, only one solitary prisoner entered the Bastille; and what a -prisoner!--Reveillon, the paper manufacturer of the Suburb -Saint-Antoine, who was shut up on May 1 at his own request, in order to -escape the fury of the mob. The same year, the lieutenant of police, de -Crosne, made an inspection of the Bastille, accompanied by a judge of -the Parlement; their object was to arrange officially about the -destruction of the state prison. - -Thus, on the eve of the Revolution, the Bastille no longer existed, -though its towers were still standing. - -The victors of the 14th of July set free seven prisoners: four forgers -whose arrest had been ordered by the Chatelet, whose case had been -regularly tried, and whose proper place was an ordinary prison; two -madmen who ought to have been at Charenton; and the Comte de Solages, a -young nobleman who had been guilty of a monstrous crime over which it -was desired to throw a veil out of regard for his family; he was -maintained on a pension paid by his father. The conquerors of the -Bastille destroyed an old fortified castle: the state prison no longer -existed. They "broke in an open door." That was said of them even in -1789. - - - - -CHAPTER III. - -LIFE IN THE BASTILLE. - - -Having sketched rapidly and with bold strokes the outlines of the -history of the Bastille from its foundation to its fall, we intend to -show how the rule to which prisoners in the fortress of the Suburb -Saint-Antoine were submitted underwent its own process of -transformation, parallel with the transformation of the prison itself. -To understand the facts which follow, and which are of a kind to astound -the mind of everyone in these days, it is necessary to remember what we -have already said as to the character of the Bastille. It was the prison -of luxury, the aristocratic prison of the _ancien regime_, the _prison -de luxe_ at a period when it was no dishonour, as we shall see later, to -be confined there. We must remember the phrase of the minister of Paris -writing to D'Argenson, in regard to a personage of but modest rank, that -this individual did not deserve "consideration" enough to be put in the -Bastille. Let us reflect on this observation of Mercier in his excellent -_Pictures of Paris_: "The people fear the Chatelet more than the -Bastille. Of the latter they have no dread, because it is almost unknown -to them." - -We have shown how the Bastille, originally a military citadel, had -become a prison of state; then, little by little, had approximated to -the ordinary prisons, until the day when it died a natural death ere it -could be assassinated. The same transformation took place in the -treatment of the prisoners. Midway in the seventeenth century, the -Bastille had none of the characteristics of a prison, but was simply a -chateau in which the king caused certain of his subjects to sojourn, for -one cause or another. They lived there just as they thought proper, -furnishing their rooms according to their fancy with their own -furniture, indulging their tastes in regard to food at their own -expense, and waited on by their own servants. When a prisoner was rich -he could live at the Bastille in princely style; when he was poor, he -lived there very wretchedly. When the prisoner had no property at all, -the king did not for that reason give him furniture or food; but he gave -him money which he might use as seemed good to him in providing himself -with furniture and food: money of which he could retain a part--a number -of prisoners did not fail to do so--these savings becoming his own -property. This system, the character of which it is important to -recognize, underwent gradual modification during the course of the -seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, approximating, without ever -becoming identical with, the system of our modern prisons. Thus the -king, instead of granting pensions individually to the poorest of the -prisoners, came to endow the Bastille with a certain fixed number of -pensions for the less fortunate prisoners. The recipients of these -pensions continued to enjoy them for long years, and if they did not -wish the whole of the money to be expended on their support, the balance -was handed over to them. So we see certain individuals getting little -fortunes together by the mere fact of their having been prisoners in the -Bastille--a circumstance which has so much surprised historians because -they have not sought its cause. It even happened that prisoners, when -their liberation was announced to them, asked to remain a little longer -in order to swell their savings, a favour which was sometimes granted -them. In the course of the eighteenth century the money destined to the -maintenance of the prisoners at the Bastille could not be diverted from -its purpose; the prisoners were no longer able to appropriate a part; -the whole sum had to be expended. - -It was only in the second half of the seventeenth century that the king -had some rooms at the Bastille furnished for such prisoners as were -without means of procuring furniture themselves. And it is very -interesting to note that it was only at the extreme end of the century, -under the administration of Saint-Mars, that certain apartments of the -Bastille were arranged in the prison style with bars and bolts. Until -then they had been simply the rooms of a stronghold.[31] - -Let us follow the prisoner from his entrance to his exit. - -When the _lettre de cachet_ had been signed, it was usually a sort of -sheriff's officer who effected the arrest. He appeared in company with -five or six men-at-arms, and signified the arrest by touching his quarry -with a white staff. A coach was in waiting. The police officer politely -begged the person he was instructed to secure to step into the coach, -and took his place beside him. And, according to the testimony of -various memoirs, while the vehicle was rolling along with lowered -blinds, there was a pleasant conversational exchange of courtesies up to -the moment of the prisoner's finding himself within the walls of the -Bastille. A certain Lafort was living in furnished apartments with a -young and pretty Englishwoman whom he had abducted, when one evening, -about sunset, a police officer arrived. The coach was at the door. -Preliminaries were settled on both sides with as much politeness as if a -visit or an evening party had been the topic of discussion. They all got -into the vehicle, even the young man's lackey who, beguiled by -appearances, mounted behind. Arrived at the Bastille, the lackey lost no -time in descending to open the door: there was general astonishment, -especially on the part of the poor servant, when he learnt that since he -had entered the Bastille along with his master, he must stay with him. - -Most often the officer and his companions surprised their quarry early -in the morning, on rising from bed. Imagine then the coach with the -prisoner and the police officer inside, arriving before the Bastille, in -the first court in front of the castle keep. "Who goes there?" cries the -sentinel. "The king's writ!" replies the officer. At this, the shops we -have seen attached to the flanks of the chateau are bound at once to be -shut. The soldiers on guard have to turn their faces to the wall, or -perhaps to pull their hats over their eyes. The coach passes the -outpost, a bell sounds. "Advance!" cries the officer on duty. The -drawbridge is lowered and the coach rattles over the stout iron-clamped -boards. For greater secrecy, spies and prisoners of war were taken in by -a private door leading to the gardens of the Arsenal. - -Officers and noblemen presented themselves before the Bastille alone, -unless they were accompanied by relatives or friends. "It is my -intention," the king had written to them, "that you betake yourselves to -my chateau of the Bastille." And no one dreamt of declining the royal -invitation. Further, when the governor desired to transfer one of them -from one prison to another, he contented himself with telling him so. We -find in the Journal of Du Junca, king's lieutenant[32] at the Bastille, -several notes like the following: "Monday, December 26, 1695, about ten -o'clock in the morning, M. de Villars, lieutenant-colonel of the -regiment of Vosges infantry, came and reported himself a prisoner, as -ordered by M. Barbezieux, though he was a prisoner in the citadel of -Grenoble, whence he came direct without being brought by anyone."[33] On -the arrival of the prisoner, the king's lieutenant, accompanied by the -captain of the gates, came to receive him as he got out of his carriage. -The officers of the chateau at once led the new-comer into the presence -of the governor, who received him civilly, invited him to sit down, and -after having endorsed the _lettre de cachet_ conversed with him for some -time. Under Louis XIV. the governor in most cases even kept his new -guest, as well as the persons who had accompanied him, to lunch or -dinner. Meanwhile his quarters had been got ready. We read in Du Junca's -Journal that on January 26, 1695, a certain De Courlandon, a colonel of -cavalry, presented himself for incarceration at the Bastille. There -being no room ready to receive him, the governor asked him to go and -pass the night in a neighbouring inn, at the sign of the _Crown_, and -to return next day. "Whereupon M. de Courlandon did not fail to return -about eleven o'clock in the morning, having dined with M. de Besmaus -(the governor), and in the afternoon he entered the chateau." - -The reader will not be surprised at learning that the prospect of -incarceration at the Bastille did not always strike the future prisoner -with terror. We read in the _Memoirs_ of the Duke de Lauzun:[34] -"Scolded for two hours on end by everybody who fancied himself entitled -to do so, I thought I could not do better than go to Paris and await -developments. A few hours after my arrival, I received a letter from my -father telling me that it had been decided to put us all in the -Bastille, and that I should probably be arrested during the night. I -determined at least to finish gaily, so I invited some pretty girls from -the Opera to supper, so that I might await the officer without -impatience. Seeing that he did not arrive, I determined on the bold move -of going to Fontainebleau and joining the king's hunt. He did not speak -to me once during the chase, which was such a confirmation of our -disgrace that on our return no one gave us the customary salute. But I -did not lose heart; in the evening I was in attendance, and the king -came to me. 'You are all,' he said, 'hotheaded rips, but funny dogs all -the same; come along and have supper, and bring M. de Guemene and the -Chevalier de Luxembourg.'" - -Before the new arrival was installed in the chamber prepared for him, he -was taken to the great council hall, where he was requested to empty his -pockets. Only notorious rogues were searched. If the prisoner had upon -him money, jewels, or other articles such as knives and scissors, the -use of which was not allowed by the regulations, they were done up in a -parcel which he himself sealed, with his own seal if he had one; if not, -with the seal of the Bastille. Finally, he was conducted to the room -reserved for him. - -Each of the eight towers of the Bastille contained four or five stories -of rooms or cells. The worst of these rooms were on the lowest floor, -and these were what were called the "cells,"--octagonal vaults, cold and -damp, partly under ground; the walls, grey with mould, were bare from -floor to ceiling, the latter a groined arch. A bench and a bed of straw -covered with a paltry coverlet, formed the whole appointments. Daylight -feebly flickered through the vent-hole opening on to the moat. When the -Seine was in flood, the water came through the walls and swamped the -cells; and then any prisoners who might happen to be in them were -removed. During the reign of Louis XIV. the cells were sometimes -occupied by prisoners of the lowest class and criminals condemned to -death. Later, under Louis XV., the cells ceased to be used except as a -place of punishment for insubordinate prisoners who assaulted their -guardians or fellow-prisoners, or for turnkeys and sentinels of the -chateau who had committed breaches of discipline. They stayed in the -cells for a short time in irons. The cells had fallen into disuse by -the time the Revolution broke out; since the first ministry of Necker, -it had been forbidden to confine in them any one whatever, and none of -the warders questioned on July 18 remembered having seen any one placed -in them. The two prisoners, Tavernier and Bechade, whom the conquerors -of the 14th of July found in one of these dungeons, had been placed -there, at the moment of the attack, by the officers of the chateau, for -fear lest amid the rain of bullets some harm should befall them. - -The worst rooms after the cells were the _calottes_, the rooms on the -floor above. In summer the heat was extreme in them, and in winter the -cold, in spite of the stoves. They were octagons whose ceilings, as the -name implies, were shaped like a skull-cap. High enough in the centre, -they gradually diminished in height towards the sides. It was impossible -to stand upright except in the middle of the room. - -The prisoners were only placed in the cells and _calottes_ under -exceptional circumstances. Every tower had two or three floors of lofty -and airy chambers, and in these the prisoners lived. They were octagons -from fifteen to sixteen feet in diameter and from fifteen to twenty feet -high. Light entered through large windows approached by three steps. We -have said that it was only towards the end of Louis XIV.'s reign that -these rooms were arranged like prison cells with bars and bolts. They -were warmed with open fireplaces or stoves. The ceiling was whitewashed, -the floor of brick. On the walls the prisoners had chalked verses, -mottoes, and designs. - -One artistic prisoner amused himself by decorating the bare walls with -paintings. The governor, delighted at seeing him thus find relaxation, -moved him from room to room; when he had finished filling one with his -designs and arabesques, he was placed in another. Some of these rooms -were decorated with portraits of Louis XIV. placed above the -chimney-piece, a characteristic detail which helps to show what the -Bastille was at this period: the chateau of the king, where the king -received a certain number of his subjects as his willing or unwilling -guests. - -The best rooms in the Bastille were those that were fitted up in the -eighteenth century for the accommodation of the staff. These were what -were called the "suites." In these were placed invalids and prisoners of -distinction. - -At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the furniture of these -apartments was still extremely simple: they were absolutely empty. The -reason of this we have indicated above. "I arrived," says Madame de -Staal, "at a room where there was nothing but four walls, very filthy, -and daubed all over by my predecessors for want of something better to -do. It was so destitute of furniture that someone went and got a little -straw chair for me to sit on, and two stones to support a lighted -faggot, and a little candle-end was neatly stuck on the wall to give me -light." - -The prisoners sent to their own homes for a table, bed, and chair, or -they hired these from the upholsterer of the Bastille. When they had -nothing to bless themselves with, the government, as we have already -said, did not provide them with furniture. It gave them money, sometimes -considerable sums, which permitted them to adorn their rooms after their -own fancy. This was the case in regard to all prisoners up to 1684. At -this date the king ordered the administration to supply furniture to -those of the prisoners whose detention was to be kept secret, for, by -getting in bedding from their own houses or the houses of friends, they -made known their arrest. D'Argenson had half a dozen of the rooms -permanently furnished, others were furnished under Louis XV.; under -Louis XVI., almost all were furnished. The appointments were very -modest: a bed of green baize with curtains, one or two tables, several -chairs, fire-dogs, a shovel, and a small pair of tongs. But after having -undergone examination, the prisoner retained the right of getting in -furniture from outside. And in this way the rooms of the prisoners were -sometimes adorned with great elegance. Madame de Staal relates that she -had hers hung with tapestry; the Marquis de Sade covered the bare walls -with long and brilliant hangings: other prisoners ornamented their rooms -with family portraits: they procured chests of drawers, desks, round -tables, dressing-cases, armchairs, cushions in Utrecht velvet; the -inventories of articles belonging to the prisoners show that they -managed to secure everything they thought necessary. The Abbe Brigault, -who was imprisoned at the same time as Madame de Staal and for the same -affair, brought into the Bastille five arm-chairs, two pieces of -tapestry, eleven serge hangings, eight chairs, a bureau, a small table, -three pictures, &c. The list of effects taken out of the Bastille by the -Comte de Belle-Isle when he was set at liberty includes a library -consisting of 333 volumes and ten atlases, a complete service of fine -linen and plate for the table, a bed furnished with gold-bordered red -damask, four pieces of tapestry on antique subjects, two mirrors, a -screen of gold-bordered red damask matching the bed, two folding -screens, two armchairs with cushions, an armchair in leather, three -chairs in tapestry, an overmantel of gilt copper, tables, drawers, -stands, candlestick of plated copper, &c. We might multiply examples, -even from among prisoners of middle station. - -It was the rule that prisoners newly arrived at the Bastille should be -examined within twenty-four hours. It sometimes happened, however, that -one or another remained for two or three weeks before appearing before -the magistrate. The Chatelet commissioner, specially delegated to the -Bastille for these examinations, founded his questions on notes supplied -him by the lieutenant of police, who, indeed, often went in person to -see the prisoners. A special commission was appointed for affairs of -importance. Dumouriez says that he was examined after nine hours of -detention by three commissioners: "The president was an old councillor -of state named Marville, a man of intelligence, but coarse and -sarcastic. The second was M. de Sartine, lieutenant of police and -councillor of state, a man of polish and refinement. The third was a -_maitre des requetes_[35] named Villevaux, a very insincere and -disputatious fellow. The clerk, who had more intelligence than any of -them, was an advocate named Beaumont." - -We have found many instances of prisoners who spoke in high terms of -their judges. And it cannot be said that prisoners at the Bastille -escaped judgment. A Chatelet commissioner examined them and sent the -official report of his examination, with a statement of his opinion, to -the lieutenant of police. He decided whether the arrest should be -sustained. Moreover, it would be a mistake to compare the lieutenant of -police under the _ancien regime_ with the prefect of police of to-day; -the lieutenants of police, selected from former _maitres des requetes_, -had a judicial character: the documents of the period call them -"magistrates"; they issued decrees without appeal and pronounced penal -sentences, even condemning to the galleys; they were at the same time -justices of the peace with an extensive jurisdiction. In addition to the -examination held on the entrance of a prisoner, the lieutenants of -police, in the course of their frequent visits, addressed to the -ministers of Paris reports on the prisoners,--reports in which they -discussed the evidence, and which constituted veritable judgments. - -When the prisoner was recognized as innocent, a new _lettre de cachet_ -soon set him at liberty. The verdict of "no true bill" often supervened -with a rapidity which the decisions of our police magistrates would do -well to emulate. A certain Barbier, who entered the Bastille on February -15, 1753, was found not guilty and set at liberty the next day. Of the -279 persons imprisoned in the Bastille during the last fifteen years of -the _ancien regime_, thirty-eight benefited by the dropping of the -indictment. - -Finally--and here is a point on which the new method might well model -itself on that of the Bastille--when a detention was recognized as -unjust, the victim was indemnified. A great number of examples might be -mentioned. An advocate named Sube left the Bastille on June 18, 1767, -after a detention of eighteen days; he had been falsely accused of the -authorship of a book against the king, and received compensation to the -tune of 3000 livres, more than L240 of our money. A certain Pereyra, -imprisoned in the Bastille from November 7, 1771, to April 12, 1772, and -then from July 1 to September 26, 1774, having been found to be -innocent, was reinstated in all his property, and received from the king -a life pension of 1200 livres, more than L100 to-day. A certain number -of those accused in the Canada case, when the charge was withdrawn, -received a life pension on leaving the Bastille. At other times, the -detention of an individual might throw his family into want. He was kept -in the Bastille, if it was thought he deserved it, but his people were -assisted. Under date September 3, 1763, the Duke de Choiseul writes to -the lieutenant of police: "I have received the letter you did me the -honour of writing to me in favour of the children of the Sieur -Joncaire-Chabert. I have the pleasure to inform you that I have got for -them a second subsidy of 300 livres (nearly L30 to-day) in consideration -of the sad condition you informed me they were in." Louis XIV. -guaranteed to Pellisson, at his liberation, a pension of 2000 crowns. -The Regent granted to Voltaire, when he left the Bastille, a pension of -1200 livres. Louis XVI. awarded to Latude an annuity of 400 livres, and -to La Rocheguerault an annuity of 400 crowns. The minister Breteuil -pensioned all the prisoners whom he set at liberty. Brun de Condamine, -confined from 1779 to 1783, received on leaving a sum of 600 livres. -Renneville speaks of a prisoner to whom Seignelay gave an important -situation in compensation for his detention at the Bastille. We hear of -one, Toussaint Socquart, a commissioner of the Chatelet and of police -whose offices were restored to him when he came out of the Bastille. In -fact, contrary to detention in our modern prisons, incarceration in the -Bastille did not cast the slightest slur on the prisoner's character, -even in the eyes of those to whom his arrest was due, and instances have -been known of men who, on their release from the Bastille, not only -were reinstated in public offices, but reached the highest positions. - -Until his examinations were quite completed, the prisoner was kept in -close confinement. None but the officers of the chateau were allowed to -communicate with him. And during this time he lived in solitude, unless -he had brought a servant with him. The administration readily permitted -the prisoners to avail themselves of the services of their valets, who -were boarded at the king's expense. It even happened that the government -sometimes gave their prisoners valets, paying not only for their board, -but also their wages at the rate of 900 livres a year. One might cite -prisoners of inferior rank who thus had servants to wait on them. Two or -three prisoners were sometimes put together in one room. Prison life has -no greater terror than solitude. In absolute solitude many of the -prisoners became mad. In company, the hours of captivity seemed less -tedious and oppressive. Father and son, mother and daughter, aunt and -niece, lived together. Many might be named. On September 7, 1693, a lady -named De la Fontaine was taken to the Bastille for the second time. The -first time, she had been imprisoned quite alone; but this new detention -evoked the compassion of the lieutenant of police, who, to please the -poor lady, sent her husband to the Bastille, locked him up with her, and -gave them a lackey to wait on them. - -The examinations being ended, the prisoners enjoyed a greater liberty. -They could then enter into communication with the people of the town. -They obtained permission to see their relatives and friends. These -sometimes paid them visits in their rooms; but as a rule the interviews -took place in the council-hall, in presence of one of the officers of -the chateau. They were usually permitted to discuss only family affairs -and business matters. All conversation on the Bastille and the reasons -for their imprisonment was forbidden. The rules of the prison increased -in severity as time went on. Towards the end of Louis XV.'s reign the -lieutenant of police went so far as to prescribe the subjects of -conversation which would alone be permitted in the course of the visits -the prisoners received. "They may talk to the prisoner about the harvest -his vineyards will yield this year, about cancelling a lease, about a -match for his niece, about the health of his parents." But it is -necessary to read the _Memoirs_ of Gourville, Fontaine, Bussy-Rabutin, -Hennequin, Madame de Staal, the Duke de Richelieu, to form a general -idea of life at the Bastille under Louis XIV. and under the Regent. -Several prisoners were free to move about through the chateau wherever -it seemed good to them; they entered the rooms of their fellow-prisoners -at all hours of the day. The governor contented himself with locking -them in their own rooms at night. The prisoners who had the "liberty of -the court" organized games of bowls or _tonneau_, and hobnobbed with the -officers of the garrison. Fontaine relates that they might have been -seen from the top of the towers, collected fifty at a time in the inner -court Bussy-Rabutin's room was open to all comers: his wife and friends -visited him; he gave dinners to persons from court, plotted love -intrigues there, and corresponded freely with his friends and relatives. -Several prisoners even had permission to take a walk into the town on -condition of their returning to the chateau in the evening. Two brothers -were placed in the Bastille together. They went out when they pleased, -taking turns; it was sufficient for one or other to be always at the -chateau. The officers of the staff gossiped with the prisoners and gave -them advice as to the best means of obtaining their liberty. - -This animated, courtly, and elegant life is described with infinite -charm by Madame de Staal, whom we have already cited. "We all used to -spend a part of the day with the governor. We dined with him, and after -dinner I enjoyed a rubber of ombre with Messieurs de Pompadour and de -Boisdavis, Menil advising me. When it was over we returned to our own -apartments. The company met again in my rooms before supper, for which -we returned to the governor's, and after that we all went to bed." - -As to the manner in which the prisoners were fed and looked after, that -is surprising indeed, and what we shall say about it, though rigidly -accurate, will perhaps be regarded as an exaggeration. The governor drew -three livres a day for the maintenance of a man of inferior rank; five -livres for the maintenance of a tradesman; ten livres for a banker, a -magistrate, or a man of letters; fifteen livres for a judge of the -Parlement; thirty-six livres for a marshal of France. The Cardinal de -Rohan had 120 francs a day spent on him. The Prince de Courlande, during -a stay of five months at the Bastille, spent 22,000 francs. These -figures must be doubled and trebled to give the value they would -represent to-day. - -We read, too, with the greatest astonishment the description of the -meals the prisoners made. Renneville, whose evidence is the more -important in that his book is a pamphlet against the administration of -the Bastille, speaks in these terms of his first meal: "The turnkey put -one of my serviettes on the table and placed my dinner on it, which -consisted of pea soup garnished with lettuce, well simmered and -appetizing to look at, with a quarter of fowl to follow; in one dish -there was a juicy beef-steak, with plenty of gravy and a sprinkling of -parsley, in another a quarter of forcemeat pie well stuffed with -sweetbreads, cock's combs, asparagus, mushrooms, and truffles; and in a -third a ragout of sheep's tongue, the whole excellently cooked; for -dessert, a biscuit and two pippins. The turnkey insisted on pouring out -my wine. This was good burgundy, and the bread was excellent. I asked -him to drink, but he declared it was not permitted. I asked if I should -pay for my food, or whether I was indebted to the king for it. He told -me that I had only to ask freely for whatever would give me pleasure, -that they would try to satisfy me, and that His Majesty paid for it -all." The "most Christian" king desired that his guests should fast on -Fridays and in Lent, but he did not treat them any the worse on that -account. "I had," says Renneville, "six dishes, and an admirable prawn -soup. Among the fish there was a very fine weever, a large fried sole, -and a perch, all very well seasoned, with three other dishes." At this -period Renneville's board cost ten francs a day; later he was reduced to -the rate of the prisoners of a lower class. "They much reduced my usual -fare," he says; "I had, however, a good soup with fried bread crumbs, a -passable piece of beef, a ragout of sheep's tongue, and two custards for -dessert. I was treated in pretty much the same manner the whole time I -was in this gloomy place; sometimes they gave me, after my soup, a wing -or leg of fowl, sometimes they put two little patties on the edge of the -dish." - -Towards the end of Louis XV.'s reign, Dumouriez eulogizes the cookery of -the Bastille in almost the same terms. On the day of his entrance, -noticing that they were serving a fish dinner, he asked for a fowl to be -got from a neighbouring eating-house. "A fowl!" said the major, "don't -you know that to-day is Friday?" "Your business is to look after me and -not my conscience. I am an invalid, for the Bastille itself is a -disease," replied the prisoner. In an hour's time the fowl was on the -table. Subsequently he asked for his dinner and supper to be served at -the same time, between three and four o'clock. His valet, a good cook, -used to make him stews. "You fared very well at the Bastille; there -were always five dishes at dinner and three at supper, without the -dessert, and the whole being put on the table at once, appeared -magnificent." There is a letter from the major of the Bastille addressed -in 1764 to the lieutenant of police, discussing a prisoner named Vieilh, -who never ate butcher's meat; so they had to feed him exclusively on -game and poultry. Things were much the same under Louis XVI., as -Poultier d'Elmotte testifies: "De Launey, the governor, used to come and -have a friendly chat with me; he got them to consult my taste as regards -food, and to supply me with anything I wished for." The bookseller -Hardy, transferred in 1766 to the Bastille with the members of the -Breton deputation, declares frankly that they were all treated in the -best possible way. Finally, Linguet himself, in spite of his desire to -paint the lot of the victims of the Bastille in the most sombre colours, -is obliged to confess that food was supplied in abundance. Every morning -the cook sent up to him a menu on which he marked the dishes he fancied. - -The account books of the Bastille confirm the testimony of former -prisoners. The following, according to these documents, are the meals -that La Bourdonnais enjoyed during July, 1750. Every day the menu -contains soup, beef, veal, beans, French beans, two eggs, bread, -strawberries, cherries, gooseberries, oranges, two bottles of red wine, -and two bottles of beer. In addition to this regular bill of fare we -note on July 2, a fowl and a bottle of Muscat; on the 4th, a bottle of -Muscat; on the 7th, tea; on the 12th, a bottle of brandy; on the 13th, -some flowers; on the 14th, some quails; on the 15th, a turkey; on the -16th, a melon; on the 17th, a fowl; on the 18th, a young rabbit; on the -19th, a bottle of brandy; on the 20th, a chicken and ham sausage and two -melons; and so on. - -Tavernier was a prisoner of mean station, son of a doorkeeper of Paris -de Montmartel. He was implicated in a plot against the King's life, and -was one of the seven prisoners set free on the 14th of July. He was -found out of his mind in his cell. After he had been led in triumph -through the streets of Paris, he was shut up at Charenton. He was a -martyr, people exclaimed. He was certainly not so well off in his new -abode as he had been at the Bastille. We have an account of what was -supplied to him at the Bastille in addition to the ordinary meals, in -November, 1788, in March and May, 1789, three of the last months of his -imprisonment. In November we find: tobacco, four bottles of brandy, -sixty bottles of wine, thirty bottles of beer, two pounds of coffee, -three pounds of sugar, a turkey, oysters, chestnuts, apples, and pears; -in March: tobacco, four bottles of brandy, forty-four bottles of wine, -sixty bottles of beer, coffee, sugar, fowls, cheese; in May: tobacco, -four bottles of brandy, sixty-two bottles of wine, thirty-one bottles of -beer, pigeons, coffee, sugar, cheese, &c. We have the menus of the -Marquis de Sade for January, 1789: chocolate cream, a fat chicken -stuffed with chestnuts, pullets with truffles, potted ham, apricot -marmalade, &c. - -The facts we are describing were the rule. The prisoners who were -treated with the least consideration fed very well. Only those who were -sent down to the cells were sometimes put on bread and water, but that -was only a temporary punishment. - -When a complaint was formulated by any prisoner in regard to his food, a -reprimand to the governor soon followed. Then the lieutenant of police -inquired of the person concerned if he was better treated than formerly. -"His Majesty tells me," writes Pontchartrain to De Launey, "that -complaints have been raised about the bad food of the prisoners; he -instructs me to write to you to give the matter great attention." And -Sartine wrote jokingly to Major de Losmes: "I am quite willing for you -to get the clothes of Sieur Dubois enlarged, and I hope all your -prisoners may enjoy as excellent health." - -Further, the king clothed those of the prisoners who were too poor to -buy their own clothes. He did not give them a prison uniform, but -dressing-gowns padded or lined with rabbit skin, breeches of coloured -stuff, vests lined with silk plush and fancy coats.[36] The commissary -at the Bastille appointed to look after the supplies took the prisoners' -measure, and inquired about their tastes, and the colours and styles -that suited them best. A lady prisoner named Sauve asked to have made -for her a dress of white silk, dotted with green flowers. The wife of -commissary Rochebrune spent several days in going the round of the Paris -shops, and then wrote in despair that no dressmaker had such a material, -the nearest approach to it being a white silk with green stripes: if -Madame Sauve would be satisfied with that, they would send to take her -measure. "Monsieur le major," writes a prisoner named Hugonnet, "the -shirts they brought me yesterday are not a bit what I asked for, for I -remember having written 'fine, and with embroidered ruffles'; instead of -which these things are coarse, made of wretched linen, and with ruffles -at best only fit for a turnkey; and so I shall be glad if you will send -them back to the commissary; and let him keep them, for I declare I -won't have them." - -The governor also saw that the prisoners had some means of diversion. -The poorest he provided with pocket-money and tobacco. - -About the beginning of the seventeenth century, a Neapolitan named -Vinache died at the Bastille, after founding a library there for the use -of his fellow-prisoners. This library was gradually augmented by -donations from the governors, by gifts from various prisoners, and even -by the generosity of a citizen of Paris whose compassion had been -excited for the lot of the prisoners. The books consisted of romances, -works of science and philosophy, and religious books, light literature -predominating. The lieutenant of police, Berryer, struck out of the -list of books that were being sent one day to the binder a "poem on the -greatness of God," as being on "too melancholy a subject for prisoners." -The prisoners also procured books from outside. We have mentioned the -Comte de Belle-Isle, who had more than three hundred books and atlases -at the Bastille. La Beaumelle collected a library of more than 600 -volumes. The administration, moreover, never refused to get for the -prisoners, out of the royal funds and sometimes at considerable expense, -such works as they said were necessary to their studies. The works of -Voltaire and Puffendorf were readily placed in their hands. Finally, -under Louis XVI., they were allowed to read the gazettes. - -After the permission to have books and to write, the most coveted favour -was that of walking exercise. Refusal of this was rare. The prisoners -might walk, either on the towers of the Bastille, or in the inner -courts, or lastly along the bastion, which was transformed into a -garden. To fresh invigorating air the platform of the towers added the -attraction of the finest view. Fontaine relates that Sacy went to the -top of the towers every day after dinner. He there walked about in -company with the officers, who gave him news of the town and the -prisoners. - -In their rooms the prisoners amused themselves with feeding cats and -birds and animals of all kinds: they taught dogs tricks. Some were -allowed to have a violin or a clavecin. Pellisson was shut up with a -Basque who used to play to him on the musette. The Duke de Richelieu -boasts of the operatic airs he sang in parts with his neighbours in the -Bastille, Mdlle. de Launay among them, with her head at the bars of her -window; "we got up choruses of a sort, with fine effect." - -Other prisoners killed time with embroidery, weaving or knitting; some -made ornaments for the chapel of the chateau. Some devoted themselves to -carpentry, turned wood, made small articles of furniture. Artists -painted and sketched. "The occupation of M. de Villeroi was somewhat -singular: he had very fine clothes, which he was for ever unpicking and -sewing together again with much cleverness." The prisoners who lived -several in one room played at cards, chess, and backgammon. In 1788, at -the time of the troubles in Brittany, a dozen noblemen of that country -were shut up in the Bastille. They lived together, and asked for a -billiard table to amuse themselves; the table was set up in the -apartments of the major, and there these gentlemen went for their games. - -The prisoners who died in the Bastille were interred in the graveyard of -St. Paul's; the funeral service was held in the church of St. Paul, and -the burial certificate, bearing the family name of the deceased, was -drawn up in the vestry. It is not true that the names of the deceased -were wrongly stated in the register in order that their identity might -be concealed from the public. The Man in the Iron Mask was inscribed on -the register of St. Paul's under his real name. Jews, Protestants, and -suicides were buried in the garden of the chateau, the prejudices of the -period not allowing their remains to be laid in consecrated ground. - -Those who were liberated had a happier fate. Their dismissal was ordered -by a _lettre de cachet_, as their incarceration had been. These orders -for their liberation, so anxiously expected, were brought by the court -"distributors of packets" or by the ordinary post; sometimes relatives -and friends themselves brought the sealed envelope, in order to have the -joy of taking away at once those whose deliverance they came to effect. - -The governor, or, in his absence, the king's lieutenant, came into the -prisoner's chamber and announced that he was free. The papers and other -effects which had been taken from him on entrance were restored to him, -the major getting a receipt for them; then he signed a promise to reveal -nothing of what he had seen at the chateau. Many of the prisoners -refused to submit to this formality, and were liberated notwithstanding; -others, after having signed, retailed everywhere all they knew about the -prison, and were not interfered with. When the prisoner only recovered -his freedom under certain conditions, he was required to give an -undertaking to submit to the king's pleasure. - -All these formalities having been completed, the governor, with that -feeling for good form which characterized the men of the _ancien -regime_, had the man who had been his guest served for the last time -with an excellent dinner. If the prisoner was a man of good society, -the governor would even go so far as to invite him to his own table, and -then, the meal over and the good-byes said, he placed his own carriage -at the prisoner's disposal, and often entered it himself to accompany -him to his destination. - -More than one prisoner thus restored to the world must have felt greatly -embarrassed before a day was past, and have been at a loss what to do or -where to go. The administration of the Bastille sometimes gave money to -one and another to enable them to get along for a time. In December, -1783, a certain Dubu de la Tagnerette, after being set at liberty, was -lodged in the governor's house for a fortnight until he had found -apartments that would suit him. Moreover, many of the prisoners were -actually annoyed at being dismissed: we could cite examples of persons -who sought to get themselves sent to the Bastille; others refused to -accept their liberty, and others did their best to get their detention -prolonged. - -"Many come out," says Renneville, "very sad at having to leave." Le -Maistre de Sacy and Fontaine affirm that the years spent at the Bastille -were the best years in their lives. "The innocent life we lived," says -Renneville again, "Messieurs Hamilton, Schrader, and myself, seemed so -pleasant to M. Hamilton that he begged me to write a description of it -in verse." The _Memoirs_ of Madame de Staal represent her years at the -Bastille as the happiest she ever knew. "In my heart of hearts, I was -very far from desiring my liberty." "I stayed at the Bastille for six -weeks," observes the Abbe Morellet, "which sped away--I chuckle still as -I think of them--very pleasantly for me." And later, Dumouriez declares -that at the Bastille he was happy and never felt dull. - -Such was the rule of the celebrated state prison. In the last century -there was no place of detention in Europe where the prisoners were -surrounded with so many comforts and attentions: there is no such place -in these days. - -But in spite of these very real alleviations, it would be absurd to -pretend that the prisoners were in general reconciled to their -incarceration. Nothing is a consolation for the loss of liberty. How -many poor wretches, in their despair, have dashed their heads against -the thick walls while wife and children and concerns of the utmost -gravity were summoning them from without! The Bastille was the cause of -ruin to many; within its walls were shed tears which were never dried. - -An eighteenth-century writer thus defined the state prison: "A bastille -is any house solidly built, hermetically sealed, and diligently guarded, -where any person, of whatever rank, age, or sex, may enter without -knowing why, remain without knowing how long, hoping to leave it, but -not knowing how." These lines, written by an apologist for the old state -prison, contain its condemnation, without appeal, before the modern -mind. - - - - -CHAPTER IV. - -THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK. - - -For two centuries no question has excited public opinion more than that -of the Man in the Iron Mask. The books written on the subject would fill -a library. People despaired of ever lifting the veil. "The story of the -Iron Mask," says Michelet, "will probably remain for ever obscure," and -Henri Martin adds: "History has no right to pronounce judgment on what -will never leave the domain of conjecture." To-day, the doubt no longer -exists. The problem is solved. Before disclosing the solution which -criticism has unanimously declared correct, we propose to transcribe the -scanty authentic documents that we possess on the masked man, and then -to state the principal solutions which have been proposed, before -arriving at the true solution. - - -1. THE DOCUMENTS. - -_The Register of the Bastille._--To begin with, let us quote the text -which is the origin and foundation of all the works published on the -question of the Iron Mask. - -[Illustration: Note in Du Junca's Journal regarding the entrance to the -Bastille (September 18, 1698) of the Man in the Iron Mask.] - -Etienne du Junca, king's lieutenant at the Bastille, in a journal -which he began to keep on October 2, 1690, when he entered upon his -office--a sort of register in which he recorded day by day the details -concerning the arrival of the prisoners--writes, under date September -18, 1698, these lines,[37] which the popular legend has rendered -memorable:-- - -"Thursday, September 18 (1698), at three o'clock in the afternoon, M. de -Saint-Mars, governor of the chateau of the Bastille, made his first -appearance, coming from his governorship of the Isles of -Sainte-Marguerite-Honorat, bringing with him, in his conveyance, a -prisoner he had formerly at Pignerol, whom he caused to be always -masked, whose name is not mentioned; directly he got out of the carriage -he put him in the first room of the Baziniere tower, waiting till night -for me to take him, at nine o'clock, and put him with M. de Rosarges, -one of the sergeants brought by the governor, alone in the third room of -the Bertaudiere tower, which I had had furnished with all necessaries -some days before his arrival, having received orders to that effect from -M. de Saint-Mars: the which prisoner will be looked after and waited on -by M. de Rosarges, and maintained by the governor." - -In a second register, supplementary to the first, in which du Junca -records details of the liberation or the death of the prisoners, we -read, under date November 19, 1703:-- - -"On the same day, November 19, 1703, the unknown prisoner, always masked -with a mask of black velvet, whom M. de Saint-Mars, the governor, -brought with him on coming from the Isles de Sainte-Marguerite, whom he -had kept for a long time, the which happening to be a little ill -yesterday on coming from mass, he died to-day, about ten o'clock at -night, without having had a serious illness; it could not have been -slighter. M. Giraut, our chaplain, confessed him yesterday, is surprised -at his death. He did not receive the sacrament, and our chaplain -exhorted him a moment before he died. And this unknown prisoner, kept -here for so long, was buried on Tuesday at four o'clock p.m., November -20, in the graveyard of St. Paul, our parish; on the register of burial -he was given a name also unknown. M. de Rosarges, major, and Arreil, -surgeon, signed the register." - -And in the margin:-- - -"I have since learnt that they called him M. de Marchiel on the -register, and that forty livres was the cost of the funeral." - -The registers of du Junca were preserved among the ancient archives of -the Bastille, whence they passed to the Arsenal library, where they are -now kept. They are drawn up in the clumsy handwriting of a soldier, with -little skill in penmanship. The spelling is bad. But the facts are -stated with precision, and have always proved accurate when checked. - -[Illustration: Notice in Du Junca's Journal of the death of the masked -prisoner in the Bastille (November 19, 1703).] - -The extract from the second register shows that the mysterious -prisoner wore, not a mask of iron, but one of black velvet. - -Further, the entry on the register of St. Paul's church has been -discovered. It reads:-- - -"On the 19th, Marchioly, aged 45 years or thereabouts, died in the -Bastille, whose body was buried in the churchyard of St. Paul, his -parish, the 20th of the present month, in the presence of M. Rosage -(_sic_), major of the Bastille, and of M. Reglhe (_sic_), surgeon major -of the Bastille, who signed.--(Signed) ROSARGES, REILHE." - -Such are the fundamental documents for the story of the Iron Mask; we -shall see by and by that they are sufficient to establish the truth. - -_The Letter of the Governor of Sainte-Marguerite._--We have just seen, -from the register of du Junca, that the masked man had been at the Isles -of Sainte-Marguerite under the charge of Saint-Mars, who, on being -appointed governor of the Bastille, had brought the prisoner with him. -In the correspondence exchanged between Saint-Mars and the minister -Barbezieux, occurs the following letter, dated January 6, 1696, in which -Saint-Mars describes his method of dealing with the prisoners, and the -masked man is referred to under the appellation "my ancient prisoner." - - "MY LORD,--You command me to tell you what is the practice, when I - am absent or ill, as to the visits made and precautions taken daily - in regard to the prisoners committed to my charge. My two - lieutenants serve the meals at the regular hours, just as they - have seen me do, and as I still do very often when I am well. The - first of my lieutenants, who takes the keys of the prison of _my - ancient prisoner_, with whom we commence, opens the three doors and - enters the chamber of the prisoner, who politely hands him the - plates and dishes, put one on top of another, to give them into the - hands of the lieutenant, who has only to go through two doors to - hand them to one of my sergeants, who takes them and places them on - a table two steps away, where is the second lieutenant, who - examines everything that enters and leaves the prison, and sees - that there is nothing written on the plate; and after they have - given him the utensil, they examine his bed inside and out, and - then the gratings and windows of his room, and very often the man - himself: after having asked him very politely if he wants anything - else, they lock the doors and proceed to similar business with the - other prisoners." - -_The Letter of M. de Palteau._--On June 19, 1768, M. de Formanoir de -Palteau addressed from the chateau of Palteau, near Villeneuve-le-Roi, -to the celebrated Freron, editor of the _Annee Litteraire_, a letter -which was inserted in the number for June 30, 1768. The author of this -letter was the grand-nephew of Saint-Mars. At the time when the latter -was appointed governor of the Bastille, the chateau of Palteau belonged -to him, and he halted there with his prisoner on the way from the Isles -of Sainte-Marguerite to Paris. - -"In 1698," writes M. de Palteau, "M. de Saint-Mars passed from the -governorship of the Isles of Sainte-Marguerite to that of the Bastille. -On his way to take up his duties, he stayed with his prisoner on his -estate at Palteau. The masked man arrived in a conveyance which preceded -that of M. de Saint-Mars; they were accompanied by several horsemen. The -peasants went to meet their lord: M. de Saint-Mars ate with his -prisoner, who had his back turned to the windows of the dining-hall -looking on the courtyard. The peasants whom I have questioned could not -see whether he ate with his mask on; but they observed very well that M. -de Saint-Mars, who was opposite him at table, had two pistols beside his -plate. They had only one footman to wait on them, and he fetched the -dishes from an ante-room where they were brought him, carefully shutting -the door of the dining-hall behind him. When the prisoner crossed the -courtyard, he always had his black mask over his face; the peasants -noticed that his lips and teeth were not covered, that he was tall and -had white hair. M. de Saint-Mars slept in a bed that was put up for him -near that of the masked man." - -This account is marked throughout with the stamp of truth. M. de -Palteau, the writer, makes no attempt to draw inferences from it. He -declares for none of the hypotheses then under discussion in regard to -the identity of the mysterious unknown. He is content to report the -testimony of those of his peasants who saw the masked man when he passed -through their lord's estates. The only detail in the story which we are -able to check--a characteristic detail, it is true--is that of the black -mask of which M. de Palteau speaks: it corresponds exactly to the mask -of black velvet mentioned in du Junca's register. - -The chateau of Palteau is still in existence. In his work on -Superintendent Fouquet, M. Jules Lair gives a description of it. "The -chateau of Palteau, situated on an eminence among woods and vines, -presented at that time, as it does to-day, the aspect of a great lordly -mansion in the style of the time of Henri IV. and Louis XIII. First -there is a wide courtyard, then two wings; within, the principal -building and the chapel. The lower story is supported on arches, and its -lofty windows go right up into the roof, and light the place from floor -to attic." Since the eighteenth century, however, the chateau has -undergone some modifications. The room in which Saint-Mars dined with -his prisoner is now used as a kitchen. - -_The Notes of Major Chevalier._--In addition to the entries in du -Junca's Journal which we have transcribed, scholars are accustomed to -invoke, as equally worthy of credence though later in date, the -testimony of Father Griffet, chaplain of the Bastille, and that of Major -Chevalier. - -The extracts from du Junca quoted above were published for the first -time in 1769 by Father Griffet, who added the following comments: "The -memory of the masked prisoner was still preserved among the officers, -soldiers, and servants of the Bastille, when M. de Launey, who has long -been the governor, came to occupy a place on the staff of the garrison. -Those who had seen him with his mask, when he crossed the courtyard on -his way to attend mass, said that after his death the order was given to -burn everything he had used, such as linen, clothes, cushions, -counterpanes, &c.: that the very walls of the room he had occupied had -to be scraped and whitewashed again, and that all the tiles of the -flooring were taken up and replaced by others, because they were so -afraid that he had found the means to conceal some notes or some mark, -the discovery of which would have revealed his name." - -The testimony of Father Griffet happens to be confirmed by some notes -from the pen of a major of the Bastille named Chevalier. The major was -not a personage of the highest rank in the administration of the -Bastille, since above him were the governor and the king's lieutenant: -but he was the most important personage. The whole internal -administration, so far as the prisoners were concerned, was entrusted to -him. Chevalier fulfilled these duties for nearly thirty-eight years, -from 1749 to 1787. M. Fernand Bournon's estimate of him is as follows: -"Chevalier is a type of the devoted hard-working official who has no -ambition to rise above a rather subordinate rank. It would be impossible -to say how much the administration of the Bastille owed to his zeal and -to his perfect familiarity with a service of extraordinary difficulty." - -Among notes put together with a view to a history of the Bastille, -Chevalier gives in condensed form the information furnished by du -Junca's register, and adds: "This is the famous masked man whom no one -has ever known. He was treated with great distinction by the governor, -and was seen only by M. de Rosarges, major of the said chateau, who had -sole charge of him; he was not ill except for a few hours, and died -rather suddenly: interred at St. Paul's, on Tuesday, November 20, 1703, -at 4 o'clock p.m., under the name of Marchiergues. He was buried in a -new white shroud, given by the governor, and practically everything in -his room was burnt, such as his bed, chairs, tables, and other bits of -furniture, or else melted down, and the whole was thrown into the -privies." - -These notes of Father Griffet and Major Chevalier have derived great -force, in the eyes of historians, from their exact agreement; but a -close examination shows that the testimony of Chevalier was the source -of Father Griffet's information; in fact, Chevalier was major of the -Bastille when the Jesuit compiled his work, and it is doubtless upon his -authority that the latter depended. - -Documents recently published in the _Revue Bleue_ upset these -assertions, which appeared to be based on the firmest foundations. - -In the Journal of du Junca, which we have already mentioned, we read -under date April 30, 1701: "Sunday, April 30, about 9 o'clock in the -evening, M. Aumont the younger came, bringing and handing over to us a -prisoner named M. Maranville, alias Ricarville, who was an officer in -the army, a malcontent, too free with his tongue, a worthless fellow: -whom I received in obedience to the king's orders sent through the Count -of Pontchartrain: whom I have had put along with the man Tirmon, in the -second room of the Bertaudiere tower, with the _ancient prisoner_, both -being well locked in." - -The "ancient prisoner" here referred to is no other than the masked man. -When he entered the Bastille, as we have seen, on September 18, 1698, he -was placed in the third room of the Bertaudiere tower. In 1701, the -Bastille happened to be crowded with prisoners, and they had to put -several together in one and the same room; so the man in the mask was -placed with two companions. One of them, Jean-Alexandre de Ricarville, -also called Maranville, had been denounced as a "retailer of ill speech -against the State, finding fault with the policy of France and lauding -that of foreigners, especially that of the Dutch." The police reports -depict him as a beggarly fellow, poorly dressed, and about sixty years -old. He had formerly been, as du Junca says, an officer in the royal -troops. Maranville left the Bastille on October 19, 1708. He was -transferred to Charenton, where he died in February, 1709. It must be -pointed out that Charenton was then an "open" prison, where the -prisoners associated with one another and had numerous relations with -the outside world. - -The second of the fellow-prisoners of the man in the mask, -Dominique-Francois Tirmont, was a servant. When he was placed in the -Bastille, on July 30, 1700, he was nineteen years old. He was accused of -sorcery and of debauching young girls. He was put in the second room of -the Bertaudiere tower, where he was joined by Maranville and the man in -the mask. On December 14, 1701, he was transferred to Bicetre. He lost -his reason in 1703 and died in 1708. - -The man in the mask was taken out of the third room of the Bertaudiere -tower, in which he had been placed on his entrance to the Bastille, on -March 6, 1701, in order to make room for a woman named Anne Randon, a -"witch and fortune-teller," who was shut up alone in it. The masked -prisoner was then placed in the "second Bertaudiere" with Tirmont, who -had been there, as we have just seen, since July 30, 1700. Maranville -joined them on April 30, 1701. Not long after, the masked man was -transferred to another room, with or without Maranville. Tirmont had -been taken to Bicetre in 1701. We find that on February 26, 1703, the -Abbe Gonzel, a priest of Franche-Comte, accused of being a spy, was shut -up alone in the "second Bertaudiere." - -These facts are of undeniable authenticity, and one sees at a glance the -consequences springing from them. At the time when the masked prisoner -shared the same room with fellow-captives, other prisoners at the -Bastille were kept rigorously isolated, in spite of the crowded state of -the prison, so much more important did the reasons for their -incarceration seem! The man in the mask was associated with persons of -the lowest class, who were soon afterwards to leave and take their -places with the ruck of prisoners at Charenton and Bicetre. We read in a -report of D'Argenson that there was even some talk of enlisting one of -them, Tirmont, in the army. Such, then, was this strange personage, the -repository of a terrible secret of which Madame Palatine[38] was already -speaking in mysterious terms, the man who puzzled kings, Louis XV., -Louis XVI., who puzzled the very officers of the Bastille, and caused -them to write stories as remote as possible from the reality! - - -2. THE LEGEND. - -If the very officers of the Bastille indulged such wild freaks of -imagination, what flights into dreamland might not the thoughts of the -public be expected to take? The movement is a very curious one to -follow. To begin with, we have the light Venetian mask transforming -itself into an iron mask with steel articulations which the prisoner -was never without. The consideration--imaginary, as we have seen--with -which the prisoner is supposed to have been treated, and which is -referred to in the notes of Major Chevalier, becomes transformed into -marks of a boundless deference shown by the jailers towards their -captive. The story was that Saint-Mars, the governor, a knight of St. -Louis, never spoke to the prisoner except standing, with bared head, -that he served him at table with his own hands and on silver plate, and -that he supplied him with the most luxurious raiment his fancy could -devise. Chevalier says that after his death his room at the Bastille was -done up like new, to prevent his successor from discovering any -tell-tale evidence in some corner. Speaking of the time when the masked -man was at the Isles of Sainte-Marguerite, Voltaire relates: "One day -the prisoner wrote with a knife on a silver dish, and threw the dish out -of the window towards a boat moored on the shore, almost at the foot of -the tower. A fisherman, to whom the boat belonged, picked up the dish -and carried it to the governor. Astonished, he asked the fisherman, -'Have you read what is written on this dish, and has anyone seen it in -your hands?' 'I cannot read,' replied the fisher, 'I have only just -found it, and no one has seen it.' The poor man was detained until the -governor was assured he could not read and that no one had seen the -dish. 'Go,' he said, 'it is lucky for you that you can't read!'" - -In Father Papon's _History of Provence_, linen takes the place of the -dish. The upshot is more tragic: "I found in the citadel an officer of -the Free Company, aged 79 years. He told me several times that a barber -of that company saw one day, under the prisoner's window, something -white floating on the water; he went and picked it up and carried it to -M. de Saint-Mars. It was a shirt of fine linen, folded with no apparent -care, and covered with the prisoner's writing. M. de Saint-Mars, after -unfolding it and reading a few lines, asked the barber, with an air of -great embarrassment, if he had not had the curiosity to read what was on -it. The barber protested over and over again that he had read nothing; -but, two days after, he was found dead in his bed." - -And the fact that Saint-Mars had had the body of the prisoner buried in -a white cloth struck the imagination, and was developed in its turn into -an extraordinary taste on the part of the prisoner for linen of the -finest quality and for costly lace--all which was taken to prove that -the masked man was a son of Anne of Austria, who had a very special -love, it was declared, for valuable lace and fine linen. - -_A Brother of Louis XIV._--We are able to fix with precision, we -believe, the origin of the legend which made the Iron Mask a brother of -Louis XIV. Moreover, it was due to this suggestion, which was hinted at -from the first, that the story of the prisoner made so great a noise. -The glory of it belongs to the most famous writer of the eighteenth -century. With a boldness of imagination for which to-day he would be -envied by the cleverest journalistic inventor of sensational paragraphs, -Voltaire started this monstrous hoax on its vigorous flight. - -In 1745 there had just appeared a sort of romance entitled _Notes -towards the History of Persia_, which was attributed, not without some -reason, to Madame de Vieux-Maisons. The book contained a story within a -story, in which the mysterious prisoner, who was beginning to be talked -about everywhere, was identified with the Duke de Vermandois, and to -this fact was due the sensation which the book caused. Voltaire -immediately saw how he could turn the circumstance to account. He had -himself at one time been confined in the Bastille, which was one reason -for speaking of it; but he did not dare put in circulation suddenly, -without some preparation, the terrible story he had just conceived, and, -with a very delicate sensitiveness to public opinion, he contented -himself with printing the following paragraph in the first edition of -his _Age of Louis XIV._: "A few months after the death of Mazarin there -occurred an event which is unexampled in history, and, what is not less -strange, has been passed over in silence by all the historians. There -was sent with the utmost secrecy to the chateau of the Isle of -Sainte-Marguerite, in the Sea of Provence, an unknown prisoner, of more -than ordinary height, young, and with features of rare nobility and -beauty. On the way, this prisoner wore a mask the chinpiece of which was -fitted with springs of steel, which allowed him to eat freely with the -mask covering his face. The order had been given to kill him if he -uncovered. He remained in the island until an officer in whom great -confidence was placed, named Saint-Mars, governor of Pignerol, having -been made governor of the Bastille, came to the Isle of -Sainte-Marguerite to fetch him, and conducted him to the Bastille, -always masked. The Marquis de Louvois saw him in the island before his -removal, and remained standing while he spoke to him, with a -consideration savouring of respect." Voltaire, however, does not say who -this extraordinary prisoner was. He observed the impression produced on -the public by his story. Then he ventured more boldly, and in the first -edition of his _Questions on the Encyclopaedia_ insinuated that the -motive for covering the prisoner's face with a mask was fear lest some -too striking likeness should be recognized. He still refrained from -giving his name, but already everyone was on tip-toe with the -expectation of startling news. At last, in the second edition of -_Questions on the Encyclopaedia_, Voltaire intrepidly added that the man -in the mask was a uterine brother of Louis XIV., a son of Mazarin and -Anne of Austria, and older than the king. We know what incomparable -agitators of public opinion the Encyclopaedists were. - -Once hatched, the story was not long in producing a numerous progeny, -which grew in their turn and became a monstrous brood. - -We read in the _Memoirs_ of the Duke de Richelieu, compiled by his -secretary the Abbe Soulavie, that Mdlle. de Valois, the Regent's -daughter and at this date the mistress of Richelieu, consented, at the -instigation of the latter, to prostitute herself to her -father--tradition has it that the Regent was enamoured of his -daughter--in order to get sight of an account of the Iron Mask drawn up -by Saint-Mars. According to this story, which the author of the -_Memoirs_ prints in its entirety, Louis XIV. was born at noon, and at -half-past eight in the evening, while the king was at supper, the queen -was brought to bed of a second son, who was put out of sight so as to -avoid subsequent dissensions in the state. - -The Baron de Gleichen goes still farther. He is at the pains to prove -that it was the true heir to the throne who was put out of sight, to the -profit of a child of the queen and the cardinal. Having became masters -of the situation at the death of the king, they substituted their son -for the Dauphin, the substitution being facilitated by a strong likeness -between the children. One sees at a glance the consequences of this -theory, which nullifies the legitimacy of the last Bourbons. - -But the career of imagination was not yet to be checked. The legend came -into full bloom under the first empire. Pamphlets then appeared in which -the version of Baron de Gleichen was revived. Louis XIV. had been only a -bastard, the son of foreigners; the lawful heir had been imprisoned at -the Isles of Sainte-Marguerite, where he had married the daughter of one -of his keepers. Of this marriage was born a child who, as soon as he was -weaned, was sent to Corsica, and entrusted to a reliable person, as a -child coming of "good stock," in Italian, _Buona-parte_. Of that child -the Emperor was the direct descendant. The right of Napoleon I. to the -throne of France established by the Iron Mask!--there is a discovery -which the great Dumas missed. But, incredible as it seems, there were -men who actually took these fables seriously. In a Vendean manifesto -circulated among the Chouans,[39] in Nivose of the year IX,[40] we read: -"It is not wise for the Royalist party to rely on the assurances given -by some emissaries of Napoleon, that he seized the throne only to -restore the Bourbons; everything proves that he only awaits the general -pacification to declare himself, and that he means to base his right on -the birth of the children of the Iron Mask!" - -We shall not stay to refute the hypothesis which makes the Iron Mask a -brother of Louis XIV. Marius Topin has already done so in the clearest -possible manner. The notion, moreover, has long been abandoned. The last -writers who adhered to it date from the revolutionary period. - -_The Successive Incarnations of the Iron Mask._--"Never has an Indian -deity," says Paul de Saint-Victor, speaking of the Iron Mask, "undergone -so many metempsychoses and so many avatars." It would take too long -merely to enumerate all the individuals with whom it has been attempted -to identify the Iron Mask: even women have not escaped. We shall cite -rapidly the theories which have found most credence amongst the public, -or those which have been defended in the most serious works, in order to -arrive finally at the identification--as will be seen, it is one of -those proposed long ago--which is beyond doubt the true one. - -The hypothesis which, after that of a brother of Louis XIV., has most -powerfully excited public opinion, is that which made the mysterious -unknown Louis, Comte de Vermandois, admiral of France, and son of the -charming Louise de la Valliere. This was indeed the belief of Father -Griffet, chaplain of the Bastille, and even of the officers of the -staff. But the conjecture is disproved in a single line: "The Comte de -Vermandois died at Courtrai, on November 18, 1683." A precisely similar -fact refutes the theory identifying the Iron Mask with the Duke of -Monmouth, the natural son of Charles II. and Lucy Walters. Monmouth -perished on the scaffold in 1683. Lagrange-Chancel throws much ardour -and talent into a defence of the theory which made the Iron Mask Francis -of Vendome, Duke de Beaufort, who, under the Fronde, was called "King of -the Markets." The Duke de Beaufort died at the siege of Candia, June 25, -1669. - -To Lagrange-Chancel succeeds the Chevalier de Taules. "I have discovered -the Man in the Mask," he cries, "and it is my duty to impart my -discovery to Europe and posterity!" This discovery brings forward one -Avedick, an Armenian patriarch of Constantinople and Jerusalem, -kidnapped in the East at the instigation of the Jesuits, and transported -to France. Vergennes, on entering the ministry for foreign affairs, set -investigations on foot. They confirmed the statement that Avedick had -actually been arrested in the circumstances indicated, but after 1706; -and so he could not be identified with the Iron Mask. - -Such were the theories of the eighteenth century. We come now to those -of our own time. Since mystery and sinister machinations were involved, -the Jesuits could not be long left out of the business. We have just -seen them at their tricks with the Armenian patriarch. People dreamt of -an innocent youth thrown into a dungeon at their instigation for having -written a couple of verses against them. But even this fancy was -completely cast into the shade in a work published in 1885 under the -pseudonym of "Ubalde," the author of which was unquestionably M. Anatole -Loquin. This is his conclusion: "The more I reflect, the more I believe -I recognize in the Man in the Iron Mask, without any elaborate theory, -without prejudice on my part, no other than J. B. Poquelin de Moliere." -The Jesuits have got their revenge for _Tartufe_! - -Let us come now to the conjectures which have almost hit the truth and -have been defended by genuine scholars. - -Superintendent Fouquet is the solution of the bibliophile Jacob (Paul -Lacroix). M. Lair has shown that Fouquet died at Pignerol, of a sort of -apoplexy, on March 23, 1680, at the very moment when there was an idea -at court of sending him to the waters at Bourbon, as a first step -towards his final liberation. - -Francois Ravaisson, the learned and charming keeper of the Arsenal -library, whose work in classifying the archives of the Bastille we have -had the honour to continue, believed for a moment that the celebrated -prisoner might have been the young Count de Keroualze who had fought at -Candia under the orders of Admiral de Beaufort. Ravaisson put forth his -theory with much hesitation, and as, in the sequel, he was himself led -to abandon it, we need not dwell any longer upon it. - -M. Loiseleur, in the course of his brilliant controversy with Marius -Topin, suggested "an obscure spy arrested by Catinat in 1681," and his -opponent refuted him in the most piquant manner by discovering Catinat -in the very prisoner he was said to have arrested! - -General Jung published a large volume in support of the claims of a -certain Oldendorf, a native of Lorraine, a spy and poisoner, arrested on -March 29, 1673, in a trap laid for him at one of the passages of the -Somme. The theory was refuted by M. Loiseleur. As M. Lair pointed out, -General Jung did not even succeed in proving that his nominee entered -Pignerol, an essential condition to his being the Man in the Mask. - -Baron Carutti urged the claims of a mad Jacobin, a prisoner at Pignerol -whose name remains unknown; but this Jacobin died at Pignerol towards -the close of 1693.' - -The recent work of M. Emile Burgaud, written in collaboration with -Commandant Bazeries, made a great sensation. He fixes on General Vivien -Labbe de Bulonde, whom Louvois arrested for having shown dereliction of -a general's duty before Coni. M. Geoffroy de Grandmaison published in -the _Univers_ of January 9, 1895, two receipts signed by General de -Bulonde, one in 1699, when the masked man was in rigorous isolation at -the Bastille, the other in 1705, when he had been dead for two years. - -We come at last to the hypothesis which is the most probable of -all--after the true hypothesis, of course. Eustache Dauger, whom M. Lair -identifies with the masked prisoner, was a valet, who had been put into -jail at Pignerol on July 28, 1669. But it must be noted that the masked -prisoner was kept guarded in rigorous secrecy in the early days of his -detention, as long as he was at Pignerol and the Isles of -Sainte-Marguerite. Now, when Dauger went to Pignerol, his case seemed of -such slight importance that Saint-Mars thought of making him into a -servant for the other prisoners, and in fact, in 1675, Louvois gave him -as a valet to Fouquet, who for some time past had seen the rigour of his -confinement sensibly mitigated, receiving visits, walking freely in the -courts and purlieus of the fortress, Dauger accompanying him. Further, -we know that the masked man was transferred direct from Pignerol to the -Isles of Sainte-Marguerite, whilst Dauger was transferred in 1681 to -Exiles, whence he only went to the Isles in 1687. - -We now come to the correct solution. - - -3. MATTIOLI. - -To Baron Heiss, once captain in the Alsace regiment, and one of the most -distinguished bibliophiles of his time, belongs the honour of being the -first, in a letter dated from Phalsbourg, June 28, 1770, and published -by the _Journal encyclopedique_, to identify the masked prisoner with -Count Mattioli, secretary of state to the Duke of Mantua. After him, -Dutens, in 1783, in his _Intercepted Correspondence_; Baron de -Chambrier, in 1795, in a Memoir presented to the Academy of Berlin; -Roux-Fazillac, member of the Legislative Assembly and the Convention, in -a remarkable work printed in 1801; then successively, Reth, Delort, -Ellis, Carlo Botta, Armand Baschet, Marius Topin, Paul de Saint-Victor, -and M. Gallien, in a series of publications more or less important, -endeavoured to prove that the Man in the Mask was the Duke of Mantua's -secretary of state. The scholars most intimate with the history of Louis -XIV.'s government, Depping, Cheruel, Camille Rousset, have not hesitated -to pronounce in favour of the same view; while against them, -singlehanded like his D'Artagnan, Alexandre Dumas resisted the efforts -of twenty scholars, and the _Vicomte de Bragelonne_--giving a new lease -of life to the legend about the brother of Louis XIV., put in -circulation by Voltaire, and reinforced by the Revolution--drove back -into their dust among the archives the documents which students had -exhumed. - -We have no longer to deal with so formidable an adversary, and we hope -that the following pages will not leave the shadow of a doubt. - -We know how, under the influence of Louvois, the able and insinuating -policy directed first by Mazarin, then by Lionne, gave way to a military -diplomacy, blunt and aggressive. Louis XIV. was master of Pignerol, -acquired in 1632. He was induced by Louvois to cast covetous glances at -Casal. In possession of these two places, the French armies could not -but dominate Upper Italy, and hold the court of Turin directly at their -mercy. The throne of Mantua was then occupied by a young duke, Charles -IV. of Gonzago, frivolous, happy-go-lucky, dissipating his wealth at -Venice in fetes and pleasures. In 1677 he had pledged to the Jews the -crown revenues for several years. Charles IV. was also Marquis of -Montferrat, of which Casal was the capital. Noting with watchful eye the -frivolity and financial straits of the young prince, the court of -Versailles conceived the bold scheme of buying Casal for hard cash. - -At this date, one of the principal personages in Mantua was Count -Hercules Antony Mattioli. He was born at Bologna on December 1, 1640, of -a distinguished family. A brilliant student, he had barely passed his -twentieth year when he was elected a professor at the University of -Bologna. Afterwards he established himself at Mantua, where Charles -III., whose confidence he had won, made him his secretary of state. -Charles IV., continuing the favour of his father, not only maintained -Mattioli in his office as minister of state, but appointed him an -honorary senator, a dignity which was enhanced by the title of Count. - -Louis XIV. was employing at the capital of the Venetian republic a -keen-witted and enterprising ambassador, the Abbe d'Estrades. He saw -through the ambitious and intriguing nature of Mattioli, and, towards -the end of 1677, succeeded in winning over his support for the designs -of the French court on Casal. - -On January 12, 1678, Louis XIV. with his own hand wrote expressing his -thanks to Mattioli, who by-and-by came to Paris. On December 8, the -contract was signed, the Duke of Mantua receiving in exchange for Casal -100,000 crowns. In a private audience, Louis XIV. presented Mattioli -with a costly diamond and paid him the sum of a hundred double louis. - -Scarcely two months after Mattioli's journey to France, the courts of -Vienna, Madrid, Turin, and the Venetian Republic were simultaneously -informed of all that had taken place. In order to reap a double harvest -of gold, Mattioli had cynically betrayed both his master Charles IV. and -the King of France. Like a thunderbolt there came to Versailles the news -of the arrest of Baron d'Asfeld, the envoy appointed by Louis XIV. to -exchange ratifications with Mattioli. The governor of Milan had caused -him to be seized and handed over to the Spaniards. The rage of Louis -XIV. and of Louvois, who had urged the opening of negotiations, taken -an active part in them, and begun preparations for the occupation of -Casal, may well be imagined. The Abbe d'Estrades, not less irritated, -conceived a scheme of the most daring kind, proposing to Versailles -nothing less than the abduction of the Mantuan minister. But Louis XIV. -was determined to have no scandal. Catinat was charged with carrying out -the scheme in person. The Abbe d'Estrades, in his dealings with -Mattioli, feigned ignorance of the double game the Count was playing. He -led him to believe, on the contrary, that the balance of the sums -promised at Versailles was about to be paid. A meeting was fixed for May -2, 1679. On that day d'Estrades and Mattioli got into a carriage, the -passing of which was awaited by Catinat accompanied by some dozen men. -At two o'clock in the afternoon, Mattioli was in the fortress of -Pignerol, in the hands of jailer Saint-Mars. When we remember the rank -held by the Italian minister, we are confronted with one of the most -audacious violations of international law of which history has preserved -a record. - -Early in the year 1694, Mattioli was transferred to the Isles of -Sainte-Marguerite; we have seen that he entered the Bastille on -September 18, 1698, and died there on November 19, 1703. - -The details that we possess of the imprisonment of Mattioli at Pignerol -and afterwards at the Isles of Sainte-Marguerite show that he was at the -outset treated with the consideration due to his rank and to the -position he occupied at the time of his arrest. Eventually the respect -which the prisoner had at first inspired gradually diminished: as years -went on the attentions shown him grew less and less until the day when, -at the Bastille, he was given a room in common with persons of the -basest class. On the other hand, the rigour of his confinement, so far -as the secrecy in which he was kept was concerned, was more and more -relaxed; what it was material to conceal was the circumstances under -which Mattioli had been arrested, and with the lapse of time this secret -continually diminished in importance. As to the mask of black velvet -which Mattioli had among his possessions when he was arrested, and which -he put on, without a doubt, only for the occasion, this in reality -constituted a relief to his captivity, for it permitted the prisoner to -leave his room, while the other state prisoners were rigorously mewed up -in theirs. - - * * * * * - -It remains to prove that the masked prisoner was really Mattioli. - -1. In the despatch sent by Louis XIV. to the Abbe d'Estrades five days -before the arrest, the king approves the scheme of his ambassador and -authorizes him to secure Mattioli, "since you believe you can get him -carried off without the affair giving rise to any scandal." The prisoner -is to be conducted to Pignerol, where "instructions are being sent to -receive him and keep him there without anybody having knowledge of it." -The king's orders close with these words: "You must see to it that no -one knows what becomes of this man." The capture effected, Catinat wrote -on his part to Louvois: "It came off without any violence, and no one -knows the name of the knave, not even the officers who helped to arrest -him." Finally, we have a very curious pamphlet entitled _La Prudenza -triomfante di Casale_, written in 1682, that is, little more than two -years after the event, and--this slight detail is of capital -importance--thirty years before there was any talk of the Man in the -Mask. In this we read: "The secretary (Mattioli) was surrounded by ten -or twelve horsemen, who seized him, disguised him, _masked_ him, and -conducted him to Pignerol"--a fact, moreover, confirmed by a tradition -which in the eighteenth century was still rife in the district, where -scholars succeeded in culling it. - -Is there any need to insist on the strength of the proofs afforded by -these three documents, taken in connection one with another? - -2. We know, from du Junca's register, that the masked man was shut up at -Pignerol under the charge of Saint-Mars. In 1681, Saint-Mars gave up the -governorship of Pignerol for that of Exiles. We can determine with -absolute precision the number of prisoners Saint-Mars had then in his -keeping. It was exactly five. A dispatch from Louvois, dated June 9, is -very clear. In the first paragraph, he orders "the two prisoners in the -lower tower" to be removed; in the second, he adds: "The rest of the -prisoners in your charge." Here there is a clear indication of the -"rest": what follows settles the number: "The Sieur du Chamoy has orders -to pay two crowns a day for the board of these _three_ prisoners." This -account, as clear as arithmetic can make it, is further confirmed by the -letter addressed by Saint-Mars to the Abbe d'Estrades on June 25, 1681, -when he was setting out for Exiles: "I received yesterday the warrant -appointing me governor of Exiles: I am to keep charge of two jailbirds I -have here, who have no other name than 'the gentlemen of the lower -tower'; Mattioli will remain here with two other prisoners." - -The prisoners, then, were five in number, and the masked man is to be -found, of necessity, among them. Now we know who these five were: (1) a -certain La Riviere, who died at the end of December, 1686; (2) a -Jacobin, out of his mind, who died at the end of 1693; (3) a certain -Dubreuil, who died at the Isles of Sainte-Marguerite about 1697. There -remain Dauger and Mattioli. The Man in the Mask is, without possible -dispute, the one or the other. We have explained above the reasons which -lead us to discard Dauger. The mysterious prisoner, then, was Mattioli. -The proof is mathematically exact. - -[Illustration: - - Burial certificate of the masked prisoner (November 20, 1703), - reproduced from the facsimile in the sixth edition of _The Man in - the Iron Mask_, by Marius Topin, 1883. The original, in the city - archives of Paris, was destroyed in the conflagration of 1871. -] - -3. Opposite this page will be found a facsimile reproduction of the -death certificate of the masked prisoner as inscribed on the registers -of the church of St. Paul. It is the very name of the Duke of Mantua's -former secretary that is traced there: "Marchioly." It must be -remembered that "Marchioly" would be pronounced in Italian "Markioly," -and that Saint-Mars, governor of the Bastille, who furnished the -information on which the certificate was drawn up, almost always wrote -in his correspondence--a characteristic detail--not "Mattioli," but -"Martioly": that is the very name on the register, less distorted than -the name of the major of the Bastille, who was called "Rosarges," and -not "Rosage," as given on the register; and the name of the surgeon, who -was called "Reilhe," and not "Reglhe." - -It has been shown above how, as time went on, the rigorous seclusion to -which the masked prisoner had been condemned was relaxed. What it had -been thought necessary to conceal was the manner in which Mattioli had -been captured, and with time that secret itself had lost its importance. -As the Duke of Mantua had declared himself very well pleased with the -arrest of the minister by whom he, no less than Louis XIV., had been -deceived, there was nothing to prevent the name from being inscribed on -a register of death, where, moreover, no one would ever have thought of -looking for it. - -Let us add that, in consequence of error or carelessness on the part of -the officer who supplied the information for the register, or perhaps on -the part of the parson or beadle who wrote it, the age is stated -incorrectly, "forty-five years or thereabouts," while Mattioli was -sixty-three when he died. However, the register was filled up without -the least care, as a formality of no importance. - -4. The Duke de Choiseul pressed Louis XV. to reveal to him the clue to -the enigma. The king escaped with an evasion. One day, however, he said -to him: "If you knew all about it, you would see that it has very little -interest;" and some time after, when Madame de Pompadour, at de -Choiseul's instigation, pressed the king on the subject, he told her -that the prisoner was "the minister of an Italian prince." - -In the _Memoirs of the Private Life of Marie Antoinette_ by her -principal lady in waiting, Madame de Campan, we read that the queen -tormented Louis XVI., who did not know the secret, to have a search made -among the papers of the various ministries. "I was with the queen," says -Madame de Campan, "when the king, having finished his researches, told -her that he had found nothing in the secret papers which had any bearing -on the existence of this prisoner; that he had spoken on the subject to -M. de Maurepas, whose age brought him nearer the time when the whole -story must have been known to the ministers (Maurepas had been minister -of the king's household as a very young man, in the early years of the -eighteenth century, having the department of the _lettres de cachet_), -and that M. de Maurepas had assured him that the prisoner was simply a -man of a very dangerous character through his intriguing spirit, and a -subject of the Duke of Mantua. He was lured to the frontier, arrested, -and kept a prisoner, at first at Pignerol, then at the Bastille." - -These two pieces of evidence are of such weight that they alone would -be sufficient to fix the truth. When they were written, there was no -talk of Mattioli, of whose very name Madame de Campan was ignorant. -Supposing that Madame de Campan had amused herself by inventing a -fable--an absurd and improbable supposition, for what reason could she -have had for so doing?--it is impossible to admit that her imagination -could have hit upon fancies so absolutely in accord with facts.[41] - -And so the problem is solved. The legend, which had reared itself even -as high as the throne of France, topples down. The satisfaction of the -historian springs from his reflection that all serious historical works -for more than a century, resting on far-reaching researches and -eschewing all preoccupations foreign to science--such, for example, as -the desire of attaining a result different from the solutions proposed -by one's predecessors--have arrived at the same conclusion, which proves -to be the correct solution. Heiss, Baron de Chambrier, Reth, -Roux-Fazillac, Delort, Carlo Botta, Armand Baschet, Marius Topin, Paul -de Saint-Victor, Camille Rousset, Cheruel, Depping, have not hesitated -to place under the famous mask of black velvet the features of -Mattioli. But at each new effort made by science, legend throws itself -once more into the fray, gaining new activity from the passions produced -by the Revolution. - -The truth, in history, sometimes suggests to our mind's eye those white -or yellow flowers which float on the water among broad flat leaves; a -breeze springs up, a wave rises and submerges them, they disappear; but -only for a moment: then they come to the surface again. - - - - -CHAPTER V. - -MEN OF LETTERS IN THE BASTILLE. - - -Speaking of men of letters in France under the _ancien regime_, Michelet -calls them "the martyrs of thought"; he adds: "The world thinks, France -speaks. And that is precisely why the Bastille of France, the Bastille -of Paris--I would rather say, the prison-house of thought--was, among -all bastilles, execrable, infamous, and accursed." In the course of the -article devoted to the Bastille in the _Grande Encyclopedie_, M. Fernand -Bournon writes: "After Louis XIV. and throughout the eighteenth century, -the Bastille was especially employed to repress, though it could not -stifle, that generous and majestic movement (the glory of the human -spirit) towards ideas of emancipation and enfranchisement; it was the -epoch when philosophers, publicists, pamphleteers, the very booksellers, -were imprisoned there in large numbers." And to substantiate this -eloquent apostrophe, M. Bournon cites the names of Voltaire, La -Beaumelle, the Abbe Morellet, Marmontel, and Linguet, imprisoned in the -Bastille; and of Diderot and the Marquis de Mirabeau placed in the -chateau of Vincennes. - -Let us recall the story of these poor victims in turn, and trace the -history of their martyrdom. - - -VOLTAIRE. - -The most illustrious and the earliest in date of the writers mentioned -by M. Bournon is Voltaire. He was sent to the Bastille on two different -occasions. His first imprisonment began on May 17, 1717. At that date -the poet was only twenty-two years of age and of no reputation; he did -not even bear the name of Voltaire, which he only took after his -discharge from the Bastille on April 14, 1718. The cause of his -detention was not "the generous and majestic movement towards ideas of -enfranchisement which is the glory of the human spirit," but some -scurrilities which, to speak plainly, brought him what he deserved: -coarse verses against the Regent and his daughter, and public utterances -coarser still. Many authors state that Voltaire was imprisoned for -writing the _J'ai vu_, a satire against the government of Louis XIV., -each stanza of which ended with the line:-- - - J'ai vu ces maux, et je n'ai pas vingt ans.[42] - -This is a mistake. Voltaire was imprisoned for having written the _Puero -regnante_, some verses on the Regent and his daughter, the Duchess of -Berry, which it would be impossible to translate. To these he added -observations whose reproduction would be equally impossible. At the -Bastille Voltaire underwent examinations in the usual way, in the course -of which he lied with impudence; after that he was allowed considerable -liberty. "It was at the Bastille," wrote Condorcet, "that the young poet -made the first draft of his poem _La Ligue_, corrected his tragedy of -_OEdipe_, and composed some very lively lines on the ill-luck of being -there." - -The following are the most respectable lines of this production:-- - - So one fine faultless morning in the spring, - When Whitsun splendour brighten'd everything, - A strange commotion startled me from sleep. - - * * * * * - - At last I reach'd my chamber in the keep. - A clownish turnkey, with an unctuous smile, - Of my new lodging 'gan to praise the style: - "What ease, what charms, what comforts here are yours! - For never Phoebus in his daily course - Will blind you here with his too brilliant rays; - Within these ten-foot walls you'll spend your days - In cool sequester'd blithefulness always." - Then bidding me admire my cloistral cell-- - The triple doors, the triple locks as well, - The bolts, the bars, the gratings all around-- - "'Tis but," says he, "to keep you safe and sound!" - - * * * * * - - Behold me, then, lodged in this woful place, - Cribb'd, cabin'd, and confined in narrow space; - Sleepless by night, and starving half the day; - No joys, no friend, no mistress--wellaway![43] - -When Voltaire was set at liberty, the Regent, whom, as we have just -said, he had reviled, made him a very handsome offer of his protection. -The poet's reply is well known: "My lord, I thank your royal highness -for being so good as to continue to charge yourself with my board, but -I beseech you no longer to charge yourself with my lodging." The young -writer thus obtained from the Regent a pension of 400 crowns, which -later on the latter augmented to 2000 livres. - -Voltaire was sent to the Bastille a second time in April, 1726. For this -new detention there was no justification whatever. He had had a violent -quarrel, one evening at the Opera, with the Chevalier de Rohan-Chabot. -On another occasion, at the Comedie Francaise, the poet and the nobleman -had a warm altercation in the box of Mdlle. Lecouvreur. Rohan raised his -stick, Voltaire put his hand on his sword, and the actress fainted. Some -days later "the gallant chevalier, assisted by half a dozen ruffians, -behind whom he courageously posted himself," gave our poet a thrashing -in broad daylight. When relating the adventure later, the Chevalier said -pleasantly: "I commanded the squad." From that moment Voltaire sought -his revenge. "The police reports reveal curious details of the loose, -erratic, and feverish life he lived between the insult and his arrest," -writes the careful biographer of Voltaire, Desnoiresterres. From one of -these police reports we see that the young writer established relations -with soldiers of the guard: several notorious bullies were constantly -about him. A relative who attempted to calm him found him more irritated -and violent in his language than ever. It appears certain that he was -meditating some act of violence, which indeed would not have been -without justification. But the Cardinal de Rohan contrived that he -should be arrested on the night of April 17, 1726, and placed in the -Bastille. - -Speaking of this new imprisonment Marshal de Villars writes: "The -public, disposed to find fault all round, came to the conclusion on this -occasion that everybody was in the wrong: Voltaire for having offended -the Chevalier de Rohan, the latter for having dared to commit a capital -offence in causing a citizen to be beaten, the government for not having -punished a notorious crime, and for having sent the injured party to the -Bastille to pacify the injurer." Nevertheless, we read in the report of -Herault, the lieutenant of police: "The Sieur de Voltaire was found -armed with pocket pistols, and his family, when informed of the matter, -unanimously and universally applauded the wisdom of an order which saves -this young man the ill effects of some new piece of folly and the worthy -people who compose his family the vexation of sharing his shame." - -Voltaire remained at the Bastille for _twelve days_: he was permitted to -have a servant of his own choice to wait on him, who was boarded at the -king's expense; as for himself, he took his meals whenever he pleased at -the governor's table, going out of the Bastille, as the governor's -residence stood outside the prison. Relatives and friends came to see -him; his friend Thieriot dined with him; he was given pens, paper, -books, whatever he desired in order to divert himself. "Using and -abusing these opportunities," writes Desnoiresterres, "Voltaire believed -that he could give audience to all Paris. He wrote to those of his -friends who had not yet shown a sense of their duty, exhorting them to -give him proof they were alive." "I have been accustomed to all -misfortunes," he wrote to Thieriot, "but not yet to that of being -utterly abandoned by you. Madame de Bernieres, Madame du Deffand, the -Chevalier des Alleurs really ought to come and see me. They only have to -ask permission of M. Herault or M. de Maurepas." At the time of the -poet's entrance to the Bastille, the lieutenant of police had written to -the governor: "The Sieur de Voltaire is of a _genius_ that requires -humouring. His Serene Highness has approved of my writing to tell you -that the king's intention is that you should secure for him mild -treatment and the internal liberty of the Bastille, so far as these do -not jeopardize the security of his detention." The warrant setting him -at liberty was signed on April 26. - - -LA BEAUMELLE. - -In M. Bournon's list La Beaumelle comes second. The circumstances under -which he was put into the Bastille were as follows. After having fallen -out at Berlin with Voltaire, whom he had compared to a monkey, La -Beaumelle returned to Paris, whence he had been exiled. There he got -printed a new edition of Voltaire's _Age of Louis XIV._, unknown to the -author, and interpolated therein odes insulting to the house of Orleans. -"La Beaumelle," exclaimed Voltaire, "is the first who dared to print -another man's work in his lifetime. This miserable Erostrates of the -_Age of Louis XIV._ has discovered the secret of changing into an -infamous libel, for fifteen ducats, a work undertaken for the glory of -the nation." - -La Beaumelle became an inmate of the Bastille in April, 1753, and -remained there for six months. Writing on May 18, 1753, to M. Roques, -Voltaire said that "there was scarcely any country where he would not -inevitably have been punished sooner or later, and I know from a certain -source that there are two courts where they would have inflicted a -chastisement more signal than that which he is undergoing here." - -It was not long before La Beaumelle issued his edition of _Notes towards -the History of Madame de Maintenon and that of the past century_, with -nine volumes of correspondence. He had fabricated letters which he -attributed to Madame de Saint-Geran and Madame de Frontenac, and -published a correspondence of Madame de Maintenon which M. Geffroy, in a -work recognized as authoritative, regards as full of barefaced -falsehoods and foul and scurrilous inventions. He had inserted in his -work the following phrase: "The court of Vienna has been long accused of -having poisoners always in its pay." - -It must be observed that La Beaumelle's publication owed its great vogue -to special circumstances. The author's reputation abroad, the very title -of the book, lent it great importance; and France, then engaged in the -Seven Years' War, found it necessary to keep in Austria's good graces. -La Beaumelle was conveyed to the Bastille a second time. The lieutenant -of police, Berryer, put him through the usual examination. La Beaumelle -was a man of the world, so witty that in the course of their quarrels he -drove Voltaire himself to despair. He showed himself such in his -examination. "La Beaumelle," said Berryer to him, "this is wit you are -giving me when what I ask of you is plain sense." On his expressing a -wish for a companion, he was placed with the Abbe d'Estrades. The -officers of the chateau had all his manuscripts brought from his house, -so that he might continue his literary work. He had at the Bastille a -library of 600 volumes, ranged on shelves which the governor ordered to -be made for him. He there finished a translation of the _Annals_ of -Tacitus and the _Odes_ of Horace. He had permission to write to his -relatives and friends, and to receive visits from them; he had the -liberty of walking in the castle garden, of breeding birds in his room, -and of having brought from outside all the luxuries to which he was -partial. The principal secretary of the lieutenant of police, Duval, -reports the following incident: "Danry (the famous Latude) and Allegre -(his companion in confinement and ere long in escape) found means to -open a correspondence with all the prisoners in the Bastille. They -lifted a stone in a closet of the chapel, and put their letters -underneath it. La Beaumelle pretended to be a woman in his letters to -Allegre, and as he was a man of parts and Allegre was of keen -sensibility and an excellent writer, the latter fell madly in love with -La Beaumelle, to such a degree that, though they mutually agreed to -burn their letters, Allegre preserved those of his fancied mistress, -which he had not the heart to give to the flames; with the result that, -the letters being discovered at an inspection of his room, he was put in -the cells for some time. The prisoner amused himself also by composing -verses which he recited at the top of his voice. This gave much concern -to the officers of the garrison, and Chevalier, the major, wrote to the -lieutenant of police on the matter: "The Sieur de la Beaumelle seems to -have gone clean out of his mind; he seems to be a maniac; he amuses -himself by declaiming verses in his room for a part of the day: for the -rest of the time he is quiet." - -This second detention lasted from August, 1756, till August, 1757. - - -THE ABBE MORELLET. - -We come to the Abbe Morellet, a man of fine and fascinating mind, one of -the best of the Encyclopaedists, who died in 1819 a member of the -Institute and the object of general esteem. He was arrested on June 11, -1760, for having had printed and distributed, without privilege or -permission, a pamphlet entitled: _Preface to the Philosophers' Comedy; -or, the Vision of Charles Palissot_.[44] These are the terms in which, -later on, Morellet himself judged his pamphlet: "I must here make my -confession. In this work, I went far beyond the limits of a literary -pleasantry regarding the Sieur Palissot, and to-day I am not without -remorse for my fault." And further, as J. J. Rousseau, in whose favour -the pamphlet had been in part composed, had to acknowledge, the Abbe -"very impudently" insulted a young and pretty woman, Madame de Robecq, -who was dying of decline, spitting blood, and did actually die a few -days later. - -The arrest of Morellet was demanded by Malesherbes, then censor of the -press, one of the most generous and liberal spirits of the time, the -inspirer of the famous remonstrances of the Court of Taxation against -_lettres de cachet_--the man who, as M. H. Monin testifies, "being -elected censor of the press, protected philosophers and men of letters, -and by his personal efforts facilitated the publication of the -_Encyclopaedia_." Speaking of the _Preface to the Comedy_, Malesherbes -writes to Gabriel de Sartine, lieutenant-general of police: "It is an -outrageous pamphlet, not only against Palissot, but against respectable -persons whose very condition should shelter them against such insults. I -beg you, sir, to be good enough to put a stop to this scandal. I believe -it to be a matter of public importance that the punishment should be -very severe, and that this punishment should not stop at the Bastille or -the For-l'Eveque,[45] because a very wide distinction must be drawn -between the delinquencies of men of letters tearing each other to -pieces and the insolence of those who attack persons of the highest -consideration in the State. I do not think that Bicetre would be too -severe for these last. If you have to ask M. de Saint-Florentin for the -royal authority for your proceedings, I hope you will be good enough to -inform him of the request I am making." - -It will be observed that, on Malesherbes' showing, the Bastille would -not suffice to punish the _Preface to the Comedy_, nor even the -For-l'Eveque; he asks for the most stringent of the prisons, Bicetre. -Before long, it is true, this excellent man returned to milder -sentiments. An imprisonment at Bicetre, he wrote, would be infamous. -Saint-Florentin and Sartine were not hard to convince. Morellet was -taken to the Bastille. "The warrant for his arrest," wrote one of his -agents to Malesherbes, "was executed this morning by Inspector D'Hemery -with all the amenities possible in so unpleasant a business. D'Hemery -knows the Abbe Morellet, and has spoken of him to M. de Sartine in the -most favourable terms." - -When he entered the Bastille the Abbe calculated that his imprisonment -would last six months, and after acknowledging that he at that time -viewed his detention without great distress, he adds: "I am bound to -say, to lower the too high opinion that may be formed of me and my -courage, that I was marvellously sustained by a thought which rendered -my little virtue more easy. I saw some literary glory illumining the -walls of my prison; persecuted, I must be better known. The men of -letters whom I had avenged, and the philosophy for which I was a -martyr, would lay the foundation of my reputation. The men of the world, -who love satire, would receive me better than ever. A career was opening -before me, and I should be able to pursue it at greater advantage. These -six months at the Bastille would be an excellent recommendation, and -would infallibly make my fortune." - -The Abbe remained at the Bastille, not six months, but six weeks, "which -slipped away," he observes "--I chuckle still as I think of them--very -pleasantly for me." He spent his time in reading romances, and, with -admirable humour, in writing a _Treatise on the Liberty of the Press_. -Afterwards the good Abbe informs us that the hopes which he had indulged -were not deceived. On issuing from the Bastille he was a made man. -Little known two months before, he now met everywhere with the reception -he desired. The doors of the salons of Madame de Boufflers, Madame -Necker, the Baron d'Holbach, flew open before him; women pitied him and -admired him, and men followed their example. Why have we not to-day a -Bastille to facilitate the career of writers of talent! - - -MARMONTEL. - -To Marmontel his stay at the royal prison appeared as pleasant as the -Abbe Morellet had found his. He had amused himself by reciting at Madame -Geoffrin's a mordant satire in which the Duke d'Aumont, first groom of -the stole to the king, was cruelly hit. The duke expostulated; -Marmontel wrote to him declaring that he was not the author of the -satire; but the nobleman stood his ground. - -"I am helpless," said the Count de Saint-Florentin, who countersigned -the _lettre de cachet_, to Marmontel; "the Duke d'Aumont accuses you, -and is determined to have you punished. It is a satisfaction he demands -in recompense for his services and the services of his ancestors. The -king has been pleased to grant him his wish. So you will go and find M. -de Sartine; I am addressing to him the king's order; you will tell him -that it was from my hand you received it." - -"I went to find M. de Sartine," writes Marmontel, "and I found with him -the police officer who was to accompany me. M. de Sartine was intending -that he should go to the Bastille in a separate carriage; but I myself -declined this obliging offer, and we arrived at the Bastille, my -introducer and myself, in the same hack.... The governor, M. d'Abadie, -asked me if I wished my servant to be left with me.... They made a -cursory inspection of my packets and books, and then sent me up to a -large room furnished with two beds, two tables, a low cupboard, and -three cane chairs. It was cold, but a jailer made us a good fire and -brought me wood in abundance. At the same time they gave me pens, ink, -and paper, on condition of my accounting for the use I made of them and -the number of sheets they allowed me. - -"The jailer came back to ask if I was satisfied with my bed. After -examining it I replied that the mattresses were bad and the coverlets -dirty. In a minute all was changed. They sent to ask me what was my -dinner hour. I replied, 'The same as everybody's.' The Bastille had a -library: the governor sent me the catalogue, giving me free choice among -the books. I merely thanked him for myself, but my servant asked for the -romances of Prevost, and they were brought to him." - -Let us go on with Marmontel's story. "For my part," he says, "I had the -means of escape from ennui. Having been for a long time impatient of the -contempt shown by men of letters for Lucan's poem, which they had not -read, and only knew in the barbarous fustian of Brebeuf's version, I had -resolved to translate it more becomingly and faithfully into prose; and -this work, which would occupy me without fatiguing my brain, was the -best possible employment for the solitary leisure of my prison. So I had -brought the _Pharsalia_ with me, and, to understand it the better, I had -been careful to bring with it the _Commentaries_ of Caesar. Behold me -then at the corner of a good fire, pondering the quarrel of Caesar and -Pompey, and forgetting my own with the Duke d'Aumont. And there was Bury -too (Marmontel's servant) as philosophical as myself, amusing himself by -making our beds placed at two opposite corners of my room, which was at -this moment lit up by the beams of a fine winter sun, in spite of the -bars of two strong iron gratings which permitted me a view of the Suburb -Saint-Antoine. - -"Two hours later, the noise of the bolts of the two doors which shut me -in startled me from my profound musings, and the two jailers, loaded -with a dinner I believed to be mine, came in and served it in silence. -One put down in front of the fire three little dishes covered with -plates of common earthenware; the other laid on that one of the two -tables which was clear a tablecloth rather coarse, indeed, but white. I -saw him place on the table a very fair set of things, a pewter spoon and -fork, good household bread, and a bottle of wine. Their duty done, the -jailers retired, and the two doors were shut again with the same noise -of locks and bolts. - -"Then Bury invited me to take my place, and served my soup. It was a -Friday. The soup, made without meat, was a _puree_ of white beans, with -the freshest butter, and a dish of the same beans was the first that -Bury served me with. I found all this excellent. The dish of cod he gave -me for second course was better still. It was served with a dash of -garlic, which gave it a delicacy of taste and odour which would have -flattered the taste of the daintiest Gascon. The wine was not -first-rate, but passable; no sweets: of course one must expect to be -deprived of something. On the whole, I thought that dinner in prison was -not half bad. - -"As I was rising from table, and Bury was about to sit down--for there -was enough for his dinner in what was left--lo and behold! in came my -two jailers again, with pyramids of dishes in their hands. At this -display of fine linen, fine china-ware, spoon and fork of silver, we -recognized our mistake; but we made not the ghost of a sign, and when -our jailers, having laid down their burden, had retired, 'Sir,' said -Bury, 'you have just eaten my dinner, you will quite agree to my having -my turn and eating yours.' 'That's fair,' I replied, and the walls of my -room were astonished, I fancy, at the sound of laughter. - -"This dinner was not vegetarian; here are the details: an excellent -soup, a juicy beef-steak, a boiled capon's leg streaming with gravy and -melting in one's mouth, a little dish of artichokes fried in pickle, a -dish of spinach, a very fine William pear, fresh-cut grapes, a bottle of -old burgundy, and best Mocha coffee; this was Bury's dinner, with the -exception of the coffee and the fruit, which he insisted on reserving -for me. - -"After dinner the governor came to see me, and asked me if I found the -fare sufficient, assuring me that I should be served from his table, -that he would take care to cut my portions himself, and that no one -should touch my food but himself. He suggested a fowl for my supper; I -thanked him and told him that what was left of the fruit from my dinner -would suffice. The reader has just seen what my ordinary fare was at the -Bastille, and from this he may infer with what mildness, or rather -reluctance, they brought themselves to visit on me the wrath of the Duke -d'Aumont. - -"Every day I had a visit from the governor. As he had some smack of -literature and even of Latin, he took some interest in following my -work, in fact, enjoyed it; but soon, tearing himself away from these -little dissipations, he said, 'Adieu, I am going to console men who are -more unfortunate than you.'" - -Such was the imprisonment of Marmontel. It lasted for eleven days. - - -LINGUET. - -Linguet, advocate and journalist, was arrested for a breach of the press -laws and for slander. He was a man of considerable ability, but little -character. Attorney-general Cruppi has devoted to the story of Linguet a -work as extensive as it is eloquent. He has a wealth of indulgence for -his hero; yet, despite the goodwill he shows for him and endeavours to -impart to the reader, his book reveals between the lines that Linguet -was worthy of little esteem, and that his professional brethren were -justified in removing his name from the roll of the advocates of Paris. - -Linguet's captivity lasted for two years. He has left a description of -it in his _Memoirs on the Bastille_, which made a great noise, and of -which the success has endured down to our own day. His book, like -everything which came from his pen, is written in a fluent style, with -spirit and brilliance; the facts cited are for the most part correct, -but the author, aiming at making a sensation, has cleverly presented -them in a light which distorts their real character. "There are means," -says Madame de Staal, "of so distributing light and shade on the facts -one is exhibiting, as to alter their appearance without altering the -groundwork." Take, for instance, the description that Linguet gives of -his belongings while in the Bastille: "Two worm-eaten mattresses, a cane -chair the seat of which was only held to it by strings, a folding table, -a jug for water, two earthenware pots, one of them for drinking, and two -stone slabs to make a fire on." A contemporary could say of Linguet's -_Memoirs_, "It is the longest lie that ever was printed." And yet, if we -take the facts themselves which are related by the clever journalist, -and disengage them from the deceitful mirage in which he has enwrapped -them, we do not see that his life in the Bastille was so wretched as he -endeavours to make us believe. He is forced to acknowledge that his food -was always most abundant, adding, it is true, that that was because they -wished to poison him! He owed his life, he is convinced, "only to the -obstinate tenacity of his constitution." He marked, nevertheless, on the -menu for the day, which was sent up every morning by the Bastille cook, -the dishes he fancied; and later on he had his room furnished after his -own heart. He still enjoyed, moreover, enough liberty to write during -his imprisonment a work entitled, _The Trials of Three Kings, Louis -XVI., Charles III., and George III._, which appeared in London in 1781. -Let us recall once more the famous saying of Linguet to the wig-maker of -the Bastille on the first day that he presented himself to trim the -prisoner's beard: "To whom have I the honour of speaking?" "I am, sir, -the barber to the Bastille." "Gad, then, why don't you raze it?" - -In June, 1792, some years after his liberation, Linguet was prosecuted a -second time for breach of the press laws. The revolutionary tribunal -condemned him to death. As he mounted the steps of the scaffold, the -ardent pamphleteer thought, mayhap, with bitterly ironical regret, of -that Bastille whose destruction he had so clamorously demanded. - - -DIDEROT. - -We have still to speak of Diderot and the Marquis de Mirabeau, who were -not incarcerated at the Bastille, but at Vincennes, not in the castle -keep, but in the chateau itself, which constituted a separate place of -imprisonment. They placed in the chateau only prisoners guilty of minor -offences, who were sentenced to a temporary detention, and to whom they -wished to show some consideration. This was, as we have just said, the -abode of Diderot and the Marquis de Mirabeau. Diderot was arrested on -July 24, 1749. His last book, _Letters on the Blind for the Use of those -Who Can See_, contained theories which appeared to have but little title -to the description of "moral." But in the course of his examination he -stoutly denied that he was its author, as also he denied the authorship -of the _Thoughts of a Philosopher_ he had published some years before. -The lieutenant of police gave instructions to the governor of Vincennes -that, short of being set at liberty, Diderot was to be granted all -possible comforts--allowed to walk in the garden and park; "that the -king's desire was, in consideration of the literary work on which he was -engaged (the _Encyclopaedia_), to permit him to communicate freely with -persons from without who might come for that purpose or on family -business." And so Diderot received a visit from his wife and walked with -her in the wood; Rousseau and D'Alembert spent their afternoons with -him, and, as in the "good old days" of Plato and Socrates, our -philosophers chatted of metaphysics and love, seated on the green grass -under the shade of mighty oaks. The booksellers and printers who had -undertaken the publication of the _Encyclopaedia_ were, as we have seen, -in constant communication with Diderot at Vincennes; he corrected in -prison the proofs of the publication, which the court looked on with no -favourable eye. And we know, too, that at night, with the secret -complicity of the governor, our philosopher cleared the park walls to -hurry to a fair lady at Paris, one Madame de Puysieux, whom he loved -with a passion by no means platonic; ere the sun was up, the jailers -found him safely back under lock and key. This irksome captivity lasted -little more than three months. - - -THE MARQUIS DE MIRABEAU. - -The imprisonment of Mirabeau lasted only ten days. The _lettre de -cachet_ had been obtained by the clique of financiers, who took fright -at the audacious conceptions of the _Theory of Taxation_. "I fancy I -deserved my punishment," wrote the Marquis, "like the ass in the fable, -for a clumsy and misplaced zeal." In regard to the arrest, Madame -d'Epinay sent word to Voltaire: "Never before was a man arrested as this -one was. The officer said to him, 'Sir, my orders do not state I am to -hurry you: to-morrow will do, if you haven't time to-day.' 'No, sir, one -cannot be too prompt in obeying the king's orders, I am quite ready.' -And off he went with a bag crammed with books and papers." At Vincennes -the Marquis had a servant with him. His wife came to see him. The king -spent for his support fifteen livres a day, more than twenty-five -shillings of our money. He was liberated on December 24, 1760. His -brother, Bailie Mirabeau, speaking of this detention, wrote to him of "a -week's imprisonment in which you were shown every possible -consideration." - - * * * * * - -We have exhausted M. Bournon's list of the writers who were victims of -arbitrary authority. Such are the "martyrs" for whom that excellent -historian, and Michelet and others, have shown the most affecting -compassion. The foregoing facts do not call for comment. Men of letters -were the spoilt children of the eighteenth century much more than of our -own, and never has an absolute government shown a toleration equal to -that of the monarchy under the _ancien regime_ towards writers whose -doctrines, as events have proved, tended directly to its destruction. - - - - -CHAPTER VI. - -LATUDE. - - -Few historical figures have taken a higher place in the popular -imagination than Masers de Latude. That celebrated prisoner seems to -have accumulated in his life of suffering all the wrongs that spring -from an arbitrary government. The novelists and playwrights of the -nineteenth century have made him a hero; the poets have draped his woes -in fine mourning robes, our greatest historians have burnt for him the -midnight oil; numerous editions of his _Memoirs_ have appeared in quick -succession down to our own days. Even by his contemporaries he was -regarded as a martyr, and posterity has not plucked the shining crown of -martyrdom from his head, hoary with the snows of long captivity. His -legend is the creature of his own unaided brain. When in 1790 he -dictated the story of his life, he made greater calls on his glowing -southern imagination than on his memory; but the documents relating to -his case in the archives of the Bastille have been preserved. At the -present time they are to be found dispersed among various libraries, at -the Arsenal, at Carnavalet, at St. Petersburg. Thanks to them it is -easy to establish the truth. - -On March 23, 1725, at Montagnac in Languedoc, a poor girl named -Jeanneton Aubrespy gave birth to a male child who was baptized three -days later under the name of Jean Henri, given him by his god-parents, -Jean Bouhour and Jeanne Boudet. Surname the poor little creature had -none, for he was the illegitimate child of a father unknown. Jeanneton, -who had just passed her thirtieth year, was of respectable middle-class -family, and lived near the Lom gate in a little house which seems to -have been her own. Several cousins of hers held commissions in the army. -But from the day when she became a mother, her family had no more to do -with her, and she fell into want. Happily she was a woman of stout -heart, and by her spinning and sewing she supported her boy, who shot up -into a lad of keen intelligence and considerable ambition. She succeeded -in getting him some sort of education, and we find Jean Henri at the age -of seventeen acting as assistant surgeon in the army of Languedoc. -Surgeons, it is true, made no great figure in the eighteenth century; -they combined the duties of barber and dentist as well as leech. But the -situation was good enough. "Assistant surgeons in the army," wrote -Saint-Marc the detective, "who really worked at their trade, made a good -deal of money." At this time, being reluctant to bear his mother's name, -the young man ingeniously transformed his double forename into Jean -Danry, under which he is designated in a passport for Alsace, given him -on March 25, 1743, by the general commanding the royal forces in -Languedoc. In the same year 1743, Danry accompanied the army of Marshal -de Noailles in its operations on the Maine and the Rhine, receiving from -the Marshal, towards the end of the season, a certificate testifying to -his good and faithful service throughout the campaign. - -Four years later we find Danry at Brussels, employed in the -field-hospital of the army in Flanders, at a salary of 500 livres a -month. He was present at the famous siege of Bergen-op-Zoom, the -impregnable fortress which the French so valiantly stormed under the -command of the Comte de Lowendal. But peace being concluded at -Aix-la-Chapelle, the armies were disbanded, and Danry went to Paris. He -had in his pocket a letter of recommendation to Descluzeaux, the surgeon -of Marshal de Noailles, and a certificate signed by Guignard de La -Garde, chief of the commissariat, testifying to the ability and good -conduct of "the aforesaid Jean Danry, assistant surgeon." These two -certificates formed the most substantial part of his fortune. - -Danry arrived in Paris about the end of the year 1748. On any afternoon -he might have been seen strolling about the Tuileries in a grey frock -and red waistcoat, carrying his twenty-three years with a good grace. Of -middle height and somewhat spare figure, wearing his brown hair in a -silk net, having keen eyes and an expression of much intelligence, he -would probably have been thought a handsome fellow but for the marks -which smallpox had indelibly stamped on his face. His accent had a -decided Gascon tang, and it is obvious, from the spelling of his -letters, not only that he could not boast of a literary education, but -that his speech was that of a man of the people. Yet, what with his -brisk temperament, his professional skill, and his favour with his -superiors, he was in a fair way to attain an honourable position, which -would have enabled him at length to support his mother, then living in -solitary friendlessness at Montagnac, centring on him, in her forlorn -condition, all her affection and her dearest hopes. - -Paris, with its gaiety and stir, dazzled the young man. Its brilliant -and luxurious life, its rustling silks and laces, set him dreaming. He -found the girls of Paris charming creatures, and opened his heart to -them without stint, and his purse too; and his heart was more opulent -than his purse. Ere long he had spent his modest savings and sunk into -want. He fell into bad company. His best friend, an apothecary's -assistant named Binguet, shared with him a mean garret in the Cul-de-sac -du Coq, in the house of one Charmeleux, who let furnished lodgings. Than -these two no greater rakes, wastrels, or thorough-paced rascals could -have been found in all Paris. Danry in particular very soon got a name -all over his neighbourhood for his riotous, threatening, and choleric -temper. Dying of hunger, threatened with being ejected neck-and-crop -from his lodging for nonpayment of rent, he was reduced at last to write -for money to his mother, who, poor thing, had barely enough for her own -modest wants. - -As yet we are a long way from the "handsome officer of engineers" who -lives in our remembrance: we see little likeness to the brilliant -picture which Danry drew later of those youthful years during which he -received, "by the care of his father the Marquis de La Tude, the -education of a gentleman destined to serve his country and his king." - -Having come now absolutely to the end of his resources, Danry took it -into his head that, at the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom, he had been stripped -by some soldiers of all his clothes but his shirt, and robbed of 678 -livres into the bargain. This story he worked up in a letter addressed -to Moreau de Sechelles, commissary of the army in Flanders, hoping to -get it corroborated by Guignard de La Garde, the commissary under whom -he had himself served. In this letter he demanded compensation for the -losses he had suffered while devoting himself under fire to the care of -the wounded. But we read, in the _Memoirs_ he wrote later, that so far -from having been stripped and robbed, he had actually purchased at -Bergen-op-Zoom a considerable quantity of goods of all kinds when they -were sold off cheap after the sack of the town. However that may be, his -experiment was a failure. But Danry was a man of resource, and not many -days had passed before he had hit on another means of raising the wind. - -[Illustration: - - Cover of the explosive box sent by Danry to the Marquise de - Pompadour. The words almost obliterated are: "Je vous prie, Madame, - d'ouvrir le paquet en particulie." Below is the record and the date - of Danry's examination, with his signature, and that of Berryer, - the lieutenant of police. -] - -At this time everybody was talking about the struggle between the -king's ministers and the Marquise de Pompadour, which had just ended in -a triumph for the lady. Maurepas was going into exile, but it was -generally believed that he was a man who would wreak vengeance on his -enemy, and the favourite herself openly declared that she went in fear -of poison. A light dawned on the young surgeon's mind as he heard such -gossip as this; he caught a sudden glimpse of himself--even he, the -ragged outcast--arrayed in cloth of gold and rolling in his carriage -along the Versailles road. - -This was his plan. On April 27, 1749, in a shop under the arcade of the -Palais-Royal, hard by the grand staircase, he bought of a small -tradesman six of those little bottle-shaped toys, once called Prince -Rupert's Drops, out of which children used to get so much harmless -amusement. They were globules of molten glass, which, on being thrown -into cold water, had taken the shape of pears, and which, if the -tapering end was suddenly snapped, crumbled with a loud report into -dust. Four of these crackers Danry placed in a cardboard box, binding -the thin ends together with a thread which he fixed in the lid. Over -these he sprinkled some toilet powder, and this he covered with a layer -of powdered vitriol and alum. The whole packet he then enclosed in a -double wrapper, writing on the inner one, "I beg you, madam, to open the -packet in private," and on the outer one, "To Madame the Marquise de -Pompadour, at court." - -At eight o'clock in the evening of the next day, Danry, having seen his -packet safely in the post, hurried off himself to Versailles. He had -hoped to gain admittance to the favourite herself, but being stopped by -Gourbillon, her principal valet, in a voice trembling with emotion he -related to him a frightful story. Happening to be at the Tuileries, he -said, he had observed two men seated in animated conversation, and on -going close to them heard them mouthing the most horrible threats -against Madame de Pompadour. When they rose he dogged their footsteps, -which led direct to the post office, where they consigned a packet to -the box. Who the men were, and what was the nature of the packet, were -natural questions to which Danry had no answer; all he could say was -that, devoted to the interests of the Marquise, he had instantly sped -off to reveal to her what he had seen. - -To understand the impression produced by the young man's information, it -is necessary to bear in mind the feverish excitement then prevailing at -court. Maurepas, the witty and sprightly minister who had won Louis -XV.'s special affection because of the charm with which he endowed mere -business for "the man who was always bored"--Maurepas had just been -exiled to Bourges. "Pontchartrain," the king sent word to him, "is too -near." The struggle between the minister and the favourite had been one -of extraordinary violence. Maurepas was for ever dashing off satirical -verses on the girl who had reached the steps of the throne, and -incessantly pursuing her with the cruel and insolent shafts of his wit; -his muse indeed did not shrink from the most brutal insults. Nor was the -Marquise a whit more tender towards her foe: she openly dubbed him liar -and knave, and assured everybody that he was trying to get her poisoned. -A surgeon was actually required to be in constant attendance upon her, -and she always had an antidote within reach. At table she was careful -never to be the first to partake of any dish, and in her box at the -theatre she would drink no lemonade but what had been prepared by her -surgeon. - -The packet which Danry had posted arrived at Versailles on April 29, and -Quesnay, the physician to the king and the Marquise, was requested to -open it. Having done so with infinite precaution, he recognized the -vitriol and alum and toilet powder, and declared at once that there was -not a pennyworth of danger in the whole contrivance. But since alum and -vitriol were substances capable of being turned to baneful uses, he -thought that possibly it was a case of a criminal design clumsily -executed. - -There is not a shadow of doubt that Louis XV. and his mistress were -seriously alarmed. D'Argenson himself, who had upheld Maurepas against -the favourite, had the greatest possible interest in seeing the affair -cleared up as soon as possible. The first move was altogether in favour -of the informer. D'Argenson wrote to Berryer that Danry was deserving of -a reward. - -No time was lost in instituting a search for the authors of the plot. -The lieutenant of police selected the most skilful and intelligent of -his officers, the detective Saint-Marc, who put himself in communication -with Danry. But he had not spent two days with the assistant surgeon -before he drew up a report demanding his arrest. "It is not unimportant -to note that Danry is a surgeon, and his best friend an apothecary. In -my opinion it is essential to apprehend both Danry and Binguet without -further delay, and without letting either know of the other's arrest, -and at the same time to search their rooms." - -Accordingly Danry was conveyed to the Bastille on May 1, 1749, and -Binguet was secured the same day. Saint-Marc had taken the precaution to -ask the assistant surgeon for a written account of his adventure. This -document he put into the hands of an expert, who compared the -handwriting with the address on the packet sent to Versailles. Danry was -lost. Suspicion was but too well confirmed by the results of a search in -his room. Being shut up in the Bastille, Danry knew nothing of all these -proceedings, and when, on May 2, the lieutenant-general of police came -to question him, he replied only with lies. - -Berryer, the lieutenant of police, was a man of much firmness, but -honourable and kindly disposed. "He inspired one's confidence," wrote -Danry himself, "by his urbanity and kindness." This excellent man was -vexed at the attitude taken up by the prisoner, and pointing out the -danger he was incurring, he besought him to tell the truth. But at a -second examination Danry only persisted in his lies. Then all at once he -changed his tactics and refused to answer the questions put to him. -"Danry, here we do justice to every one," said Berryer to him, to give -him courage. But entreaties had no better success than threats. Danry -maintained his obstinate silence; and D'Argenson wrote to Berryer: "The -thorough elucidation of this affair is too important for you not to -follow up any clue which may point towards a solution." - -By his falsehoods, and then by his silence, Danry had succeeded in -giving the appearance of a mysterious plot to what was really an -insignificant piece of knavery. - -Not till June 15 did he make up his mind to offer a statement very near -the truth, which was written down and sent at once to the king, who read -it over several times and kept it in his pocket the whole day--a -circumstance which indicates to what importance the affair had now -swelled. Suspicions were not dispelled by the declaration of June 15. -Danry had misrepresented the truth in his former examinations, and there -was reason to believe that he was equally misrepresenting it in the -third. Thus he owed his ruin to his silence and his self-contradictory -depositions. Six months later, on October 7, 1749, when he was at -Vincennes, Dr. Quesnay, who had shown much interest in the young -surgeon, was sent to find out from him the name of the individual who -had instigated the crime. On his return the doctor wrote to Berryer, -"My journey has been utterly useless. I only saw a blockhead, who -persisted nevertheless in adhering to his former declarations." Two -years more had passed away when the lieutenant of police wrote to -Quesnay:--"February 25, 1751. Danry would be very glad if you would pay -him a visit, and your compliance might perhaps induce him to lay bare -his secret soul, and make a frank confession to you of what up to the -present he has obstinately concealed from me." - -Quesnay at once repaired to the Bastille, bearing with him a conditional -promise of liberty. Working himself up into a frenzy, Danry swore that -"all his answers to the lieutenant of police had been strictly true." -When the doctor had taken his leave, Danry wrote to the minister: "M. -Quesnay, who has been several times to see me in my wretchedness, tells -me that your lordship is inclined to believe I had some accomplice in my -fault whom I will not reveal, and that it is for this reason your -lordship will not give me my liberty. I could wish, my lord, from the -bottom of my heart, that your belief were true, for it would be much to -my profit to put my guilt upon another, whether for having induced me to -commit my sin or for not having prevented me from committing it." - -It was the opinion of the ministers that Danry had been the instrument -of a plot against the life of the Marquise de Pompadour directed by some -person of high rank, and that at the critical moment he had either -taken fright, or else had made a clean breast of the matter at -Versailles in the hope of reaping some advantage from both sides. These -facts must be kept in mind if we are to understand the real cause of his -confinement. Kept, then, in the Bastille, he was subjected to several -examinations, the reports of which were regularly drawn up and signed by -the lieutenant of police. Under the _ancien regime_, this officer was, -as we have seen, a regular magistrate, indeed he has no other -designation in the documents of the period; he pronounced sentence and -awarded punishments in accordance with that body of customs which then, -as to-day in England, constituted the law. - -Binguet, the apothecary, had been set at liberty immediately after -Danry's declaration of June 15. In the Bastille, Danry was treated with -the utmost consideration, in accordance with the formal instructions of -Berryer. He was provided with books, tobacco, and a pipe; he was -permitted to play on the flute; and having declared that a solitary life -bored him, he was given two room mates. Every day he was visited by the -officers of the fortress, and on May 25 the governor came to tell him of -the magistrate's order: "That the utmost attention was to be shown him; -if he needed anything he was to be requested to say so, and was to be -allowed to want for nothing." No doubt the lieutenant of police hoped, -by dint of kindness, to persuade him to disclose the authors of the -unfortunate plot which was the figment of his imagination. - -Danry did not remain long in the prison of the Suburb Saint-Antoine; on -July 28 Saint-Marc transferred him to Vincennes, and we see from the -report drawn up by the detective with what astonishment the Marquis du -Chatelet, governor of the fortress, heard "that the court had resolved -to send him such a fellow." Vincennes, like the Bastille, was reserved -for prisoners of good position; our hero was sent there by special -favour, as he was told for his consolation by the surgeon who attended -him: "Only persons of noble birth or the highest distinction are sent to -Vincennes." Danry was indeed treated like a lord. The best apartment was -reserved for him, and he was able to enjoy the park, where he walked for -two hours every day. At the time of his admission to the Bastille, he -was suffering from some sort of indisposition which later on he ascribed -to his long confinement. At Vincennes he complained of the same illness, -with the same plea that his troubles had made him ill. He was attended -by a specialist as well as by the surgeon of the prison. - -Meantime the lieutenant came again to see him, reiterating assurances of -his protection, and advising him to write direct to Madame de Pompadour. -Here is what Danry wrote:-- - -"VINCENNES, _November 4, 1749_. - - "MADAM,--If wretchedness, goaded by famine, has driven me to commit - a fault against your dear person, it was with no design of doing - you any mischief. God is my witness. If the divine mercy would - assure you to-day, on my behalf, how my soul repents of its heinous - fault, and how for 188 days I have done nothing but weep at the - sight of my iron bars, you would have pity on me. Madam, for the - sake of God who is enlightening you, let your just wrath soften at - the spectacle of my repentance, my wretchedness, my tears. One day - God will recompense you for your humanity. You are all-powerful, - Madam; God has given you power with the greatest king on all the - earth, His well-beloved; he is merciful, he is not cruel, he is a - Christian. If the divine power moves your magnanimity to grant me - my freedom, I would rather die, or sustain my life on nothing but - roots, than jeopardize it a second time. I have staked all my hopes - on your Christian charity. Lend a sympathetic ear to my prayer, do - not abandon me to my unhappy fate. I hope in you, Madam, and God - will vouchsafe an abundant answer to my prayers that your dear - person may obtain your heart's desires. - - "I have the honour to be, with a repentance worthy of pardon, - Madam, your very humble and very obedient servant, - -"DANRY." - - - -A letter which it is a pleasure to quote, for it shows to great -advantage beside the letters written later by the prisoner. It was only -the truth that he had no evil design on the favourite's life; but soon -becoming more audacious, he wrote to Madame de Pompadour saying that if -he had addressed the box to her at Versailles, it was out of pure -devotion to her, to put her on her guard against the machinations of her -enemies, in short, to save her life. - -Danry's letter was duly forwarded to the Marquise, but remained without -effect. Losing patience, he resolved to win for himself the freedom -denied him: on June 15, 1750, he escaped. - - * * * * * - -In his _Memoirs_ Danry has related the story of this first escape in a -manner as lively as imaginative. He really eluded his jailers in the -simplest way in the world. Having descended to the garden at the usual -hour for his walk, he found there a black spaniel frisking about. The -dog happened to rear itself against the gate, and to push it with its -paws. The gate fell open. Danry passed out and ran straight ahead, -"till, towards four o'clock in the afternoon, he fell to the ground with -fatigue, in the neighbourhood of Saint-Denis." - -There he remained until nine o'clock in the evening. Then he struck into -the road to Paris, passing the night beside the aqueduct near the -Saint-Denis gate. At daybreak he entered the city. - -We know what importance was attached at court to the safe custody of the -prisoner: there was still hope that he would make up his mind to speak -of the grave conspiracy of which he held the secret. D'Argenson wrote at -once to Berryer: "Nothing is more important or more urgent than to set -on foot at once all conceivable means of recapturing the prisoner." -Accordingly all the police were engaged in the search; the description -of the prisoner was printed, a large number of copies being distributed -by Inspector Rulhiere among the mounted police. - -Danry took up his lodging with one Cocardon, at the sign of the Golden -Sun; but he did not venture to remain for more than two days in the same -inn. He expected his old chum Binguet to come to his assistance, but -Binguet was not going to have anything more to do with the Bastille. It -was a pretty girl, Annette Benoist, whom Danry had known when he was -lodging with Charmeleux, that devoted herself heart and soul to him. She -knew she herself was running the risk of imprisonment, and already -strangers of forbidding appearance had come asking at the Golden Sun who -she was. Little she cared; she found assistance among her companions: -the girls carried Danry's letters and undertook the search for a safe -lodging. Meanwhile, Danry went to pass the night under the aqueducts; in -the morning he shut himself in the lodging the girls had chosen for him, -and there he remained for two days without leaving the house, Annette -coming there to keep him company. Unluckily the young man had no money: -how was he to pay his score? "What was to be done, what was to become of -me?" he said later. "I was sure to be discovered if I showed myself; if -I fled I ran no less risk." He wrote to Dr. Quesnay, who had shown him -so much kindness at Vincennes; but the police got wind of the letter, -and Saint-Marc arrived and seized the fugitive in the inn where he lay -concealed. The unlucky wretch was haled back to the Bastille. Annette -was arrested at the Golden Sun at the moment when she was asking for -Danry's letters; she too was shut up in the Bastille. The warders and -sentinels who were on duty at Vincennes on the day of the escape had -been thrown into the cells. - -By his escape from Vincennes, Danry had doubled the gravity of his -offence. The regulations demanded that he should be sent down into the -cells reserved for insubordinate prisoners. "M. Berryer came again to -lighten my woes; outside the prison he demanded justice and mercy for -me, inside he sought to calm my grief, which seemed less poignant when -he assured me that he shared it." The lieutenant of police ordered the -prisoner to be fed as well as formerly, and to be allowed his books, -papers, knick-knacks, and the privilege of the two hours' walk he had -enjoyed at Vincennes. In return for these kindnesses, the assistant -surgeon sent to the magistrate "a remedy for the gout." He asked at the -same time to be allowed to breed little birds, whose chirping and lively -movements would divert him. The request was granted. But instead of -bearing his lot with patience, Danry grew more and more irritable every -day. He gave free rein to his violent temper, raised a hubbub, shrieked, -tore up and down his room, so that they came perforce to believe that he -was going mad. On the books of the Bastille library, which circulated -from room to room, he wrote ribald verses against the Marquise de -Pompadour. In this way he prolonged his sojourn in the cells. Gradually -his letters changed their tone. "It is a little hard to be left for -fourteen months in prison, a whole year of the time, ending to-day, in -one cell where I still am." - -Then Berryer put him back into a good room, about the end of the year -1751. At the same time he gave him, at the king's expense, a servant to -wait on him. - -As to Annette Benoist, she had been set at liberty after a fortnight's -detention. Danry's servant fell sick; as there was no desire to deprive -the prisoner of society, he was given a companion. This was a certain -Antoine Allegre, who had been there since May 29, 1750. The -circumstances which had led to his imprisonment were almost identical -with those to which Danry owed his confinement. Allegre was keeping a -school at Marseilles when he learnt that the enemies of the Marquise de -Pompadour were seeking to destroy her. He fabricated a story of a -conspiracy in which he involved Maurepas, the Archbishop of Albi, and -the Bishop of Lodeve; he sent a denunciation of this plot to Versailles, -and, to give it some semblance of truth, addressed to the favourite's -valet a letter in disguised handwriting, beginning with these words: "On -the word of a gentleman, there are 100,000 crowns for you if you poison -your mistress." He hoped by this means to obtain a good situation, or -the success of a business project he had in hand. - -Intelligent, with some education, and venturesome, Danry and Allegre -were just the men to get on well together, so much the better that the -schoolmaster dominated the comrade to whom he was so much superior. The -years that Danry spent in company with Allegre exercised so great an -influence on his whole life that the lieutenant of police, Lenoir, could -say one day: "Danry is the second volume of Allegre." The letters of the -latter, a large number of which have been preserved, bear witness to the -originality and energy of his mind: their style is fine and fluent, of -the purest French; the ideas expressed have distinction and are -sometimes remarkable without eccentricity. He worked untiringly, and was -at first annoyed at the presence of a companion: "Give me, I beg you, a -room to myself," he wrote to Berryer, "even without a fire: I like being -alone, I am sufficient for myself, because I can find things to do, and -seed to sow for the future." His temperament was naturally mystical, but -of that cold and acrid mysticism which we sometimes find in men of -science, and mathematicians in particular. For Allegre's principal -studies were mathematics, mechanics, and engineering. The lieutenant of -police procured for him works on fortification, architecture, mechanics, -hydraulics. The prisoner used them to compile essays on the most diverse -questions, which he sent to the lieutenant of police in the hope of -their procuring his liberation. Those essays which we possess show the -extent of his intelligence and his education. Danry followed his example -by-and-by, in this as in everything else, but clumsily. Allegre was -also very clever with his fingers, and could make, so the officials of -the chateau declared, whatever he pleased. - -Allegre was a dangerous man: the warders were afraid of him. Some time -after his entrance into the Bastille he fell ill, and a man was set to -look after him; the two men did not agree at all. Allegre sent complaint -after complaint to the lieutenant of police. An inquiry was made which -turned out not unfavourable to the keeper, and he was left with the -prisoner. One morning--September 8, 1751--the officers of the Bastille -heard cries and clamour in the "Well" tower. Hastily ascending, they -found Allegre in the act of stabbing his companion, who lay on the floor -held down by the throat, wallowing in the blood that streamed from a -gash in the stomach. If Allegre had not been in the Bastille, the -Parlement would have had him broken on the wheel in the Place de Greve: -the Bastille was his safety, though he could no longer hope for a speedy -liberation. - -Danry, in his turn, wore out the patience of his guardians. Major -Chevalier, who was kindness itself, wrote to the lieutenant of police: -"He is no better than Allegre, but though more turbulent and choleric, -he is much less to be feared in every respect." The physician of the -Bastille, Dr. Boyer, a member of the Academy, wrote likewise: "I have -good reason to distrust the man." The temper of Danry became embittered. -He began to revile the warders. One morning they were obliged to take -from him a knife and other sharp instruments he had concealed. He used -the paper they gave him to open communications with other prisoners and -with people outside. Paper was withheld: he then wrote with his blood on -a handkerchief; he was forbidden by the lieutenant of police to write to -him with his blood, so he wrote on tablets made of bread crumbs, which -he passed out secretly between two plates. - -The use of paper was then restored to him, which did not prevent him -from writing to Berryer: "My lord, I am writing to you with my blood on -linen, because the officers refuse me ink and paper; it is now more than -six times that I have asked in vain to speak to them. What are you -about, my lord? Do not drive me to extremities. At least, do not force -me to be my own executioner. Send a sentry to break my head for me; that -is the very least favour you can do me." Berryer, astonished at this -missive, remarked on it to the major, who replied: "I have not refused -paper to Danry." - -[Illustration: - - Beginning of a letter written with blood on linen by Danry (Latude) - while a prisoner at Vincennes, to Rougemont, the king's lieutenant. -] - -So the prisoner forced them more and more to the conclusion that he was -a madman. On October 13, 1753, he wrote to Dr. Quesnay to tell him that -he wished him well, but that being too poor to give him anything else, -he was making him a present of his body, which was on the point of -perishing, for him to make a skeleton of. To the paper on which he -wrote, Danry had sewn a little square of cloth, adding: "God has given -the garments of martyrs the virtue of healing all manner of diseases. It -is now fifty-seven months since I have been suffering an enforced -martyrdom. So there is no doubt that to-day the cloth of my coat will -work miracles; here is a bit for you." This letter was returned to the -lieutenant of police in December, and on it we find a marginal note in -Berryer's hand: "A letter worth keeping, as it reveals the prisoner's -mind." We know in what fashion madmen were wont to be treated in the -eighteenth century. - -But suddenly, to the great astonishment of the officers of the chateau, -our two friends amended their character and their conduct. No more -noises were heard in their room, and they answered politely anyone who -came to speak to them. But their behaviour was even more odd than ever. -Allegre used to walk up and down the room half naked, "to save his -toggery," he said, and he sent letter after letter to his brother and -the lieutenant of police, asking them to send him things, particularly -shirts and handkerchiefs. Danry followed suit. "This prisoner," wrote -Chevalier to the lieutenant of police, "is asking for linen. I shall not -make a requisition, because he has seven very good shirts, four of them -new; he has shirts on the brain." But why decline to humour a prisoner's -whim? So the commissary of the Bastille had two dozen expensive shirts -made--every one cost twenty livres, more than thirty-three shillings of -our money--and some handkerchiefs of the finest cambric. - -If the wardrobe-keeper of the Bastille had kept her eyes open, she would -have noticed that the serviettes and cloths which went into the room of -the two companions were of much smaller dimensions when they came out. -Our friends had established communication with their neighbours above -and below, begging twine and thread from them and giving tobacco in -exchange. They had succeeded in loosening the iron bars which prevented -climbing up the chimney; at night they used to mount to the platforms, -whence they conversed down the chimneys with prisoners in the other -towers. One of these hapless creatures believed himself to be a prophet -of God; he heard at night the sound of a voice descending upon his cold -hearth: he revealed the miracle to the officers, who only considered him -still more insane than before. On the terrace Allegre and Danry found -the tools left there in the evening by the masons and gardeners employed -at the Bastille. Thus they got possession of a mallet, an auger, two -sorts of pulleys, and some bits of iron taken from the gun-carriages. -All these they concealed in the hollow between the floor of their room -and the ceiling of the room below. - -Allegre and Danry escaped from the Bastille on the night of February 25, -1756. They climbed up the chimney till they reached the platform, and -descended by means of their famous rope ladder, fastened to a -gun-carriage. A wall separated the Bastille moat from that of the -Arsenal. By the aid of an iron bar they succeeded in working out a large -stone, and they escaped through the hole thus made. Their rope ladder -was a work of long patience and amazing skill. When in after days -Allegre went mad, Danry appropriated the whole credit of this -enterprise which his friend had conceived and directed. - -At the moment of leaving, Allegre had written on a scrap of paper, for -the officers of the Bastille, the following note, which is an excellent -indication of his character:-- - -"We have done no damage to the furniture of the governor, we have only -made use of a few rags of coverlets of no possible use; the others are -left just as they were. If some serviettes are missing, they will be -found at the bottom of the water in the great moat, whither we are -taking them to wipe our feet. - -"_Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam!_ - -"_Scito cor nostrum et cognosce semitas nostras._"[46] - -Our two companions had provided themselves with a portmanteau, and they -made haste to change their clothes as soon as they had cleared the -precincts of the fortress. A foreman of works whom Danry knew interested -himself in them, and conducted them to one Rouit, a tailor, who lodged -them for some little time. Rouit even lent Danry forty-eight livres, -which he promised to return as soon as he reached Brussels. At the end -of a month our two friends were across the frontier. - -It is very difficult to follow Danry's proceedings from the time when he -left Rouit to the moment of his reincarceration in the Bastille. He has -left, it is true, two accounts of his sojourn in Flanders and Holland; -but these accounts are themselves inconsistent, and both differ from -some original documents which remain to us. - -The two fugitives had considered it advisable not to set out together. -Allegre was the first to arrive at Brussels, whence he wrote an insolent -letter to Madame de Pompadour. This letter led to his discovery. On -reaching Brussels, Danry learnt that his friend had been arrested. He -lost no time in making for Holland, and at Amsterdam he took service -with one Paul Melenteau. From Rotterdam he had written to his mother, -and the poor creature, collecting her little savings, sent him 200 -livres by post. But Saint-Marc had already struck on the track of the -fugitive. "The burgomaster of Amsterdam readily and gladly granted the -request made by Saint-Marc on behalf of the king, through the -ambassador, for the arrest and extradition of Danry." Louis XV. confined -himself to claiming him as one of his subjects. Saint-Marc, disguised as -an Armenian merchant, discovered him in his retreat. Danry was arrested -in Amsterdam on June 1, 1756, conducted to a cell belonging to the town -hall, and thence brought back to France and consigned to the Bastille on -June 9. Word came from Holland that Saint-Marc was there regarded as a -sorcerer. - -By his second escape the unhappy man had succeeded in making his case -very serious. In the eighteenth century, escape from a state prison was -punishable with death. The English, great apostles of humanity as they -were, were no more lenient than the French; and everyone knows what -treatment was meted out by Frederick II. to Baron de Trenck. He was to -have remained in prison only one year; but after his second escape he -was chained up in a gloomy dungeon; at his feet was the grave in which -he was to be buried, and on it his name and a death's-head had been cut. - -The government of Louis XV. did not punish with such rigour as this. The -fugitive was simply put in the cells for a time. At the Bastille the -cells were damp and chilly dungeons. Danry has left in his _Memoirs_ an -account of the forty months spent in this dismal place,--an account -which makes one's hair stand on end; but it is packed full of -exaggeration. He says that he spent three years with irons on his hands -and feet: in November, 1756, Berryer offered to remove the irons from -either hands or feet at his choice, and we see from a marginal note by -Major Chevalier that he chose the feet. Danry adds that he lay all -through the winter on straw without any coverlet: he was actually so -well supplied with coverlets that he applied to Berryer for some others. -To believe him you would think that when the Seine was in flood the -water rose as high as his waist: as a fact, when the water threatened to -invade the cell, the prisoner was removed. Again, he says that he passed -there forty months in absolute darkness: the light of his prison was -certainly not very brilliant, but it was sufficient to enable him to -read and write, and we learn from letters he sent to the lieutenant of -police that he saw from his cell all that went on in the courtyard of -the Bastille. Finally, he tells us of a variety of diseases he -contracted at the time, and cites in this connection the opinion of an -oculist who came to attend him. But this very report was forged by Danry -himself, and the rest he invented to match. - -In this cell, where he professes to have been treated in so barbarous a -manner, Danry, however, proved difficult enough to deal with, as we -judge from the reports of Chevalier. "Danry has a thoroughly nasty -temper; he sends for us at eight o'clock in the morning, and asks us to -send warders to the market to buy him fish, saying that he never eats -eggs, artichokes, or spinach, and that he insists on eating fish; and -when we refuse, he flies into a furious passion." That was on fast days; -on ordinary days it was the same. "Danry swore like a trooper, that is, -in his usual way, and after the performance said to me: 'Major, when you -give me a fowl, at least let it be stuffed!'" He was not one of the -vulgar herd, he said, "one of those fellows you send to Bicetre." And he -demanded to be treated in a manner befitting his condition. - -It was just the same with regard to clothes. One is amazed at the sight -of the lists of things the lieutenant of police got made for him. To -give him satisfaction, the administration did not stick at the most -unreasonable expense, and it was by selling these clothes that Danry, at -his various escapes, procured a part of the money he was so much in -need of. He suffered from rheumatism, so they provided him with -dressing-gowns lined with rabbit-skin, vests lined with silk plush, -gloves and fur hats, and first-rate leather breeches. In his _Memoirs_ -Danry lumps all these as "half-rotten rags." Rochebrune, the commissary -charged with the prisoners' supplies, was quite unable to satisfy him. -"You instructed me," he wrote to the major, "to get a dressing-gown made -for the Sieur Danry, who asks for a calamanco with red stripes on a blue -ground. I have made inquiries for such stuff of a dozen tradesmen, who -have no such thing, and indeed would be precious careful not to have it, -for there is no sale for that kind of calamanco. I don't see why I -should satisfy the fantastic tastes of a prisoner who ought to be very -well pleased at having a dressing-gown that is warm and well-fitting." -On another occasion, the major writes: "This man Danry has never up to -the present consented to accept the breeches that M. de Rochebrune got -made for him, though they are excellent, lined with good leather, with -silk garters, and in the best style." And Danry had his own pretty way -of complaining. "I beg you," he wrote to the governor, "to have the -goodness to tell M. de Sartine in plain terms that the four -handkerchiefs he sent me are not fit to give to a galley-slave, and I -will not have them on any account; but that I request him kindly to give -me six print handkerchiefs, blue, and large, and two muslin cravats." He -adds, "If there is no money in the treasury, go and ask Madame de -Pompadour for some." - -One day Danry declared that something was wrong with his eyes. -Grandjean, the king's oculist, came more than once to see him, ordered -aromatic fumigations for him, gave him ointments and eye-salve; but it -was soon seen that all that was wrong was that Danry desired to get a -spy-glass, and to smuggle out, with the doctor's assistance, memoirs and -letters. - -On September 1, 1759, Danry was removed from the cells and placed in a -more airy chamber. He wrote at once to Bertin to thank him, and to tell -him that he was sending him two doves. "You delight in doing good, and I -shall have no less delight, my lord, if you favour me by accepting this -slight mark of my great gratitude. - -"Tamerlaine allowed himself to be disarmed by a basket of figs presented -to him by the inhabitants of a town he was proceeding to besiege. The -Marquise de Pompadour is a Christian lady; I beg you to allow me to send -her also a pair: perhaps she will allow her heart to be touched by these -two innocent pigeons. I append a copy of the letter which will accompany -them:-- - - "'MADAM,--Two pigeons used to come every day to pick grains out of - my straw; I kept them, and they gave me young ones. I venture to - take the liberty of presenting you with this pair as a mark of my - respect and affection. I beseech you in mercy to be good enough to - accept them, with as much pleasure as I have in offering them to - you. I have the honour to be, with the profoundest respect, Madam, - your very humble and obedient servant, - -"'DANRY, for eleven years at the Bastille.'" - -Why did not Danry always make so charming a use of the permission -accorded him to write to the minister, the lieutenant of police, Madame -de Pompadour, Dr. Quesnay, and his mother? He wrote incessantly, and we -have letters of his in hundreds, widely differing one from another. Some -are suppliant and pathetic: "My body is wasting away every day in tears -and blood, I am worn out." He writes to Madame de Pompadour:--"Madam,--I -have never wished you anything but well; be then sensible to the voice -of tears, of my innocence, and of a poor despairing mother of sixty-six -years. Madam, you are well aware of my martyrdom. I beg you in God's -name to grant me my precious liberty; I am spent, I am dying, my blood -is all on fire by reason of my groaning; twenty times in the night I am -obliged to moisten my mouth and nostrils to get my breath." Everyone -knows the famous letter beginning with the words, "I have been suffering -now for 100,000 hours." He writes to Quesnay: "I present myself to you -with a live coal upon my head, indicating my pressing necessity." The -images he uses are not always so happy: "Listen," he says to Berryer, -"to the voice of the just bowels with which you are arrayed"! - -In other letters the prisoner alters his tone; to plaints succeed cries -of rage and fury, "he steeps his pen in the gall with which his soul is -saturated." He no longer supplicates, he threatens. There is nothing to -praise in the style of these epistles: it is incorrect and vulgar, -though at times vigorous and coloured with vivid imagery. To the -lieutenant of police he writes: "When a man is to be punished in this -accursed prison, the air is full of it, the punishments fall quicker -than the thunderbolt; but when it is a case of succouring a man who is -unfortunate, I see nothing but crabs;" and he addresses to him these -lines of Voltaire:-- - - "Perish those villains born, whose hearts of steel - No touch of ruth for others' woes can feel." - -He predicts terrible retribution for the ministers, the magistrates, and -Madame de Pompadour. To her he writes: "You will see yourself one day -like that owl in the park of Versailles; all the birds cast water upon -him to choke him, to drown him; if the king chanced to die, before two -hours were past someone would set five or six persons at your heels, and -you would yourself pack to the Bastille." The accused by degrees becomes -transformed into the accuser; he writes to Sartine: "I am neither a dog -nor a criminal, but a man like yourself." And the lieutenant of police, -taking pity on him, writes on one of these letters sent to the minister -of Paris: "When Danry writes thus, it is not that he is mad, but frantic -from long imprisonment." The magistrate counsels the prisoner "to keep -out of his letters all bitterness, which can only do him harm." Bertin -corrected with his own hand the petitions Danry sent to the Marquise de -Pompadour; in the margin of one of them we read, "I should think I was -prejudicing him and his interests if I sent on to Madame de Pompadour a -letter in which he ventures to reproach her with having _abused his good -faith and confidence_." Having amended the letter, the lieutenant of -police himself carried it to Versailles. - -The years of captivity, far from humbling the prisoner and abasing his -pride, only made him the more arrogant; his audacity grew from day to -day, and he was not afraid of speaking to the lieutenants of police -themselves, who knew his history, about his fortune which had been -ruined, his brilliant career which had been cut short, his whole family -plunged into despair. At first the magistrate would shrug his shoulders; -insensibly he would be won over by these unwavering assertions, by this -accent of conviction; and he ends actually by believing in this high -birth, this fortune, this genius, in all which Danry had perhaps come to -believe himself. Then Danry takes a still higher tone: he claims not -only his freedom, but compensation, large sums of money, honours. But -one must not think that this sprang from a sordid sentiment unworthy of -him: "If I propose compensation, my lord, it is not for the sake of -getting money, it is only so that I may smooth away all the obstacles -which may delay the end of my long suffering." - -In return, he is very ready to give the lieutenant of police some good -advice--to indicate the means of advancement in his career, to show him -how to set about getting appointed secretary of state, to compose for -him the speech he is to make to the king at his first audience. He adds: -"This very time is extremely favourable to you; it is the auspicious -hour: profit by it. Before they take horse on the day of rejoicing for -the conclusion of peace, you ought to be a counsellor of state." - -He is very ready also to send to the king schemes conceived in his -prison for the welfare of the realm. Now it is a suggestion to give -sergeants and officers on the battlefield muskets instead of spontoons -and pikes, by which the French arms would be strengthened by 25,000 good -fusiliers. Now it is a suggestion for increasing postal facilities, -which would augment the resources of the Treasury by several millions -every year. He recommends the erection of public granaries in the -principal towns, and draws up plans of battle for giving unheard-of -strength to a column of men three deep. We might mention other and -better suggestions. These notions were drowned in a flood of words, an -unimaginable wealth of verbiage, with parallels drawn from the history -of all periods and every country. His manuscripts were illustrated with -pen and ink sketches. Danry copied and recopied them incessantly, sent -them to all and sundry in all sorts of forms, persuaded the sentinels -that these lofty conceptions intimately concerned the safety of the -state and would win him an immense fortune. Thus he induced these good -fellows to compromise their situation by carrying the papers secretly to -ministers, members of the Parlement, marshals of France; he threw them -from the windows of his room, and, wrapped in snowballs, from the top of -the towers. These memoirs are the work of a man whose open and active -mind, of incredible activity indeed, plans, constructs, invents without -cessation or repose. - -Among these bundles of papers we have discovered a very touching letter -from the prisoner's mother, Jeanneton Aubrespy, who wrote to her son -from Montagnac on June 14, 1759:-- - - "Do not do me the injustice of thinking that I have forgotten you, - my dear son, my loving son. Could I shut you out of my thoughts, - you whom I bear always in my heart? I have always had a great - longing to see you again, but to-day I long more than ever, I am - constantly concerned for you, I think of nothing but you, I am - wholly filled with you. Do not worry, my dear son; that is the only - favour I ask of you. Your misfortunes will come to an end, and - perhaps it is not far off. I hope that Madame de Pompadour will - pardon you; for that I am trying to win heaven and earth over to - your cause. The Lord is putting my submission and yours to a long - test, so as to make us better realize the worth of His favour. Do - not distress yourself, my son. I hope to have the happiness of - receiving you again, and of embracing you more tenderly than ever. - Adieu, my son, my dear son, my loving son, I love you, and I shall - love you dearly to the grave. I beg you to give me news of your - health. I am, and always shall be, your good mother, - -DAUBRESPI, _widow_." - - - -Is not this letter charming in its artless pathos? The son's reply is -equally touching; but on reading it again one feels that it was to pass -under the eyes of the lieutenant of police; on examining it closely, one -sees the sentiments grimacing between the lines. - -No one knew better than Danry how to play on the souls of others, to -awake in them, at his will, pity or tenderness, astonishment or -admiration. No one has surpassed him in the art, difficult in very -truth, of posing as a hero, a genius, and a martyr, a part that we shall -see him sustain for twenty years without faltering. - -In 1759 there entered upon the office of lieutenant of police a man who -was henceforth to occupy Danry's mind almost exclusively--Gabriel de -Sartine. He was a fine sceptic, of amiable character and pleasing -manners. He was loved by the people of Paris, who boasted of his -administrative abilities and his spirit of justice. He exerted himself -in his turn to render the years of captivity less cruel to Danry. "He -allowed me," writes the latter, "what no other State prisoner has ever -obtained, the privilege of walking along the top of the towers, in the -open air, to preserve my health." He cheered the prisoner with genial -words, and urged him to behave well and no longer to fill his letters -with insults. "Your fate," he told him, "is in your own hands." He -looked into Danry's scheme for the construction of public granaries, and -when he had read it said, "Really, there are excellent things, most -excellent things in it." He visited Danry in prison and promised to do -his utmost to obtain his liberation. He himself put into the hands of -Madame de Pompadour the _Grand Memoire_ which Danry had drawn up for -her. In this memorial the prisoner told the favourite that in return for -a service he had rendered her in sending her a "hieroglyphic symbol" to -put her on her guard against the machinations of her enemies, she had -caused him to suffer unjustly for twelve years. Moreover, he would now -only accept his freedom along with an indemnity of 60,000 livres. He -added: "Be on your guard! When your prisoners get out and publish your -cruelties abroad, they will make you hateful to heaven and the whole -earth!" It is not surprising that this _Grand Memoire_ had practically -no result. Sartine promised that he would renew his efforts on his -behalf. "If, unhappily, you should meet with some resistance to the -entreaties you are about to make for me," wrote Danry, "I take the -precaution of sending you a copy of the scheme I sent to the king." -(This was the memorial suggesting that muskets should be given to the -officers and sergeants.) "Now the king has been putting my scheme in -operation for five years or more, and he will continue to avail himself -of it every time we are at war." Sartine proceeded to Versailles, this -marvellous scheme in his pocket. He showed it to the ministers and -pleaded on behalf of this protege of his who, from the depths of his -dungeon, was doing his country service. But on his return he wrote to -the major of the Bastille a note in regard to Danry, in which we read: -"They have not made use, as he believes, of his military scheme." - -Danry had asked several times to be sent to the colonies. In 1763 the -government was largely occupied with the colonization of La Desirade. We -find a letter of June 23, 1763, in which Sartine proposes to send Danry -to La Desirade "with an introduction to the commanding officer." But -nothing came of these proposals. - - * * * * * - -All his life, Danry sought to compass his ends by the aid of women. He -was well aware of all the tenderness and devotion there is in these -light heads; he knew that sentiment is always stronger in them than -reason: "I was always looking out for women, and wished to find young -women, for their gentle and loving soul is more susceptible of pity; -misfortune moves them, stirs in them a more lively interest; their -impressionability is less quickly dulled, and so they are capable of -greater efforts." - -While taking his walk on the towers of the Bastille in the fresh morning -air, he tried by means of gestures and signals to open relations with -the people of the neighbourhood. "One day I noticed two young persons -working alone in a room, whose countenances struck me as pretty and -gentle. I was not deceived. One of them having glanced in my direction, -I wafted her with my hand a salutation which I endeavoured to make -respectful and becoming, whereupon she told her sister, who instantly -looked at me too. I then saluted them both in the same manner, and they -replied to me with an appearance of interest and kindliness. From that -moment we set up a sort of correspondence between us." The girls were -two good-looking laundresses named Lebrun, the daughters of a wigmaker. -And our rogue, the better to stimulate the little fools to enthusiastic -service in his behalf, knocked at the door of their young hearts, -willing enough to fly open. He spoke to them of youth, misfortune, -love--and also of his fortune, prodigious, he said, the half of which he -offered them. Glowing with ardour, the girls spared for him neither -time, nor trouble, nor what little money they had. - -The prisoner had put them in possession of several of his schemes, among -others the military one, with letters for certain writers and persons of -importance, and in addition a "terrible" indictment of Madame de -Pompadour for the king, in which "her birth and her shame, all her -thefts and cruelties were laid bare." He begged the girls to have -several copies made, which they were then to send to the addresses -indicated. Soon large black crosses daubed on a neighbouring wall -informed the prisoner that his instructions had been carried out. Danry -seems no longer to have doubted that his woes were coming to an end, -that the gates of the Bastille were about to fly open before him, and -that he would triumphantly leave the prison only to enter a palace of -fortune: _Parta victoria!_[47] he exclaims in a burst of happiness. - -And so we come to one of the most extraordinary episodes in this strange -life. - -In December, 1763, the Marquise of Pompadour was taken seriously ill. -"An officer of the Bastille came up to my room and said to me: 'Sir, -write four words to the Marquise de Pompadour, and you may be sure that -in less than a week you will have recovered your freedom.' I replied to -the major that prayers and tears only hardened the heart of that cruel -woman, and that I would not write to her. However, he came back next day -with the same story, and I replied in the same terms as on the previous -day. Scarcely had he gone than Daragon, my warder, came into my room and -said: 'Believe the major when he tells you that within a week you will -be free: if he tells you so, depend upon it he is sure of it.' Next day -but one the officer came to me for the third time: 'Why are you so -obstinate?' I thanked him--it was Chevalier, major of the Bastille--for -the third time, telling him that I would sooner die than write again to -that implacable shrew. - -"Six or eight days after, my two young ladies came and kissed their -hands to me, at the same time displaying a roll of paper on which were -written in large characters the words: 'Madame de Pompadour is dead!' -The Marquise de Pompadour died on April 19, 1764, and two months -afterwards, on June 19, M. de Sartine came to the Bastille and gave me -an audience; the first thing he said was that we would say no more about -the past, but that at the earliest moment he would go to Versailles and -demand of the minister the justice which was my due." And we find, in -truth, among the papers of the lieutenant of police, the following note, -dated June 18, 1764: "M. Duval (one of the lieutenant's secretaries)--to -propose at the first inspection that Danry be liberated and exiled to -his own part of the country." - -Returning to his room, Danry reflected on these developments; for the -lieutenant of police to show so much anxiety for his liberation was -evidently a sign that he was afraid of him, and that his memorials had -reached their destination and achieved their end. But he would be a -great ass to be satisfied with a mere liberation: "100,000 livres" would -scarcely suffice to throw oblivion over the injustices with which he had -been overwhelmed. - -He revolved these thoughts in his head for several days. To accept -freedom at the hands of his persecutors would be to pardon the past, a -mistake he would never fall into. The door opened, the major entered, -bearing in his hand a note written by de Sartine: "You will tell County -Number 4 that I am working for his effectual liberation." The officer -went out; Danry immediately sat down at his table and wrote to the -lieutenant of police a letter replete with threats, insults, and -obscenity. The original is lost, but we have an abstract made by Danry -himself. He concluded with leaving to Sartine a choice: "he was either a -mere lunatic, or else had allowed himself to be corrupted like a villain -by the gold of the Marquis de Marigny, the Marquise de Pompadour's -brother." - -"When Sartine received my letter, he wrote an answer which the major -brought and read to me, in which these were his very words: that I was -wrong to impute to him the length of my imprisonment, that if he had had -his way I should long ago have been set free; and he ended by telling me -that there was Bedlam for the mad. On which I said to the major: 'We -shall see in a few days whether he will have the power to put me in -Bedlam.' He did not deprive me of my walk on the towers; nine days -after, he put me in the cells on bread and water." But Danry was not -easily put out. No doubt they were only meaning to put his assurance to -the test. He went down to his cell singing, and for several days -continued to manifest the most confident gaiety. - -From that moment the prisoner made himself insufferable to his -guardians. It was yells and violence from morning to night. He filled -the whole Bastille with bursts of his "voice of thunder." Major -Chevalier wrote to Sartine: "This prisoner would wear out the patience -of the saintliest monk"; again: "He is full of gall and bitterness, he -is poison pure and simple"; once more: "This prisoner is raving mad." - -The lieutenant of police suggested to Saint-Florentin, the minister, to -transfer Danry to the keep of Vincennes. He was conducted there on the -night of September 15, 1764. We are now entering on a new phase of his -life. We shall find him still more wretched than in the past, but -constantly swelling his demands and pretensions, and with reason, for he -is now, mark you, a nobleman! He had learnt from a sentinel of the -Bastille of the death of Henri Vissec de la Tude, lieutenant-colonel of -a dragoon regiment, who had died at Sedan on January 31, 1761. From that -day he determined that he was the son of that officer. And what were his -reasons? Vissec de la Tude was from his own part of the country, he was -a nobleman and rich, and he was dead. These arguments Danry considered -excellent. He was, however, in complete ignorance of all that concerned -his father and his new family; he did not know even the name "Vissec de -la Tude," of which he made "Masers de la Tude"; Masers was the name of -an estate belonging to Baron de Fontes, a relation of Henri de Vissec. -The latter was not a marquis, as Danry believed, but simply a chevalier; -he died leaving six sons, whilst Danry represents him as dying without -issue. It goes without saying that all that our hero relates about his -father in his _Memoirs_ is pure invention. The Chevalier de la Tude -never knew of the existence of the son of Jeanneton Aubrespy, and when -in later years Danry asked the children to recognize him as their -natural brother, his pretensions were rejected. Nevertheless our -gentleman will henceforth sign his letters and memoirs "Danry, or rather -Henri Masers d'Aubrespy," then "de Masers d'Aubrespy," then "de Masers -de la Tude." When Danry had once got an idea in his head, he never let -it go. He repeated it unceasingly until he had forced it upon the -conviction of all about him--pertinacity which cannot fail to excite our -admiration. In the patent of Danry's pension of 400 livres granted by -Louis XVI. in 1784, the king calls the son of poor Jeanneton "Vicomte -Masers de la Tude." - -As may well be imagined, the Vicomte de la Tude could not accept his -liberty on the same terms as Danry. The latter would have been satisfied -with 60,000 livres: the viscount demands 150,000 and the cross of St. -Louis to boot. So he writes to the lieutenant of police. Sartine was too -sensible a man to be long obdurate to the prisoner on account of these -extravagances. "I was transferred to the keep of Vincennes on the night -of September 15, 1764. About nine hours after, the late M. de Guyonnet, -king's lieutenant, came and saw me in the presence of the major and the -three warders, and said: 'M. de Sartine has instructed me to inform you, -on his behalf, that provided you behave yourself quietly for a short -time, he will set you free. You have written him a very violent letter, -and you must apologize for it.'" Danry adds: "When all is said and done, -M. de Sartine did treat me well." He granted him for two hours every day -"the extraordinary promenade of the moats." "When a lieutenant of -police," says Danry, "granted this privilege to a prisoner, it was with -the object of promptly setting him free." On November 23, 1765, Danry -was walking thus, in company with a sentinel, outside the keep. The fog -was dense. Turning suddenly towards his keeper, Danry said, "What do you -think of this weather?" "It's very bad." "Well, it's just the weather to -escape in." He took five paces and was out of sight. "I escaped from -Vincennes," writes Danry, "without trickery; an ox would have managed it -as well." But in the speech he delivered later in the National Assembly, -the matter took a new complexion. "Think," he cried, "of the unfortunate -Latude, in his third escape, pursued by twenty soldiers, and yet -stopping and disarming under their very eyes the sentinel who had taken -aim at him!" - - * * * * * - -When Latude was at large, he found himself without resources, as at his -first escape. "I escaped with my feet in slippers and not a sou in my -pocket; I hadn't a thing to bless myself with." He took refuge with his -young friends, the Misses Lebrun. - -In their keeping he found a part of his papers, plans and projects, -memorials and dissertations. He sent "a basketful" of these to Marshal -de Noailles, begging him to continue to honour him with his protection, -and imparting to him "four great discoveries he had just made; first, -the true cause of the tides; secondly, the true cause of mountains, but -for which the globe would be brought to a standstill and become -speedily vitrified; thirdly, the cause of the ceaseless turning of the -globe; fourthly, the cause of the saltness of sea-water." He wrote also -to the Duke de Choiseul, minister of war, in order to obtain a reward -for his military scheme; he wrote making overtures of peace to Sartine: -in return for an advance of 10,000 crowns of the 150,000 livres due to -him, he would overlook the past: "I was resolved," he says, "to stake -all on one cast." In reply, he received a letter naming a house where he -would find 1200 livres obtained for him by Dr. Quesnay. He proceeded to -the address indicated--and was there captured. - -He was at once taken back to Vincennes. He declares that he was about to -be set at liberty at the moment of his escape: and now a new detention -was commencing. We shall not relate in detail the life he was now to -lead. Materially he continued to be well treated, but his mind became -affected, his rages became more and more violent, reaching at last -paroxysms of fury. Here are some extracts from letters and memorials -sent to Sartine: "By all the devils, this is coming it too strong. It is -true, sir, that I'd defy the blackest devils in all hell to teach you -anything in the way of cruelty; and that's but poor praise for you." He -writes on another occasion: "The crime of every one of us is to have -seen through your villainies: we are to perish, are we? how delighted -you would be if some one told you that we had all strangled ourselves in -our cells!" Danry reminds the lieutenant of police of the tortures of -Enguerrand de Marigni, adding: "Remember that more than a thousand -wretches have been broken in the Place de Greve who had not committed -the hundredth part of your crimes."... "Not a single person would be -astonished to see you flayed alive, your skin tanned, and your carcase -thrown into the gutters for the dogs to eat."... "But Monsieur laughs -at everything, Monsieur fears neither God, nor king, nor devil, Monsieur -swills down his crimes like buttermilk!" - -In prison Latude wrote memoirs which he filled with calumnies on the -ministers and the court. These memoirs are composed in the most dramatic -style, with an inimitable accent of sincerity. It was known that the -prisoner found a thousand means of sending them outside the walls, and -it was feared that they might be circulated among the populace, whose -minds--the year is 1775--were beginning to ferment. Latude had just been -flung into a cell in consequence of a fresh outbreak against his -jailers. "On March 19, 1775, the king's lieutenant entered, accompanied -by the major and three warders, and said to me: 'I have obtained leave -to let you out of the cell, but on one condition: that you hand over -your papers.' - -"'Hand over my papers! I tell you, sir, I'd rather be done to death in -this cell than show the white feather so!' - -"'Your trunk is upstairs in your room: I've only to say the word and the -seals would be broken and your papers taken out.' - -"I replied: 'Sir, justice has formalities to which you are bound to -conform, and you are not allowed to commit such outrages.' - -"He took five or six steps out of the cell, and as I did not call him -back, he came back himself and said: 'Just hand them to me for ten days -to examine them, and I give you my word of honour that at the end of -that time I will have them returned to your room.' - -"I replied: 'I will not let you have them for two hours even.' - -"'All right,' he said; 'as you won't entrust them to me, you have only -to stay where you are.'" - -Latude relates in his _Memoirs_ with great indignation the story of a -flute he had made, on which he used to play, his sole diversion during -the long hours of solitude; his jailers had the barbarity to take it -from him. The governor of the fortress, out of compassion, offered to -restore it. "But it will only be on condition that you play by day only, -and not at night." At this stipulation, writes Latude in his _Reveries_, -"I could not refrain from bantering him, saying, 'Why, don't you know, -sir, that forbidding a thing is just the way to make me eager for it?'" - -And so at Vincennes as at Paris they came to consider Danry as a madman. -Among the books given him for his amusement there were some dealing with -sorcery. These he read and re-read, and from that time onward he saw in -all the incidents of his life nothing but the perpetual intervention of -devils evoked by the witch Madame de Pompadour and her brother the -magician, the Marquis de Marigny. - -Sartine came again to see the prisoner on November 8, 1772. Danry begged -him to send a police officer to make a copy of a memorial he had drawn -up for his own justification; to send also an advocate to assist him -with his advice, and a doctor, to examine the state of his health. The -police officer arrived on the 24th. On the 29th, he wrote to the -lieutenant of police: "I have the honour to report that in pursuance of -your orders I proceeded to the chateau of Vincennes on the 24th curt., -to hear from Danry something which, he asserts, concerns the minister: -it is impossible to hear anything which concerns him less. He began by -saying that to write all he had to tell me I should have to remain for -three weeks with him. He was bound to tell me the story of 180 -sorceries, and I was to copy the story, according to him, from a heap of -papers he drew from a bag, the writing of which is undecipherable." - -We know from Danry himself what passed at the visit of the advocate. He -entered the prisoner's room about noon. Danry handed him two memorials -he had drawn up and explained their purport. "Instantly he cut me short, -saying, 'Sir, I have no belief whatever in witchcraft.' I did not give -in, but said, 'Sir, I cannot show you the devil in bodily shape, but I -am very certain I can convince you, by the contents of this memorial, -that the late Marquise de Pompadour was a witch, and that the Marquis de -Marigny, her brother, is at this very time still having dealings with -the devil.' - -"The advocate had read but a few pages when he stopped dead, put the -manuscript on the table, and said, as though he had been wakened out of -a deep sleep, 'Would you not like to get out of prison?' I replied: -'There's no doubt of that.' 'And do you intend to remain in Paris, or to -go to your home?' 'When I am free, I shall go home.' 'But have you any -means?' Upon this I took his hand and said: 'My dear sir, I beg you not -to take offence at what I am going to say.' 'Speak on,' he said, 'say -whatever you like, I shall not be offended.' 'Well then, I see very -clearly that the devil has already got hold of you.'" - -In the same year, Malesherbes made his celebrated inspection of the -prisons. "This virtuous minister came to see me at the beginning of -August, 1775, and listened to me with the most lively interest." The -historian who has the completest knowledge of everything relating to the -Bastille, Francois Ravaisson, believed that Malesherbes left the -wretched man in prison out of regard for his colleague Maurepas. "One -would have thought that Maurepas' first act on resuming office would -have been to release his old accomplice." This conjecture is destroyed -by a letter from Malesherbes to the governor of Vincennes: "I am busy, -sir, with the examination of the papers relating to your various -prisoners. Danry, Thorin, and Marechal are quite mad, according to the -particulars furnished to me, and the two first gave indubitable marks -of madness in my presence." - -In consequence, Danry was transferred to Charenton on September 27, -1775, "on account of mental derangement, in virtue of a royal order of -the 23rd of the said month, countersigned by Lamoignon. The king will -pay for his keep." On entering his new abode, Latude took the precaution -to change his name a third time, and signed the register "Danger." - -In passing from the fortress of Vincennes to the hospital of Charenton, -Danry thought it was as well to rise still higher in dignity. So we see -him henceforth styling himself "engineer, geographer, and royal -pensioner at Charenton." - -His situation was sensibly changed for the better. He speaks of the -kindnesses shown him by the Fathers of La Charite.[48] He had companions -whose society pleased him. Halls were set apart for billiards, -backgammon, and cards. He had company at his meals and in his walks. He -met Allegre, his old fellow-prisoner, whom he came upon among the -dangerous lunatics in the dungeons; Allegre had been removed in 1763 -from the Bastille, where he was shattering and destroying everything. -His latest fancy was that he was God. As to Danry, he had taken so -kindly to his role as nobleman that to see his aristocratic and -well-to-do air, to hear his conversation, full of reminiscences of his -family and his early life, no one could have doubted that he actually -was the brilliant engineer officer he set up for, who had fallen in the -prime of life a victim to the intrigues of the favourite. He hobnobbed -with the aristocratic section of society at Charenton and struck up an -intimacy with one of his associates, the Chevalier de Moyria, son of a -lieutenant-colonel, and a knight of Saint-Louis. - -Meanwhile the Parlement, which sent a commission every year to inspect -the Charenton asylum--a commission before which Danry appeared on two -separate occasions--did not decide that he ought to be set at liberty. -But one fine day in September, 1776, the prior of the Fathers, who took -a quite exceptional interest in the lot of his pensioner, meeting him in -the garden, said to him abruptly: "We are expecting a visit from the -lieutenant of police; get ready a short and taking address to say to -him." The lieutenant of police, Lenoir, saw Danry, and listened to him -attentively, and as the prior's account of him was entirely favourable, -the magistrate promised him his liberty. "Then Father Prudentius, my -confessor, who was behind me, drew me by the arm to get me away, fearing -lest, by some imprudent word, I might undo the good that had been -decided on"--a charming incident, much to the honour of Father -Prudentius. - -But on consideration it appeared dangerous to fling so suddenly upon -society a man who would be at a loss how to live, having neither -relatives nor fortune, having no longer the means of gaining a -livelihood, and a man, moreover, whom there was only too much reason to -mistrust. Lenoir asked the prisoner if, once set at liberty, he would -find the wherewithal to assure his existence; if he had any property; if -he could give the names of any persons willing to go bail for him. - -What did this mean--_if_ he had any property, _if_ he could find -sureties? He, Masers de Latude! Why, his whole family, when the Marquise -de Pompadour had him put in the Bastille, was occupying a brilliant -position! Why, his mother, of whose death he had had the agony to hear, -had left a house and considerable estates! Latude took his pen, and -without hesitation wrote to M. Caillet, royal notary at Montagnac: "My -dear friend, I would bet ten to one you believe me dead; see how -mistaken you are!... You have but to say the word and before the -carnival is over we shall eat a capital leveret together." And he speaks -to his friend the notary of the fortune left by his mother, and of his -family, who all of them cannot fail to be interested in him. Latude -himself was not greatly astonished at receiving no reply to this -epistle: but it must have passed under the eyes of the lieutenant of -police, and what more did he want? - -Latude's new friend, the Chevalier de Moyria, had already been for some -time at liberty. The prisoner hastened to send him a copy of his letter -to the notary. "The reply is a long time coming, M. Caillet is dead, -doubtless." What is to become of him? These twenty-eight years of -captivity have endangered his fortune, have made him lose his friends; -how is he to find the remnant of his scattered family? Happily there -remains to him a friendship, a friendship still recent, but already -strong, in which he places his whole confidence. "Chevalier, it would -only need your intervention to deliver me, by inducing your good mother -to write to M. Lenoir." The Chevalier de Moyria sent an amiable reply. -Danry wrote another and more urgent letter, with such success that not -only the Chevalier's mother, but also an old friend of the Moyria -family, Mercier de Saint-Vigor, a colonel, and controller-general of the -queen's household, intervened, and made applications at Versailles. "On -June 5, 1777, King Louis XVI. restored to me my freedom; I have in my -pocket the warrant under his own hand!" - - * * * * * - -On leaving Charenton, Danry signed an undertaking to depart immediately -for Languedoc, an undertaking which he did not trouble to fulfil. Paris -was the only city in France where a man of his stamp could thrive. He -was now fifty-two years old, but was still youthful in appearance, full -of go and vigour; his hair, as abundant as it had been in youth, had not -become white. He soon found means of borrowing some money, and then we -see him opening a campaign, exerting himself to get in touch with the -ministers, gaining the protection of the Prince de Beauvau, distributing -memorials in which he claimed a reward for great services rendered, and -launched out into invectives against his oppressors, Sartine in -particular. Minister Amelot sent for him, and in tones of severity -notified him that he was to leave the city at once. Latude did not wait -for the command to be repeated. He had reached Saint-Bris, about a -hundred miles from the capital, when he was suddenly arrested by the -police officer Marais. Brought back to Paris, he was locked up in the -Chatelet on July 16, 1777, and on August 1 conducted to Bicetre. The -first use he had made of his liberty was to introduce himself to a lady -of quality and extort money from her by menaces. The officer found a -considerable sum in his possession. - -Bicetre was not a state prison like the Bastille and Vincennes, or an -asylum like Charenton; it was the thieves' prison. On entering, Danry -took the precaution of changing his name a fourth time, calling himself -Jedor. He is, moreover, careful in his _Memoirs_ to give us the reason -of this fresh metamorphosis: "I would not sully my father's name by -inscribing it on the register of this infamous place." From this day -there begins for him a truly wretched existence; huddled with criminals, -put on bread and water, his lodging is a cell. But his long martyrdom is -nearing its end: the hour of his apotheosis is at hand! - -Louis XVI. had now been on the throne for several years, and France had -become the most impressionable country in the world. Tears flowed at the -slightest provocation. Was it the sentimental literature, which Rousseau -made fashionable, that produced this moving result, or contrariwise, was -the literature successful because it hit the taste of the day? At all -events, the time was ripe for Latude. His recent unlucky experience was -not to dishearten him. On the contrary, it is with a greater energy, a -more poignant emotion, and cries still more heartrending, that he -resumes the story of his interminable sufferings. The victim of cruel -oppressors, of cowardly foes who have their own reasons for smothering -his voice, he will not bend his head under his abominable treatment; he -will remain proud, self-assured, erect before those who load him with -irons! - -On the birth of the Dauphin, Louis XVI. resolved to admit his wretched -prisoners to a share of his joy and to pronounce a great number of -pardons. A special commission, composed of eight counsellors of the -Chatelet and presided over by Cardinal de Rohan, sat at Bicetre. Danry -appeared before it on May 17, 1782. His new judges, as he testifies, -heard his story with interest. But the decision of the commission was -not favourable to him. He was not so much surprised at this as might be -supposed: "The impure breath of vice," he wrote to the Marquis de -Conflans, "has never tainted my heart, but there are magistrates who -would let off guilty men with free pardons rather than expose themselves -to the merited reproach of having committed injustice of the most -revolting kind in keeping innocence for thirty-three years in irons." - -Giving rein to the marvellous activity of his brain, he composed at -Bicetre new schemes, memorials, and accounts of his misfortunes. To the -Marquis de Conflans he sends a scheme for a hydraulic press, "the -homage of an unfortunate nobleman who has grown old in irons"; he -induces the turnkeys to carry memorials to all who may possibly interest -themselves in him. The first to take compassion on him was a priest, the -Abbe Legal, of the parish of St. Roch, and curate of Bicetre. He visited -him, consoled him, gave him money, showed him attentions. Cardinal de -Rohan also took much interest in him, and sent him some assistance -through his secretary. We are coming at last to Madame Legros. This -wonderful story is so well known that we shall tell it briefly. A -drunken turnkey chanced to lose one of Latude's memorials at a corner of -the Rue des Fosses-Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois: it was picked up and -opened by a woman, a haberdasher in a small way. Her heart burned within -her as she read of these horrible sufferings, depicted in strokes of -fire. She inspired her husband with her own emotion; henceforth it was -to be the aim in life of these worthy people to effect the unhappy man's -deliverance, and Madame Legros devoted herself to the self-imposed task -with indefatigable ardour, courage, and devotion. "A grand sight," cries -Michelet, "to see this poor, ill-clad woman going from door to door, -paying court to footmen to win entrance into mansions, to plead her -cause before the great, to implore their support!" In many houses she -was well received. President de Gourgues, President de Lamoignon, -Cardinal de Rohan, aided her with their influence. Sartine himself took -steps on behalf of the unhappy man. Two advocates of the Parlement of -Paris, Lacroix and Comeyras, devoted themselves to his cause. Copies -were made of the prisoner's memorials and distributed in every -drawing-room; they penetrated even into the boudoir of the queen. All -hearts were stirred by the accents of this harrowing voice. - -The Marquis de Villette, who had become celebrated through the -hospitality he showed to Voltaire when dying, conceived a passionate -enthusiasm for Danry. He sent his steward to Bicetre to offer him a -pension of 600 livres on the sole condition of the prisoner's leaving -his case entirely in the Marquis's hands. Latude received this singular -proposal with becoming dignity. "For two years a poor woman has been -devoting herself to my cause. I should be an ungrateful wretch if I did -not leave my fate in her hands." He knew that this pension would not -escape him, and it was not for 600 livres that he would have consented -to rob his story of the touching and romantic features it was -increasingly assuming. - -Further, the French Academy actually intervenes! D'Alembert is all fire -and flame. From this time a stream of visitors of the highest -distinction flows through the squalid prison. At length the king himself -is led to look into the affair. He has the documentary evidence brought -to him and examines it carefully. With what anxiety everyone awaits his -decision! But Louis XVI., now acquainted with the case, replies that -Latude will be released--_never_! At this decree, to all appearance -irrevocable, all the prisoner's friends lose heart, except Madame -Legros. The queen and Madame Necker are on her side. In 1783, Breteuil, -the queen's man, comes into power; on March 24, 1784, the release is -signed! The Vicomte de Latude receives a pension of 400 livres, but is -exiled to his own part of the country. New importunities, new -applications; at last they succeed: Latude is free to live in Paris! - -This is the grandest period in the life of a great man! Latude is soon -in occupation of a modest but decent and well-ordered suite of rooms on -the fourth floor. He lives with his two benefactors, M. and Madame -Legros, petted, spoilt in a thousand ways. The Duchess of Beauvau has -obtained for Madame Legros from Calonne, out of funds intended for the -support of distressed gentlefolk, a pension of 600 livres: the Duchess -of Kingston[49] grants a pension of the same amount. In addition to the -royal pension, Latude receives 500 livres a year from President Dupaty -and 300 from the Duke d'Ayen. Moreover, a public subscription is opened, -and the list is filled with the greatest names in France. An agreeable -competency is assured to the Legros couple and their adopted son. At its -sitting on March 24, the French Academy solemnly awarded the Montyon -prize to the valiant little haberdasher. "The Dame Legros came to -receive the medal amid the acclamations of the whole assembly." - -The name of Latude is on everyone's lips; he wins admiration and pity on -all sides. Ladies of the highest society are not above mounting to the -fourth story, accompanied by their daughters, to bring the poor man "aid -in money, with their tears." The hero has left a complacent description -of the throng: duchesses, marchionesses, grandees of Spain, wearers of -the cross of St. Louis, presidents of the Parlement, all these met at -his house. Sometimes there were six or eight persons in his room. -Everyone listened to his story and lavished on him marks of the most -affectionate compassion, and no one failed before going away "to leave a -mark of his sensibility." The wives of Marshals de Luxembourg and de -Beauvau, the Duchess de la Rochefoucauld, the Countess de Guimont, were -among the most zealous. "Indeed," says our hero, "it would be extremely -difficult for me to tell which of these countesses, marchionesses, -duchesses, and princesses had the most humane, the most compassionate -heart." - -Thus Latude became one of the lions of Paris: strangers flocked to his -lodging, hostesses ran off with him. At table, when he spoke, all voices -were hushed with an air of deference and respect; in the drawing-room -you would find him seated in a gilt chair near the fireplace where great -logs were blazing, and surrounded by a thick cluster of bright, silky, -rustling robes. The Chevalier de Pougens, son of the Prince de Conti, -pressed him to come and stay at his house; Latude graciously consented. -The American ambassador, the illustrious Jefferson, invited him to -dinner. - -Latude has himself described this enchanted life: "Since I left prison, -the greatest lords of France have done me the honour of inviting me to -eat with them, but I have not found a single house--except that of the -Comte d'Angevillier, where you could meet men of wit and learning in -scores, and receive all sorts of civilities on the part of the countess; -and that of M. Guillemot, keeper of the royal palaces, one of the most -charming families to be found in Paris--where you are more at your ease -than with the Marquis de Villette. - -"When a man has felt, as I have felt, the rage of hunger, he always -begins by speaking of his food. The Marquis de Villette possesses a cook -who is a match for the most skilful in his art: in a word, his table is -first-rate. At the tables of the dukes and peers and marshals of France -there is eternal ceremony, and everyone speaks like a book, whereas at -that of the Marquis de Villette, men of wit and learning always form the -majority of the company. All the first-class musicians have a cover set -at his table, and on at least three days of the week he gives a little -concert." - -On August 26, 1788, died one of the benefactresses of Latude, the -Duchess of Kingston, who did not fail to mention her protege in her -will. We see him dutifully assisting at the sale of the lady's furniture -and effects. He even bought a few things, giving a _louis d' or_ in -payment. Next day, the sale being continued, the auctioneer handed the -coin back to Latude: it was bad. Bad! What! did they take the Vicomte de -Latude for a sharper? The coin bad! Who, he would like to know, had the -insolence to make "an accusation so derogatory to his honour and his -reputation?" Latude raised his voice, and the auctioneer threatened to -bundle him out of the room. The insolent dog! "Bundle out rogues, not -gentlemen!" But the auctioneer sent for the police, who put "the Sieur -de Latude ignominiously outside." He went off calmly, and the same day -summoned the auctioneer before the Chatelet tribunal, "in order to get a -reparation as authoritative as the defamation had been public." - -In the following year (1789) Latude made a journey into England. He had -taken steps to sue Sartine, Lenoir, and the heirs of Madame de Pompadour -in the courts in order to obtain the damages due to him. In England, he -drew up a memorandum for Sartine, in which he informed the late -lieutenant of police of the conditions on which he would withdraw his -actions. "M. de Sartine, you will give me, as compensation for all the -harm and damage you have made me suffer unjustly, the sum of 900,000 -livres; M. Lenoir, 600,000 livres; the heirs of the late Marquise de -Pompadour and Marquis de Menars, 100,000 crowns; in all, 1,800,000 -livres;" that is to say, about L160,000 in English money of to-day. - -[Illustration: LATUDE. - -_From the Painting by Vestier (Hotel Carnavalet)._] - -The Revolution broke out. If the epoch of Louis XVI., with its mildness -and fellow-feeling, had been favourable to our hero, the Revolution -seems to have been ordained on purpose for him. The people rose against -the tyranny of kings: the towers of the Bastille were overthrown. -Latude, the victim of kings, the victim of the Bastille and arbitrary -warrants, was about to appear in all his glory. - -He hastened to throw into the gutter his powdered peruque and viscount's -frock; listen to the revolutionist, fierce, inflexible, indomitable, -_uncompromising_: "Frenchmen, I have won the right to tell you the -truth, and if you are free, you cannot but love to hear it. - -"For thirty-five years I meditated in dungeons on the audacity and -insolence of despots; with loud cries I was calling down vengeance, when -France in indignation rose up as one man in one sublime movement and -levelled despotism with the dust. The will to be free is what makes a -nation free; and you have proved it. But to preserve freedom a nation -must make itself worthy of it, and that is what remains for you to do!" - -In the Salon of 1789 there were two portraits of Latude with the famous -ropeladder. Below one of these portraits, by Vestier, a member of the -Royal Academy, these lines were engraved:-- - - Instruit par ses malheurs et sa captivite - A vaincre des tyrans les efforts et la rage, - Il apprit aux Francais comment le vrai courage - Peut conquerir la liberte.[50] - -In 1787 the Marquis de Beaupoil-Saint-Aulaire had written, inspired by -Latude himself, the story of the martyr's captivity. Of this book two -editions appeared in the same year. In 1789 Latude published the -narrative of his escape from the Bastille, as well as his _Grand -Memoire_ to the Marquise de Pompadour; finally, in 1790 appeared -_Despotism Unmasked, or the Memoirs of Henri Masers de Latude_, edited -by the advocate Thiery. The book was dedicated to La Fayette. On the -first page we see a portrait of the hero, his face proud and energetic, -one hand on the ropeladder, the other extended towards the Bastille -which workmen are in the act of demolishing. "I swear," says the author -at the commencement, "that I will not relate one fact which is not -true." The work is a tissue of calumnies and lies; and what makes a most -painful impression on the reader is to see this man disowning his -mother, forgetting the privations she endured out of love for her son, -and ascribing the credit of what little the poor thing could do for her -child to a Marquis de la Tude, knight of St. Louis, and -lieutenant-colonel of the Orleans Dragoons! - -But the book vibrates with an incomparable accent of sincerity and of -that profound emotion which Latude knew so well how to infuse into all -those with whom he had to do. In 1793, twenty editions had been -exhausted, the work had been translated into several languages; the -journals had no praise strong enough for the boldness and genius of the -author; the _Mercure de France_ proclaimed that henceforth it was a -parent's duty to teach his children to read in this sublime work; a copy -was sent to all the departments, accompanied by a model of the Bastille -by the architect Palloy. With good reason could Latude exclaim in the -National Assembly: "I have not a little contributed to the Revolution -and to its consolidation." - -Latude was not the man to neglect opportunities so favourable. To begin -with, he sought to get his pension augmented, and presented to the -Constituent Assembly a petition backed by representative Bouche. But -Camus, "rugged Camus," president of the committee appointed to -investigate the matter, decided on rejection; and at the sitting of -March 13, 1791, deputy Voidel delivered a very spirited speech; his view -was that the nation had unhappy folk to succour more worthy of their -concern than a man whose life had begun with roguery and villainy. The -Assembly sided with him; not only was Latude's pension not increased, -but on consideration, the pension granted by Louis XVI. was altogether -withdrawn. - -Horror and infamy! "What madness has seized on the minds of the -representatives of the most generous nation in the world!... To slay a -hapless wretch the mere sight of whom awakens pity and warms into life -the most sluggish sensibility ... for death is not so terrible as the -loss of honour!" The valiant Latude will not abide the stroke of such an -insult. Ere long he has brought Voidel to retract; in the heart of the -Assembly he gains an influential supporter in the Marshal de Broglie. -The Constituent Assembly is replaced by the Legislative, and Latude -returns to the charge. He is admitted to the bar of the House on January -26, 1792; the matter is re-committed and gone into a second time on -February 25. We should like to be able to quote at length the speech -which Latude himself composed for his advocate; here is a portion of the -peroration:-- - -"That a man, without any outside assistance, should have been able to -escape three times, once from the Bastille and twice from Vincennes, -yes, gentlemen, I venture to say he could not have succeeded except by a -miracle, or else that Latude has more than extraordinary genius. Cast -your eyes on this ladder of rope and wood, and on all the other -instruments which Latude constructed with a mere knife, which you see -here in the centre of this chamber. I resolved to bring before your own -eyes this interesting object, which will for ever win admiration from -men of intelligence. Not a single stranger comes to Paris without going -to see this masterpiece of intelligence and genius, as well as his -generous deliverer, Madame Legros. We have resolved to give you, -gentlemen, the pleasure of seeing this celebrated woman, who -unremittingly for forty months set despotism at defiance, and vanquished -it by dint of virtue. Behold her there at the bar with M. de Latude, -behold that incomparable woman, for ever to be the glory and the -ornament of her sex!" - -It is not surprising that the Legislative Assembly was deeply moved by -this eloquent harangue and this exhibition of the lady, as touching as -unexpected. It unanimously voted Latude a pension of 2000 livres, -without prejudice to the pension of 400 livres previously awarded. -Henceforth Latude will be able to say: "The whole nation adopted me!" - -However, the little mishap in the Constituent Assembly was to be the -only check that Latude suffered in the course of his glorious martyr's -career. Presented to the Society of "Friends of the Constitution," he -was elected a member by acclamation, and the Society sent a deputation -of twelve members to carry the civic crown to Madame Legros. The leader -of the deputation said, in a voice broken by emotion, "This day is the -grandest day of my life." A deputation from the principal theatres of -Paris offered Latude free admission to all performances, "so that he -might go often and forget the days of his mourning." He was surrounded -by the highest marks of consideration; pleaders begged him to support -their cases before the tribunals with the moral authority bestowed on -him by his virtue. He took advantage of this to bring definitively -before the courts his claims against the heirs of the Marquise de -Pompadour. Citizen Mony argued the case for the first time before the -court of the sixth arrondissement on July 16, 1793; on September 11 the -case came again before the magistrates: Citizens Chaumette, Laurent, and -Legrand had been designated by the Commune of Paris as counsel for the -defence, and the whole Commune was present at the hearing. Latude -obtained 60,000 livres, 10,000 of which were paid him in cash. - -And now his life became more tranquil. Madame Legros continued to lavish -her care on him. The 50,000 livres remaining due to him from the heirs -of the Marquise were paid in good farm lands situated in La Beauce, the -profits of which he regularly drew. - -Let us hasten to add that France did not find in Latude an ungrateful -child. The critical situation in which the nation was then struggling -pained him deeply. He sought the means of providing a remedy, and in -1799 brought out a "Scheme for the valuation of the eighty departments -of France to save the Republic in less than three months," and a "Memoir -on the means of re-establishing the public credit and order in the -finances of France." - -When the estates of Madame de Pompadour were sequestrated, the farms -Latude had received were taken from him; but he induced the Directory to -restore them. He was less fortunate in his requisition for a licence for -a theatre and a gaming-house. But he found consolation. The subsidies he -went on extorting from right and left, the proceeds of his farms, the -sale of his books, and the money brought in by the exhibition of his -ropeladder, which was exhibited by a showman in the different towns of -France and England, provided him with a very comfortable income. - -The Revolution became a thing of the past. Latude hailed the dawning -glory of Bonaparte, and when Bonaparte became Napoleon, Latude made his -bow to the emperor. We have a very curious letter in which he marks out -for Napoleon I. the line of conduct he should pursue to secure his own -welfare and the good of France. It begins as follows:-- - -"SIRE,--I have been five times buried alive, and am well acquainted with -misfortune. To have a heart more sympathetic than the common run of men -it is necessary to have suffered great ills.... At the time of the -Terror I had the delightful satisfaction of saving the lives of -twenty-two poor wretches.... To petition Fouquet d'Etinville on behalf -of the royalists was to persuade him that I was one myself. When I -braved death in order to save the lives of twenty-two citizens, judge, -great Emperor, if my heart can do ought but take great interest in you, -the saviour of my beloved country." - -We are given some details of the last years of Latude's life in the -_Memoirs_ of his friend, the Chevalier de Pougens, and in the _Memoirs_ -of the Duchess d'Abrantes. The Chevalier tells us that at the age of -seventy-five years he still enjoyed good health; he was "active and gay, -and appeared to enjoy to the full the delights of existence. Every day -he took long walks in Paris without experiencing the least fatigue. -People were amazed to find _no trace_ of the cruel sufferings he had -undergone in the cells during a captivity of thirty-five years." His -popularity suffered no diminution under the Empire. Junot awarded him a -pension from funds at his disposal. One day the general presented him -to his wife, along with Madame Legros, whose side Latude never left. -"When he arrived," says the Duchess d'Abrantes, "I went to greet him -with a respect and an emotion that must have been truly edifying. I took -him by the hand, conducted him to a chair, and put a cushion under his -feet; in fact, he might have been my grandfather, whom I could not have -treated better. At table I placed him on my right. But," adds the -Duchess, "my enchantment was of short duration. He talked of nothing but -his own adventures with appalling loquacity." - -At the age of eighty, a few months before his death, Latude wrote in the -most familiar terms to his protector, the Chevalier de Pougens, a member -of the Institute: "Now I assure you in the clearest possible words, that -if within ten days of the present time, the 11th Messidor, you have not -turned up in Paris (the Chevalier was staying at his country estate), I -shall start the next day and come to you with the hunger of a giant and -the thirst of a cabby, and when I have emptied your cellar and eaten you -out of house and home you will see me play the second act of the comedy -of _Jocrisse_[51]; you will see me run off with your plates, and dishes, -and tankards, and bottles--empty, you may be sure--and fling all your -furniture out of the window!" - -On July 20, 1804, Latude compiled one more circular, addressed to the -sovereigns of Europe: the kings of Prussia, Sweden, and Denmark, the -Archduke Charles, brother of the Emperor; and to the President of the -United States. To each of them he sent a copy of his _Memoirs_, -accompanied by the famous scheme for replacing with muskets the pikes -with which the sergeants were armed. He explained to each of the -sovereigns that as the country he ruled was profiting by this child of -his genius, it was only just that he should reap some benefit. - -Jean Henri, surnamed Danry, alias Danger, alias Jedor, alias Masers -d'Aubrespy, alias De Masers de Latude, died of pneumonia at Paris, on -January 1, 1805, aged eighty years. - - - - -CHAPTER VII. - -THE FOURTEENTH OF JULY. - - -In the remarkable book entitled _Paris during the Revolution_, M. -Adolphe Schmidt writes: "All the purely revolutionary events, the events -of the Fourteenth of July, of October 5 and 6, 1789, were the work of an -obscure minority of reckless and violent revolutionists. If they -succeeded, it was only because the great majority of the citizens -avoided the scene of operations or were mere passive spectators there, -attracted by curiosity, and giving in appearance an enhanced importance -to the movement." Further on he says: "After the fall of the -Gironde,[52] Dutard expressed himself in these terms: 'If, out of 50,000 -Moderates, you succeed in collecting a compact body of no more than -3000, I shall be much astonished; and if out of these 3000 there are to -be found only 500 who are agreed, and courageous enough to express their -opinion, I shall be still more astonished. And these, in truth, must -expect to be Septembrised.'[53] 'Twelve maniacs, with their blood well -up, at the head of the Sansculotte section,' writes Dutard in another -report, 'would put to flight the other forty-seven sections of Paris.' -Mercier, after the fall of the Gironde, thus expresses himself in regard -to the reign of Terror: 'Sixty brigands deluged France with blood: -500,000 men within our walls were witnesses of their atrocities, and -were not brave enough to oppose them.'" - -To enable the reader to understand the extraordinary and improbable -event which is the subject of this chapter, it would be necessary to -begin by explaining the circumstances and describing the material and -moral state of things in which it happened; and that, unhappily, would -occupy much space. Let us take the two principal facts, see what they -led to, and then come to the events of the Fourteenth of July. - -For its task of governing France, the royal power had in its hands no -administrative instrument, or, at any rate, administrative instruments -of a very rudimentary character. It ruled through tradition and -sentiment. The royal power had been created by the affection and -devotion of the nation, and in this devotion and affection lay its whole -strength. - -What, actually and practically, were the means of government in the -hands of the king? "Get rid of _lettres de cachet_," observed -Malesherbes, "and you deprive the king of all his authority, for the -_lettre de cachet_ is the only means he possesses of enforcing his will -in the kingdom." Now, for several years past, the royal power had -practically renounced _lettres de cachet_. On the other hand, during the -course of the eighteenth century, the sentiments of affection and -devotion of which we have spoken had become enfeebled, or at least had -changed their character. So it was that on the eve of the Revolution the -royal power, which stood in France for the entire administration, had, -if the expression may be allowed, melted into thin air. - -Below the royal power, the lords in the country, the upper ten in the -towns, constituted the second degree in the government. The same remarks -apply here also. And unhappily it is certain that, over the greater part -of France, the territorial lords had forgotten the duties which their -privileges and their station imposed. The old attachment of the -labouring classes to them had almost everywhere disappeared, and in many -particulars had given place to feelings of hostility. - -Thus on the eve of '89 the whole fabric of the state had no longer any -real existence: at the first shock it was bound to crumble into dust. -And as, behind the fragile outer wall, there was no solid structure--no -administrative machine, with its numerous, diverse, and nicely-balanced -parts, like that which in our time acts as a buffer against the shocks -of political crises,--the first blow aimed at the royal power was bound -to plunge the whole country into a state of disorganization and -disorder from which the tyranny of the Terror, brutal, blood-stained, -overwhelming as it was, alone could rescue it. - -Such is the first of the two facts we desire to make clear. We come now -to the second. Ever since the year 1780, France had been almost -continually in a state of famine. The rapidity and the abundance of the -international exchanges which in our days supply us constantly from the -remotest corners of the world with the necessaries of life, prevent our -knowing anything of those terrible crises which in former days swept -over the nations. "The dearth," writes Taine, "permanent, prolonged, -having already lasted ten years, and aggravated by the very outbreaks -which it provoked, went on adding fuel to all the passions of men till -they reached a blaze of madness." "The nearer we come to the Fourteenth -of July," says an eye witness, "the greater the famine becomes." "In -consequence of the bad harvest," writes Schmidt, "the price of bread had -been steadily rising from the opening of the year 1789. This state of -things was utilized by the agitators who aimed at driving the people -into excesses: these excesses in turn paralyzed trade. Business ceased, -and numbers of workers found themselves without bread." - -A few words should properly be said in regard to brigandage under the -_ancien regime_. The progress of manners and especially the development -of executive government have caused it utterly to disappear. The -reader's imagination will supply all we have not space to say. He will -recollect the lengths of daring to which a man like Cartouche[54] could -go, and recall what the forest of Bondy[55] was at the gates of Paris. - -So grew up towards the end of the _ancien regime_ what Taine has so -happily called a spontaneous anarchy. In the four months preceding the -capture of the Bastille, one can count more than three hundred riots in -France. At Nantes, on January 9, 1789, the town hall was invaded, and -the bakers' shops pillaged. All this took place to the cries of "Vive le -roi!" At Bray-sur-Seine, on May 1, peasants armed with knives and clubs -forced the farmers to lower the price of corn. At Rouen, on May 28, the -corn in the market place was plundered. In Picardy, a discharged -carabineer put himself at the head of an armed band which attacked the -villages and carried off the corn. On all sides houses were looted from -roof to cellar. At Aupt, M. de Montferrat, defending himself, was "cut -into little pieces." At La Seyne, the mob brought a coffin in front of -the house of one of the principal burgesses; he was told to prepare for -death, and they would do him the honour to bury him. He escaped, and his -house was sacked. We cull these facts haphazard from among hundreds of -others. - -The immediate neighbourhood of Paris was plunged in terror. The batches -of letters, still unpublished, preserved in the National Archives throw -the most vivid light on this point. Bands of armed vagabonds scoured the -country districts, pillaging the villages and plundering the crops. -These were the "Brigands," a term which constantly recurs in the -documents, and more and more frequently as we approach the 14th of July. -These armed bands numbered three, four, five hundred men. At Cosne, at -Orleans, at Rambouillet, it was the same story of raids on the corn. In -different localities of the environs of Paris, the people organized -themselves on a military basis. Armed burghers patrolled the streets -against the "brigands." From all sides the people rained on the king -demands for troops to protect them. Towns like Versailles, in dread of -an invasion by these ruffians, implored the king for protection: the -letters of the municipal council preserved in the National Archives are -in the highest degree instructive. - -At this moment there had collected in the outskirts of Paris those -troops whose presence was in the sequel so skilfully turned to account -by the orators of the Palais-Royal. True, the presence of the troops -made them uneasy. So far were the soldiers from having designs against -the Parisians that in the secret correspondence of Villedeuil we find -the court constantly urging that they should be reserved for the -safeguarding of the adjoining districts, which were every day exposed to -attack, and for the safe conduct of the convoys of corn coming up to -Versailles and Paris. Bands mustered around the capital. In the first -weeks of May, near Villejuif, a troop of from five to six hundred -ruffians met intending to storm Bicetre and march on Saint-Cloud. They -came from distances of thirty, forty, and fifty leagues, and the whole -mass surged around Paris and was swallowed up there as into a sewer. -During the last days of April the shopmen saw streaming through the -barriers "a terrific number of men, ill clad and of sinister aspect." By -the first days of May, it was noticed that the appearance of the mob had -altogether changed. There was now mingled with it "a number of strangers -from all the country parts, most of them in rags, and armed with huge -clubs, the mere aspect of them showing what was to be feared." In the -words of a contemporary, "one met such physiognomies as one never -remembered having seen in the light of day." To provide occupation for a -part of these ill-favoured unemployed, whose presence everybody felt to -be disquieting, workshops were constructed at Montmartre, where from -seventeen to eighteen thousand men were employed on improvised tasks at -twenty sous a day. - -Meanwhile the electors chosen to nominate deputies to the National -Assembly had been collecting. On April 22, 1789, Thiroux de Crosne, the -lieutenant of police, speaking of the tranquillity with which the -elections were being carried on, added: "But I constantly have my eye on -the bakers." - -On April 23, de Crosne referred to the irritation which was showing -itself among certain groups of workmen in the Suburb Saint-Antoine -against two manufacturers, Dominique Henriot, the saltpetre-maker, and -Reveillon, the manufacturer of wall-papers. Henriot was known, not only -for his intelligence, but for his kindliness; in years of distress he -had sacrificed a portion of his fortune for the support of the workmen; -as to Reveillon, he was at this date one of the most remarkable -representatives of Parisian industry. A simple workman to begin with, he -was in 1789 paying 200,000 livres a year in salaries to 300 workers; -shortly before, he had carried off the prize founded by Necker for the -encouragement of useful arts. Henriot and Reveillon were said to have -made offensive remarks against the workmen in the course of the recent -electoral assemblies. They both denied, however, having uttered the -remarks attributed to them, and there is every reason to believe that -their denials were genuine. - -During the night of April 27 and the next day, howling mobs attacked the -establishments of Henriot and Reveillon, which were thoroughly -plundered. Commissary Gueullette, in his report of May 3, notes that a -wild and systematic devastation was perpetrated. Only the walls were -left standing. What was not stolen was smashed into atoms. The -"brigands"--the expression used by the Commissary--threw a part of the -plant out of the windows into the street, where the mob made bonfires of -it. Part of the crowd were drunk; nevertheless they flung themselves -into the cellars, and the casks were stove in. When casks and bottles -were empty, the rioters attacked the flasks containing colouring -matter; this they absorbed in vast quantities, and reeled about with -fearful contortions, poisoned. When these cellars were entered next day, -they presented a horrible spectacle, for the wretches had come to -quarrelling and cutting each other's throats. "The people got on to the -roofs," writes Thiroux de Crosne, "whence they rained down upon the -troops a perfect hailstorm of tiles, stones, &c.; they even set rolling -down fragments of chimneys and bits of timber; and although they were -fired upon several times and some persons were killed, it was quite -impossible to master them." - -The riot was not quelled by the troops until 10 o'clock that night; more -than a hundred persons were left dead in the street. M. Alexandre Tuetey -has devoted some remarkable pages to Reveillon's affair; he has -carefully studied the interrogatories of rioters who were arrested. The -majority, he says, had been drunk all day. Reveillon, as is well known, -only found safety by taking refuge in the Bastille. He was the only -prisoner whom the Bastille received throughout the year 1789. - -In the night following these bacchanalian orgies, the agents of the -Marquis du Chatelet, colonel of the Gardes Francaises, having crept -along one of the moats, "saw a crowd of brigands" collected on the -further side of the Trone gate. Their leader was mounted on a table, -haranguing them. - -We come upon them again in the report of Commissary Vauglenne, quoted by -M. Alexandre Tuetey. "On April 29, Vauglenne took the depositions of -bakers, confectioners, and pork butchers of the Marais, who had been -robbed by veritable bands of highwaymen, who proceed by burglary and -violence; they may possibly be starving men, but they look and act -uncommonly like gentlemen of the road." - -Meanwhile, in the garden of the Palais-Royal, Camille Desmoulins was -haranguing groups of the unemployed and ravenous outcasts, who were -pressing round him with wide glaring eyes. Desmoulins vociferates: "The -beast is in the trap; now to finish him!... Never a richer prey has ever -been offered to conquerors! Forty thousand palaces, mansions, chateaux, -two-fifths of the wealth of France will be the prize of valour. Those -who have set up as our masters will be mastered in their turn, the -nation will be purged!" It is easy to understand that in Paris the alarm -had become as acute as in the country; everyone was in terror of the -"brigands." On June 25 it was decided to form a citizen militia for the -protection of property. "The notoriety of these disorders," we read in -the minutes of the electors, "and the excesses committed by several mobs -have decided the general assembly to re-establish without delay the -militia of Paris." But a certain time was necessary for the organization -of this civil guard. On June 30, the doors of the Abbaye, where some -Gardes Francaises had been locked up, some for desertion, others for -theft, were broken in by blows from hatchets and hammers. The prisoners -were led in triumph to the Palais-Royal, where they were feted in the -garden. The extent of the disorders was already so great that the -government, powerless to repress them, had perforce to grant a general -pardon. From that day there was no longer any need to capture the -Bastille, the _ancien regime_ was lost. - -The disturbances at the Palais-Royal, the rendezvous of idlers, light -women, and hot-headed fools, were becoming ever more violent. They began -to talk of setting fire to the place. If some honest citizen plucked up -courage to protest he was publicly whipped, thrown into the ponds, and -rolled in the mud. - -On July 11, Necker was dismissed from the ministry and replaced by -Breteuil. At this time Necker was very popular; Breteuil was not, though -he ought to have been, particularly in the eyes of supporters of a -revolutionary movement. Of all the ministers of the _ancien regime_, and -of all the men of his time, Breteuil was the one who had done most for -the suppression of _lettres de cachet_ and of state prisons. It was he -who had closed Vincennes and the Chatimoine tower of Caen, who had got -the demolition of the Bastille decided on, who had set Latude at -liberty, and how many other prisoners! who had drawn up and made -respected, even in the remotest parts of the kingdom, those admirable -circulars which will immortalize his name, by which he ordered the -immediate liberation of all prisoners whose detention was not absolutely -justified, and laid down such rigorous formalities for the future, that -the arbitrary character of _lettres de cachet_ may be said to have been -destroyed by them. Nevertheless the orators of the Palais-Royal -succeeded in persuading many people that the advent of Breteuil to the -ministry presaged a "St. Bartholomew of patriots." The agitation became -so vehement, the calumnies against the court and the government were -repeated with so much violence, that the court, in order to avoid the -slightest risk of the outbreak of a "St. Bartholomew," ordered all the -troops to be withdrawn and Paris to be left to itself. - -Meanwhile, Camille Desmoulins was continuing to thunder forth: "I have -just sounded the people. My rage against the despots was turned to -despair. I did not see the crowds, although keenly moved and dismayed, -strongly enough disposed to insurrection.... I was rather lifted on to -the table than mounted there myself. Scarcely was I there than I saw -myself surrounded by an immense throng. Here is my short address, which -I shall never forget: 'Citizens! there is not a moment to lose. I come -from Versailles; M. Necker is dismissed; this dismissal is the alarm -bell of a St. Bartholomew of patriots; this evening all the Swiss and -German battalions will march from the Champ de Mars to cut our throats. -Only one resource remains to us: we must fly to arms!'" - -The Parisians were in an abject state of fright, but it was not the -Swiss and German battalions which terrified them. The author of the -_Memorable Fortnight_, devoted heart and soul as he was to the -revolutionary movement, acknowledges that during the days from the 12th -to the 14th of July, all respectable people shut themselves up in their -houses. And while the troops and decent people were retiring, the dregs -were coming to the surface. During the night of July 12, the majority of -the toll gates, where the town dues were collected, were broken open, -plundered, and set on fire. "Brigands," armed with pikes and clubs, -scoured the streets, threatening the houses in which the trembling and -agitated citizens had shut themselves. Next day, July 13, the shops of -the bakers and wine merchants were rifled. "Girls snatched the earrings -from women who went by; if the ring resisted, the ear was torn in two." -"The house of the lieutenant of police was ransacked, and Thiroux de -Crosne had the utmost difficulty in escaping from the bands armed with -clubs and torches. Another troop, with murderous cries, arrived at the -Force, where prisoners for debt were confined: the prisoners were set -free. The Garde-Meuble was ransacked. One gang broke in with their axes -the door of the Lazarists, smashed the library, the cupboards, the -pictures, the windows, the physical laboratory, dived into the cellar, -stove in the wine-casks and got gloriously drunk. Twenty-four hours -afterwards some thirty dead and dying were found there, men and women, -one of the latter on the point of childbirth. In front of the house the -street was full of debris and of brigands, who held in their hands, some -eatables, others a pitcher, forcing wayfarers to drink and filling for -all and sundry. Wine flowed in torrents." Some had possessed themselves -of ecclesiastical robes, which they put on, and in this attire yelled -and gesticulated down the street. In the minute books of the electors we -read at this date: "On information given to the committee that the -brigands who had been dispersed showed some disposition to reassemble -for the purpose of attacking and pillaging the Royal Treasury and the -Bank, the committee ordered these two establishments to be guarded." On -the same day, they luckily succeeded in disarming more than a hundred -and fifty of these roisterers, who, drunk with wine and brandy, had -fallen asleep inside the Hotel de Ville. Meanwhile the outskirts of -Paris were no safer than the city itself, and from the top of the towers -of the Bastille they could see the conflagrations which were started in -various quarters. - -The organization of the citizen militia against these disorders was -becoming urgent. When evening came, the majority of the districts set -actively to work. Twelve hundred good citizens mustered in the Petit -Saint-Antoine district. It was a motley crew: tradesmen and artisans, -magistrates and doctors, writers and scholars, cheek by jowl with -navvies and carpenters. The future minister of Louis XVI., Champion de -Villeneuve, filled the post of secretary. The twelve hundred citizens, -as we read in the minutes, "compelled to unite by the too well founded -alarm inspired in all the citizens by the danger which seems to threaten -them each individually, and by the imminent necessity of taking prompt -measures to avert its effects, considering that a number of -individuals, terrified perhaps by the rumours which doubtless -evil-disposed persons have disseminated, are traversing, armed and in -disorder, all the streets of the capital, and that the ordinary town -guard either mingles with them or remains a passive spectator of the -disorder it cannot arrest; considering also that the prison of the Force -has been burst into and opened for the prisoners, and that it is -threatened to force open in the same way the prisons which confine -vagabonds, vagrants, and convicts ... in consequence, the assembled -citizens decide to organize themselves into a citizen militia. Every man -will carry while on duty whatever arms he can procure, save and except -pistols, which are forbidden as dangerous weapons.... There will always -be two patrols on duty at a time, and two others will remain at the -place fixed for headquarters." Most of the other districts imitated the -proceedings of the Petit-Saint-Antoine. They sent delegates to the Hotel -des Invalides to ask for arms. The delegates were received by Besenval, -who would have been glad to grant them what they requested; but he must -have proper instructions. He writes in his _Memoirs_ that the delegates -were in a great state of fright, saying that the "brigands" were -threatening to burn and pillage their houses. The author of the -_Memorable Fortnight_ dwells on the point that the militia of Paris was -formed in self-defence against the excesses of the brigands. Speaking of -the minute book of the Petit-Saint-Antoine district, an excellent -authority, M. Charavay, writes: "The burgesses of Paris, less alarmed -at the plans of the court than at the men to whom the name of _brigands_ -had already been given, organized themselves into a militia to resist -them: that was their only aim. The movement which on the next day swept -away the Bastille might perhaps have been repressed by the National -Guard if its organization had had greater stability." The fact could not -have been better put. - -The Hotel de Ville was attacked, and one of the electors, Legrand, only -cleared it of the hordes who were filling it with their infernal uproar -by ordering six barrels of powder to be brought up, and threatening to -blow the place up if they did not retire. - -During the night of July 13, the shops of the bakers and wine-sellers -were pillaged. The excellent Abbe Morellet, one of the Encyclopaedists, -who, as we have seen, was locked up in the Bastille under Louis XV., -writes: "I spent a great part of the night of the 13th at my windows, -watching the scum of the population armed with muskets, pikes, and -skewers, as they forced open the doors of the houses and got themselves -food and drink, money and arms." Mathieu Dumas also describes in his -_Souvenirs_ these ragged vagabonds, several almost naked, and with -horrible faces. During these two days and nights, writes Bailly, Paris -ran great risk of pillage, and was only saved by the National Guard. - -The proceedings of these bandits and the work of the National Guard are -described in a curious letter from an English doctor, named Rigby, to -his wife. "It was necessary not only to give arms to those one could -rely on, but to disarm those of whom little protection could be expected -and who might become a cause of disorder and harm. This required a good -deal of skill. Early in the afternoon we began to catch a glimpse here -and there among the swarms of people, where we saw signs of an -irritation which might soon develop into excesses, of a man of decent -appearance, carrying a musket with a soldierly air. These slowly but -surely increased in number; their intention was evidently to pacify and -at the same time to disarm the irregular bands. They had for the most -part accomplished their task before nightfall. Then the citizens who had -been officially armed occupied the streets almost exclusively: they were -divided into several sections, some mounting guard at certain points, -others patrolling the streets, all under the leadership of captains. -When night came, only very few of those who had armed themselves the -evening before could be seen. Some, however, had refused to give up -their arms, and during the night it was seen how well founded had been -the fears they had inspired, for they started to pillage. But it was too -late to do so with impunity. The looters were discovered and seized, and -we learnt next morning that several of these wretches, taken redhanded, -had been executed." Indeed, the repressive measures of the citizens were -not wanting in energy. Here and there brigands were strung up to the -lamp-posts, and then despatched, as they hung there, with musket shots. - -The author of the _Authentic History_, who left the best of the -contemporary accounts of the taking of the Bastille which we possess, -says rightly enough: "The riot began on the evening of July 12." There -was thus a combination of disorders and "brigandage" in which the -capture of the Bastille, though it stands out more prominently than the -other events, was only a part, and cannot be considered by itself. - -The morning of the Fourteenth dawned bright and sunny. A great part of -the population had remained up all night, and daylight found them still -harassed with anxiety and alarm. To have arms was the desire of all; the -citizens and supporters of order, so as to protect themselves; the -brigands, a part of whom had been disarmed, in order to procure or -recover the means of assault and pillage. There was a rush to the -Invalides, where the magazines of effective arms were. This was the -first violent action of the day. The mob carried off 28,000 muskets and -twenty-four cannon. And as it was known that other munitions of war were -deposited in the Bastille, the cry of "To the Invalides!" was succeeded -by the cry "To the Bastille!" - -We must carefully distinguish between the two elements of which the -throng flocking to the Bastille was composed. On the one hand, a horde -of nameless vagabonds, those whom the contemporary documents invariably -style the "brigands"; and, on the other hand, the respectable -citizens--these certainly formed the minority--who desired arms for the -equipment of the civil guard. The sole motive impelling this band to -the Bastille was the wish to procure arms. On this point all documents -of any value and all the historians who have studied the matter closely -are in agreement. There was no question of liberty or of tyranny, of -setting free the prisoners or of protesting against the royal authority. -The capture of the Bastille was effected amid cries of "Vive le roi!" -just as, for several months past in the provinces, the granaries had -been plundered. - -About 8 o'clock in the morning, the electors at the Hotel de Ville -received some inhabitants of the Suburb Saint-Antoine who came to -complain that the district was threatened by the cannon trained on it -from the towers of the Bastille. These cannon were used for firing -salutes on occasions of public rejoicing, and were so placed that they -could do no harm whatever to the adjacent districts. But the electors -sent some of their number to the Bastille, where the governor, de -Launey, received the deputation with the greatest affability, kept them -to lunch, and at their request withdrew the cannon from the embrasures. -To this deputation there succeeded another, which, however, was quite -unofficial, consisting of three persons, with the advocate Thuriot de la -Rosiere at the head. They were admitted as their predecessors had been. -Thuriot was the eloquent spokesman, "in the name of the nation and the -fatherland." He delivered an ultimatum to the governor and harangued the -garrison, consisting of 95 Invalides and 30 Swiss soldiers. Some -thousand men were thronging round the Bastille, vociferating wildly. The -garrison swore not to fire unless they were attacked. De Launey said -that without orders he could do no more than withdraw the cannon from -the embrasures, but he went so far as to block up these embrasures with -planks. Then Thuriot took his leave and returned to the Hotel de Ville, -the crowd meanwhile becoming more and more threatening. - -[Illustration: THE CAPTURE OF THE BASTILLE. - -_From an anonymous contemporary painting now in the Hotel Carnavalet._] - -"The entrance to the first courtyard, that of the barracks, was open," -says M. Fernand Bournon in his admirable account of the events of this -day; "but de Launey had ordered the garrison to retire within the -enclosure, and to raise the outer drawbridge by which the court of the -governor was reached, and which in the ordinary way used to be lowered -during the day. Two daring fellows dashed forward and scaled the roof of -the guard-house, one of them a soldier named Louis Tournay: the name of -the other is unknown. They shattered the chains of the drawbridge with -their axes, and it fell." - -It has been said in a recent work, in which defects of judgment and -criticism are scarcely masked by a cumbrous parade of erudition, that -Tournay and his companion performed their feat under the fire of the -garrison. At this moment the garrison did not fire a single shot, -contenting themselves with urging the besiegers to retire. "While M. de -Launey and his officers contented themselves with threats, these two -vigorous champions succeeded in breaking in the doors and in lowering -the outer drawbridge; then the horde of brigands advanced in a body and -dashed towards the second bridge, which they wished to capture, firing -at the troops as they ran. It was then for the first time that M. de -Launey, perceiving his error in allowing the operations at the first -bridge to be managed so quietly, ordered the soldiers to fire, which -caused a disorderly stampede on the part of the rabble, which was more -brutal than brave; and it is at this point that the calumnies against -the governor begin. Transposing the order of events, it has been -asserted that he had sent out a message of peace, that the people had -advanced in reliance on his word, and that many citizens were -massacred." This alleged treachery of de Launey, immediately hawked -about Paris, was one of the events of the day. It is contradicted not -only by all the accounts of the besieged, but by the besiegers -themselves, and is now rejected by all historians. - -A wine-seller named Cholat, aided by one Baron, nicknamed La Giroflee, -had brought into position a piece of ordnance in the long walk of the -arsenal. They fired, but the gun's recoil somewhat seriously wounded the -two artillerymen, and they were its only victims. As these means were -insufficient to overturn the Bastille, the besiegers set about devising -others. A pretty young girl named Mdlle. de Monsigny, daughter of the -captain of the company of Invalides at the Bastille, had been -encountered in the barrack yard. Some madmen imagined that she was -Mdlle. de Launey. They dragged her to the edge of the moat, and gave the -garrison to understand by their gestures that they were going to burn -her alive if the place was not surrendered. They had thrown the unhappy -child, who had fainted, upon a mattress, to which they had already set -light. M. de Monsigny saw the hideous spectacle from a window of the -towers, and, desperately rushing down to save his child, he was killed -by two shots. These were tricks in the siege of strongholds of which -Duguesclin would never have dreamed. A soldier named Aubin Bonnemere -courageously interposed and succeeded in saving the girl. - -A detachment of Gardes Francaises, coming up with two pieces of -artillery which the Hotel de Ville had allowed to be removed, gave a -more serious aspect to the siege. But the name of Gardes Francaises must -not give rise to misapprehension: the soldiers of the regular army under -the _ancien regime_ must not be compared with those of the present day. -The regiment of Gardes Francaises in particular had fallen into a -profound state of disorganization and degradation. The privates were -permitted to follow a trade in the city, by this means augmenting their -pay. It is certain that in the majority of cases the trade they followed -was that of the bully. "Almost all the soldiers in the Guards belong to -this class," we read in the _Encyclopedie methodique_, "and many men -indeed only enlist in the corps in order to live on the earnings of -these unfortunates." The numerous documents relating to the Gardes -Francaises preserved in the archives of the Bastille give the most -precise confirmation to this statement. We see, for example, that the -relatives of the engraver Nicolas de Larmessin requested a _lettre de -cachet_ ordering their son to be locked up in jail, where they would pay -for his keep, "because he had threatened to enlist in the Gardes -Francaises." - -From the fifteen cannon placed on the towers, not a single shot was -fired during the siege. Within the chateau, three guns loaded with grape -defended the inner drawbridge; the governor had only one of them fired, -and that only once. Not wishing to massacre the mob, de Launey -determined to blow up the Bastille and find his grave among the ruins. -The Invalides Ferrand and Bequart flung themselves upon him to prevent -him from carrying out his intention. "The Bastille was not captured by -main force," says Elie, whose testimony cannot be suspected of -partiality in favour of the defenders; "it surrendered before it was -attacked, on my giving my word of honour as a French officer that all -should escape unscathed if they submitted." - -We know how this promise was kept, in spite of the heroic efforts of -Elie and Hulin, to whom posterity owes enthusiastic homage. Is the mob -to be reproached for these atrocious crimes? It was a savage horde, the -scum of the population. De Launey, whose confidence and kindness had -never faltered, was massacred with every circumstance of horror. "The -Abbe Lefevre," says Dusaulx, "was an involuntary witness of his last -moments: 'I saw him fall,' he told me, 'without being able to help him; -he defended himself like a lion, and if only ten men had behaved as he -did at the Bastille, it would not have been taken.'" His murderers -slowly severed his head from his trunk with a penknife. The operation -was performed by a cook's apprentice named Desnot, "who knew, as he -afterwards proudly said, how to manage a joint." The deposition of this -brute should be read. It has been published by M. Guiffrey in the _Revue -historique_. To give himself courage, Desnot had gulped down brandy -mixed with gunpowder, and he added that what he had done was done in the -hope of obtaining a medal. - -"We learnt by-and-by," continues Dusaulx, "of the death of M. de -Losme-Salbray, which all good men deplored." De Losme had been the good -angel of the prisoners during his term of office as major of the -Bastille: there are touching details showing to what lengths he carried -his kindliness and delicacy of feeling. At the moment when the mob was -hacking at him, there happened to pass the Marquis de Pelleport, who had -been imprisoned in the Bastille for several years; he sprang forward to -save him: "Stop!" he cried, "you are killing the best of men." But he -fell badly wounded, as also did the Chevalier de Jean, who had joined -him in the attempt to rescue the unfortunate man from the hands of the -mob. The adjutant Miray, Person the lieutenant of the Invalides, and -Dumont, one of the Invalides, were massacred. Miray was led to the -Greve, where the mob had resolved to execute him. Struck with fists and -clubs, stabbed with knives, he crawled along in his death agony. He -expired, "done to death with pin-pricks," before arriving at the place -of execution. The Invalides Asselin and Bequart were hanged. It was -Bequart who had prevented de Launey from blowing up the Bastille. "He -was gashed with two sword-strokes," we read in the _Moniteur_, "and a -sabre cut had lopped off his wrist. They carried the hand in triumph -through the streets of the city--the very hand to which so many citizens -owed their safety." "After I had passed the arcade of the Hotel de -Ville," says Restif de la Bretonne, who has left so curious a page about -the 14th of July, "I came upon some cannibals: one--I saw him with my -own eyes--brought home to me the meaning of a horrible word heard so -often since: he was carrying at the end of a _taille-cime_[56] the -bleeding entrails of a victim of the mob's fury, and this horrible -top-knot caused no one to turn a hair. Farther on I met the captured -Invalides and Swiss: from young and pretty lips--I shudder at it -still--came screams of 'Hang them! Hang them!'" - -Further, they massacred Flesselles, the provost of the guilds, accused -of a treacherous action as imaginary as that of de Launey. They cut the -throat of Foulon, an old man of seventy-four years, who, as Taine tells -us, had spent during the preceding winter 60,000 francs in order to -provide the poor with work. They assassinated Berthier, one of the -distinguished men of the time. Foulon's head was cut off; they tore -Berthier's heart from his body to carry it in procession through -Paris--charming touch!--in a bouquet of white carnations. For the fun -was growing fast and furious. De Launey's head was borne on a pike to -the Palais Royal, then to the new bridge, where it was made to do -obeisance three times to the statue of Henri IV., with the words, -"Salute thy master!" At the Palais Royal, two of the conquerors had -merrily set themselves down at a dining-table in an entresol. As we -garnish our tables with flowers, so these men had placed on the table a -trunkless head and gory entrails; but as the crowd below cried out for -them, they shot them gaily out of the window. - -Those who had remained in front of the Bastille had dashed on in quest -of booty. As at the pillage of the warehouses of Reveillon and Henriot, -and of the convent of the Lazarists, the first impulse of the conquerors -was to bound forward to the cellar. "This rabble," writes the author of -the _Authentic History_, "were so blind drunk that they made in one body -for the quarters of the staff, breaking the furniture, doors, and -windows. All this time their comrades, taking the pillagers for some of -the garrison, were firing on them." - -No one gave a thought to the prisoners, but the keys were secured and -carried in triumph through Paris. The doors of the rooms in which the -prisoners were kept had to be broken in. The wretched men, terrified by -the uproar, were more dead than alive. These victims of arbitrary power -were exactly seven in number. Four were forgers, Bechade, Laroche, La -Correge, and Pujade; these individuals had forged bills of exchange, to -the loss of two Parisian bankers: while their case was being dealt with -in regular course at the Chatelet, they were lodged in the Bastille, -where they consulted every day with their counsel. Then there was the -young Comte de Solages, who was guilty of monstrous crimes meriting -death; he was kept in the Bastille out of regard for his family, who -defrayed his expenses. Finally there were two lunatics, Tavernier and de -Whyte. We know what immense progress has been made during the past -century in the methods of treating lunatics. In those days they locked -them up. Tavernier and de Whyte were before long transferred to -Charenton, where assuredly they were not so well treated as they had -been at the Bastille. - -Such were the seven martyrs who were led in triumphant procession -through the streets, amid the shouts of a deeply moved people. - -Of the besiegers, ninety-eight dead were counted, some of whom had met -their death through the assailants' firing on one another. Several had -been killed by falling into the moat. Of this total, only nineteen were -married, and only five had children. These are details of some interest. - -There was no thought of burying either the conquerors or the conquered. -At midnight on Wednesday the 15th, the presence of the corpses of the -officers of the Bastille, still lying in the Place de Greve, was -notified to the commissaries of the Chatelet. In his admirable work M. -Furnand Bournon has published the ghastly report that was drawn up on -that night. It is a fitting crown to the work of the great day: "We, the -undersigned commissaries, duly noted down the declaration of the said -Sieur Houdan, and having then gone down into the courtyard of the -Chatelet (whither the corpses had just been carried), we found there -seven corpses of the male sex, the first without a head, clothed in a -coat, vest, breeches, and black silk stockings, with a fine shirt, but -no shoes; the second also without a head, clothed in a vest of red -stuff, breeches of nankeen with regimental buttons, blue silk stockings -with a small black pattern worked in; the third also headless, clothed -in a shirt, breeches, and white cotton stockings; the fourth also -headless, clothed in a blood-stained shirt, breeches, and black -stockings; the fifth clad in a shirt, blue breeches, and white gaiters, -with brown hair, apparently about forty years old, and having part of -his forearm cut off and severe bruises on his throat; the sixth clothed -in breeches and white gaiters, with severe bruises on his throat; and -the seventh, clothed in a shirt, breeches, and black silk stockings, -disfigured beyond recognition." - -Meanwhile the majority of the victors, the first moments of intoxication -having passed, were hiding themselves like men who had committed a -crime. The disorder in the city was extreme. "The commissioners of the -districts," writes the Sicilian ambassador, "seeing the peril in which -the inhabitants were placed before this enormous number of armed men, -including brigands and men let out of prison on the previous days, -formed patrols of the National Guard. They proclaimed martial law, or -rather, they issued one solitary law declaring that whoever robbed or -set fire to a house would be hanged. Indeed, not a day passed without -five and even as many as ten persons suffering this penalty. To this -salutary expedient we owe our lives and the safety of our houses." - -More than one conqueror of the Bastille was hanged in this way, which -was a great pity, for two days later his glorious brow might have been -crowned with laurels and flowers! - -It has been said that the Bastille was captured by the people of Paris. -But the number of the besiegers amounted to no more than a thousand, -among whom, as Marat has already brought to our notice, there were many -provincials and foreigners. As to the Parisians, they had come in great -numbers, as they always do, to see what was going on. We have this too -on the testimony of Marat. "I was present at the taking of the -Bastille," writes the Chancellor de Pasquier also: "what has been called -the 'fight' was not serious, and of resistance there was absolutely -none. A few musket shots were fired to which there was no reply, and -four or five cannon shots. We know the results of this boasted victory, -which has brought a shower of compliments upon the heads of the -so-called conquerors: the truth is that this great fight did not give a -moment's uneasiness to the numerous spectators who had hurried up to see -the result. Among them there was many a pretty woman; they had left -their carriages at a distance in order to approach more easily. I was -leaning on the end of the barrier which closed in the garden skirting -Beaumarchais' garden in the direction of the Place de la Bastille. By my -side was Mdlle. Contat, of the Comedie Francaise: we stayed to the end, -and I gave her my arm to her carriage. As pretty as any woman could be, -Mdlle. Contat added to the graces of her person an intelligence of the -most brilliant order." - -By next day there was quite another story. The Bastille had been -"stormed" in a formidable and heroic assault lasting a quarter of an -hour. The guns of the assailants had made a breach in its walls. These, -it is true, were still standing intact; but that did not signify, the -guns had made a breach, unquestionably! The seven prisoners who had been -set free had been a disappointment, for the best will in the world could -not make them anything but scoundrels and lunatics; some one invented an -eighth, the celebrated Comte de Lorges, the white-headed hero and -martyr. This Comte de Lorges had no existence; but that fact also is -nothing to the purpose: he makes an admirable and touching story. There -was talk of instruments of torture that had been discovered: "an iron -corslet, invented to hold a man fast by all his joints, and fix him in -eternal immobility:" it was really a piece of knightly armour dating -from the middle ages, taken from the magazine of obsolete arms which was -kept at the Bastille. Some one discovered also a machine "not less -destructive, which was brought to the light of day, but no one could -guess its name or its special use"; it was a secret printing-press -seized in the house of one Francois Lenormand in 1786. Finally, while -digging in the bastion, some one came upon the bones of Protestants who -had once been buried there, the prejudices of the time not allowing -their remains to be laid in the consecrated ground of the cemetery: the -vision of secret executions in the deepest dungeons of the Bastille was -conjured up in the mind of the discoverers, and Mirabeau sent these -terrible words echoing through France: "The ministers were lacking in -foresight, they forgot to eat the bones!" - -The compilation of the roll of the conquerors of the Bastille was a -laborious work. A great number of those who had been in the thick of the -fray did not care to make themselves known: they did not know but that -their laurel-crowned heads might be stuck aloft! It is true that these -bashful heroes were speedily replaced by a host of fine fellows -who--from the moment when it was admitted that the conquerors were -heroes, deserving of honours, pensions, and medals--were fully persuaded -that they had sprung to the assault, and in the very first rank. The -final list contained 863 names. - -Victor Fournel in a charming book has sung the epic, at once ludicrous -and lachrymose, of the men of the 14th of July. The book, which ought to -be read, gives a host of delightful episodes it is impossible to -abridge. In the sequel these founders of liberty did not shine either -through the services they rendered to the Republic, or through their -fidelity to the immortal principles. The Hulins--Hulin, however, had -done nobly in trying to save de Launey--the Palloys, the Fourniers, the -Latudes, and how many others! were the most servile lackeys of the -Empire, and those of them who survived were the most assiduous servants -of the Restoration. Under the Empire, the conquerors of the Bastille -tried to secure the Legion of Honour for the whole crew. They went about -soliciting pensions even up to 1830, and at that date, after forty-three -years, there were still 401 conquerors living. In 1848 the conquerors -made another appearance. There was still mention of pensions for the -conquerors of the Bastille in the budget of 1874--let us save the -ladder, the ladder of Latude! - -This is the amusing side of their story. But there is a painful side -too: their rivalries with the Gardes Francaises, who charged them with -filching the glory from them, and with the "volunteers of the Bastille." -The heroes were acquainted with calumny and opprobrium. There were, too, -deadly dissensions among their own body. There were the true conquerors, -and others who, while they were true conquerors, were nevertheless not -true: there were always "traitors" among the conquerors, as well as -"patriots." On July 1, 1790, two of the conquerors were found beaten to -death near Beaumarchais' garden, in front of the theatre of their -exploits. Next day there was a violent quarrel between four conquerors -and some soldiers. In December two others were assassinated near the -Champs de Mars. Early in 1791 two were wounded, and a third was -discovered with his neck in a noose, in a ditch near the military -school. Such were the nocturnal doings on the barriers. - -It remains to explain this amazing veering round of opinion, this -legend, of all things the least likely, which transformed into great men -the "brigands" of April, June, and July, 1789. - -The first reason is explained in the following excellent passage from -_Rabagas_[57]:-- - - _Carle._--But how then do you distinguish a riot from a revolution? - - _Boubard._--A riot is when the mob is defeated ... they are all - curs. A revolution is when the mob is the stronger: they are all - heroes! - -During the night of July 14, the Duke de la Rochefoucauld woke Louis -XVI. to announce to him the capture of the Bastille. "It's a revolt -then," said the king. "Sire," replied the duke, "it is a revolution." - -The day on which the royal power, in its feebleness and irresolution, -abandoned Paris to the mob, was the day of its abdication. The Parisians -attempted to organize themselves into a citizen militia in order to -shoot down the brigands. The movement on the Bastille was a stroke of -genius on the part of the latter--instinctive, no doubt, but for all -that a stroke of genius. The people now recognized its masters, and with -its usual facility it hailed the new regime with adulation. "From that -moment," said a deputy, "there was an end of liberty, even in the -Assembly; France was dumb before thirty factionaries." - -What rendered the national enthusiasm for the conquerors more easy was -precisely all those legends to which credence was given, in all -sincerity, by the most intelligent people in France--the legends on the -horrors of the Bastille and the cruelties of arbitrary power. For fifty -years they had been disseminated throughout the kingdom, and had taken -firm root. The pamphlets of Linguet and Mirabeau, the recent stupendous -success of the _Memoirs of Latude_, had given these stories renewed -strength and vigour. Compelled to bow before the triumphant mob, people -preferred to regard themselves--so they silenced their conscience--as -hailing a deliverer. There was some sincerity in this movement of -opinion, too. The same districts which on July 13 took arms against the -brigands could exclaim, after the crisis had passed: "The districts -applaud the capture of a fortress which, regarded hitherto as the seat -of despotism, dishonoured the French name under a popular king." - -In his edition of the _Memoirs of Barras_, M. George Duruy has well -explained the transformation of opinion. "In the _Memoirs_, the capture -of the Bastille is merely the object of a brief and casual mention. -Barras only retained and transmits to us one single detail. He saw -leaving the dungeons the 'victims of arbitrary power, saved at last from -rack and torture and from living tombs.' Such a dearth of information is -the more likely to surprise us in that Barras was not only a spectator -of the event, but composed, in that same year 1789, an account of it -which has now been discovered. Now his narrative of 1789 is as -interesting as the passage in the _Memoirs_ is insignificant. The -impression left by these pages, written while the events were vividly -pictured in his mind, is, we are bound to say, that the famous capture -of the Bastille was after all only a horrible and sanguinary saturnalia. -There is no word of heroism in this first narrative: nothing about -'victims of arbitrary power' snatched from 'torture and living tombs'; -but on the other hand, veritable deeds of cannibalism perpetrated by the -victors. That is what Barras saw, and what he recorded on those pages -where, at that period of his life, he noted down day by day the events -of which he was a witness. Thirty years slip by. Barras has sat on the -benches of the 'Montagne.'[58] He has remained an inflexible -revolutionist. He gathers his notes together in view of _Memoirs_ he -intends to publish. At this time, the revolutionist version of the -capture of the Bastille is officially established. It is henceforth -accepted that the Bastille fell before an impulse of heroism on the part -of the people of Paris, and that its fall brought to light horrible -mysteries of iniquity. This legend, which has so profoundly distorted -the event, was contemporary with the event itself, a spontaneous fruit -of the popular imagination. And Barras, having to speak of the capture -in his _Memoirs_, discovers his old narrative among his papers, and -reads it, I imagine, with a sort of stupefaction. What! the capture of -the Bastille was no more than that!--and he resolutely casts it aside." - -In the provinces, the outbreak had a violent counterpart. "There -instantly arose," writes Victor Fournel, "a strange, extraordinary, -grotesque panic, which swept through the greater part of France like a -hurricane of madness, and which many of us have heard our grand-fathers -tell stories about under the name of the 'day of the brigands' or 'the -day of the fear.' It broke out everywhere in the second fortnight of -July, 1789. Suddenly, one knew not whence, an awful rumour burst upon -the town or village: the brigands are here, at our very gates: they are -advancing in troops of fifteen or twenty thousand, burning the standing -crops, ravaging everything! Dust-stained couriers appear, spreading the -terrible news. An unknown horseman goes through at the gallop, with -haggard cheeks and dishevelled hair: 'Up, to arms, they are here!' Some -natives rush up: it is only too true: they have seen them, the bandits -are no more than a league or two away! The alarm bell booms out, the -people fly to arms, line up in battle order, start off to reconnoitre. -In the end, nothing happens, but their terrors revive. The brigands have -only turned aside: every man must remain under arms." In the frontier -provinces, there were rumours of foreign enemies. The Bretons and -Normans shook in fear of an English descent: in Champagne and Lorraine -a German invasion was feared. - -Along with these scenes of panic must be placed the deeds of violence, -the assassinations, plunderings, burnings, which suddenly desolated the -whole of France. In a book which sheds a flood of light on these facts, -Gustave Bord gives a thrilling picture of them. The chateaux were -invaded, and the owner, if they could lay hands on him, was roasted on -the soles of his feet. At Versailles the mob threw themselves on the -hangman as he was about to execute a parricide, and the criminal was set -free: the state of terror in which the town was plunged is depicted in -the journals of the municipal assembly. On July 23, the governor of -Champagne sends word that the rising is general in his district. At -Rennes, at Nantes, at Saint-Malo, at Angers, at Caen, at Bordeaux, at -Strasburg, at Metz, the mob engaged in miniature captures of the -Bastille more or less accompanied with pillage and assassination. Armed -bands went about cutting down the woods, breaking down the dikes, -fishing in the ponds.[59] The disorganization was complete. - -Nothing could more clearly show the character of the government under -the _ancien regime:_ it was wholly dependent on traditions. Nowhere was -there a concrete organization to secure the maintenance of order and -the enforcement of the king's decrees. France was a federation of -innumerable republics, held together by a single bond, the sentiment of -loyalty every citizen felt towards the crown. One puff of wind sent the -crown flying, and then disorder and panic bewilderment dominated the -whole nation. The door was open to all excesses, and the means of -checking them miserably failed. Under the _ancien regime_, devotion to -the king was the whole government, the whole administration, the whole -life of the state. And thus arose the necessity for the domination of -the Terror, and the legislative work of Napoleon. - -THE END. - - - - -INDEX - - -Allegre, Latude's fellow prisoner, 154, 185-192, 217. - -Ameilhon, city librarian, 55. - -Argenson, D', 60, 72, 95, 175, 182. - -Arsenal library, 55, 56. - -Atrocities of the mob, 258-266. - -Avedick, Armenian patriarch, 133. - - -Barras, 272. - -Bastille, its situation, 47; - appearance, 48; - repute, 49, 50; - archives, 50-56; - origin, 57; - site, 58; - construction, 59, 60; - additions to, 61; - appearance in later days, 61, 62; - early uses, 63; - becomes state prison, 63, 64; - prisoners, 65; - its administration, 66; - gradual transformation, 67; - character of prisoners, 68, 69; - secretary, 70; - office of lieutenant of police, 71; - his duties, 71, 72; - becomes like modern prisons, 77, 78; - abolition of torture, 78; - duration of prisoners' detention, 80; - expenses, 81; - plans for altering, 81-83; - a _prison de luxe_, 85; - treatment of prisoners, 86; - the rooms, 87; - manner of prisoners' entrance, 88, 89; - cells, 92, 93; - tower rooms, 93, 94; - furniture, 95, 96; - examination of prisoners, 96, 97; - indemnified if innocent, 98, 99; - allowed companions, 100, 101; - prison fare, 102-107; - clothes, 107, 108; - books, 108, 109; - exercise, 109; - diversions, 109, 110; - funerals, 110, 111; - liberation, 111, 112; - the Iron Mask, 114-146; - men of letters, 147-165; - capture, 238-272. - -Berryer, 175, 176, 178, 184, 188, 189, 193. - -Besmaus, de, 70. - -Binguet, 171, 179. - -Bread riots, 242, 243. - -Breteuil, 78, 248. - -Brigands, 241, 245, 250. - -Burgaud, 135. - - -Campan, Madame de, 144, 145. - -Carutti's theory of Iron Mask, 134. - -Cellamare conspiracy, 72, 73. - -Character of French government and society, 239-241. - -Chevalier, major, 49, 51, 120, 121, 187, 189, 194. - -Citizen militia, 251-253. - -Clothes of prisoners, 107, 108. - -Crosne, de, lieutenant of police, 244-246. - - -D'Aubrespy, Jeanneton, 169, 201. - -Dauger suggested as Iron Mask, 135. - -Desmoulins, 247, 249. - -Diderot, 165. - -Diversions of prisoners, 109, 110. - -Du Junca's journal, 69, 89, 90, 114-116, 122. - -Dusaulx, 51. - - -Encyclopaedia, 80. - -Estrades, Abbe d', 138-142. - - -Food of prisoners, 102-107. - -Funerals, 110. - - -Games of prisoners, 101, 102. - -Gleichen, baron, 130. - -Griffet, Father, 120. - - -Heiss, Baron, first to suggest true solution of Iron Mask, 136. - -Henriot, 245. - -Houdon, sculptor, 82. - - -July 14th, 255-276. - -Jung's theory of Iron Mask, 134. - - -Kingston, Duchess of, 225, 227. - - -La Beaumelle, 152-155. - -Lagrange-Chancel, 132. - -La Reynie, 71. - -Latude, 168-237. - -Launay, Mdlle. de, _see_ Staal, Madame de. - -Launey, de, governor, 256, 258, 260. - -Lauzun, 91. - -Legros, Madame de, 223-226, 232, 233. - -Lenoir, lieutenant of police, 186. - -_Lettres de cachet_, 240. - -Lieutenancy of police created, 97. - -Linguet, 163-165. - -Loiseleur's theory of Iron Mask, 134. - -Loquin's theory of Iron Mask, 133. - -Losme, de, 261. - -Louis XIV. and Iron Mask, 137-140. - -Louis XV. and Iron Mask, 144. - -Louis XVI. and Iron Mask, 144. - -Louvois, 70, 141. - - -Maisonrouge, king's lieutenant, 73-76. - -Malesherbes, 78, 156, 216. - -Man in the Iron Mask, documents, 114-125; - legends, 125-136; - true solution, 136-146. - -Marmontel, 158-163. - -Mattioli, the Iron Mask, 136-146. - -Maurepas, 144, 173-175. - -Mirabeau, 166, 167. - -Morellet, 155-158, 253. - -Moyria, de, 218-220. - - -Necker, 248. - - -Palatine, Madame, 125. - -Palteau, M. de, 118, 119. - -Papon's theory of Iron Mask, 127. - -Parlement, 76, 77. - -Pensions to prisoners, 98, 99. - -Pompadour, Madame de, 173, 206. - -Pontchartrain, 69. - -Puget, king's lieutenant, 83. - - -Quesnay, Dr., 175, 177, 178. - - -Ravaisson, librarian, 54, 55, 134. - -Register of St. Paul's church, 117, 142, 143. - -Regnier's lines, 59. - -Renneville's meals, 103, 104. - -Reveillon, 245, 246. - -Ricarville, companion of the Iron Mask, 123, 124. - -Richelieu, Cardinal, 63-66. - -Richelieu, Duke de, 76, 129, 130. - -Rigby, Dr., 253, 254. - -Risings in the provinces, 273. - -Rochebrune, commissary, 195. - -Rohan, Cardinal de, 222. - - -Sade, Marquis de, 95. - -Saint-Mars, governor, 87, 115-119, 127, 142. - -Saint-Marc, detective, 169, 176, 180, 183, 192. - -Sartine, de, 49, 202, 203, 207, 210, 215. - -Sauve, Madame de, her dress, 108. - -Solages, de, 84. - -Staal, Madame de, 73-76, 94, 95, 102. - - -Taules, de, 132. - -Tavernier, 106. - -Theories on Iron Mask, 125-136. - -Thuriot de la Rosiere, 256. - -Tirmont, companion of Iron Mask, 123, 124. - - -Vieux-Maisons, Madame de, 128. - -Villette, Marquis de, 224. - -Vinache's library, 109. - -Vincennes, 165-167, 180. - -Voltaire, 99, 126, 128, 129, 148-152. - -LONDON: - -GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, LD. - -ST. JOHN'S HOUSE, CLERKENWELL, E.C. - - * * * * * - -Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber: - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[1] The castle of Tours, 147 miles south-west of Paris, which Louis XI. -made his favourite residence. See Scott's _Quentin Durward_.--T. - -[2] Jean Balue (1471-1491), chaplain to Louis XI. For traitorously -divulging the king's schemes to his enemy, the Duke of Burgundy, he was -for eleven years shut up in the castle of Loches, in an iron-bound -wooden cage.--T. - -[3] A French author (1624-1693) who was involved in the fall of Louis -XIV.'s dishonest finance minister, Fouquet, in 1661, and was imprisoned -for five years in the Bastille, amusing himself with reading the Fathers -of the Church and taming a spider. See Kitchin's _History of France_, -iii. 155-157.--T. - -[4] Antoine de Caumont, duc de Lauzun (1633-1723), a courtier of Louis -XIV., whose favours to the Duke made Louvois, the minister, his bitter -enemy. He was twice imprisoned in the Bastille, the second time at the -instance of Madame de Montespan. He commanded the French auxiliaries of -James II. in Ireland. See Macaulay's _History_, Chaps. IX., XII., -XV.--T. - -[5] A game played with a sort of box, in the top of which are cut holes -of equal size, and with metal discs or balls, the object being to pitch -the balls into the holes from a distance. A similar game may be seen at -any English country fair.--T. - -[6] The famous president of the Cour des Aides and Minister of the -Interior, renowned for his consistent support of the people against -oppression. He was banished in 1771 for remonstrating against the abuses -of law; but returning to Paris to oppose the execution of Louis XVI., he -was guillotined in 1794.--T. - -[7] Antonio del Giudice, prince de Cellamare (1657-1733), the Spanish -ambassador, was the instigator of a plot against the Regent in 1718. See -Kitchin, _ib._ iii. 474.--T. - -[8] The Hotel des Invalides, residence of pensioned soldiers, &c. still -a well-known building of Paris.--T. - -[9] A chateau, four miles east of Paris, notable as the place where St. -Louis, the royal lawgiver of France, dispensed justice. The _donjon_ -still exists, serving now as a soldier's barracks.--T. - -[10] One of the first prisons on the system of solitary confinement in -cells erected in Paris. It dates from 1850.--T. - -[11] The Abbe de Buquoy (1653-1740) owed his imprisonment originally to -having been found in company with dealers in contraband salt when the -_gabelle_, or salt-tax, compelled the French people to buy salt, whether -they wanted it or not, at a price _two thousand times_ its true value. -He was a man of very eccentric views, one of which was that woman was -man's chief evil, and that was why, when the patriarch Job was stripped -of children, flocks, herds, &c., his wife was left to him!--T. - -[12] The madhouse, eight miles east of Paris.--T. - -[13] A chateau originally outside Paris, now included in the city -itself, once used as a hospital and jail, now a hospital for aged and -indigent poor and for lunatics. The first experiments with the -guillotine were tried there.--T. - -[14] See _infra_, p. 83. - -[15] The title role in a comedy by Henri Mounier, entitled _Grandeur et -decadence de M. Joseph Prudhomme_ (1852). He is a writing-master, very -vain, given (like Mr. Micawber) to tall talk and long-winded periods. He -has become typical of "much cry and little wool." As an officer of the -National Guard he says, "This sabre constitutes the finest day in my -life! I accept it, and if ever I find myself at the head of your -phalanxes, I shall know how to use it in defence of our -institutions--and, if need arise, to fight for them!"--T. - -[16] In the early days of the Revolution, Paris was divided into -sections or wards, and as the _pike_ had played a great part in the -recent disturbances, one of the wards was known as the "Pike" -section.--T. - -[17] A disciple of the Marquis de Sade (see p. 35), a notorious -debauchee, whose book _Justine_ was a disgusting mixture of brutality -and obscenity.--T. - -[18] The pseudonym of Beffroy de Reigny (1757-1811), author of farces, -and of a _Precis historique de la prise de la Bastille_.--T. - -[19] The name given to the constitutional struggles of the nobles and -the Parlement of Paris against Mazarin and the royal power (1648-1654). -The name is derived from _fronde_, a sling. A wit of the Parlement, one -Bachaumont, "told the lawyers of that august body that they were like -schoolboys playing in the town ditches with their slings, who run away -directly the watchman appears, and begin again when his back is turned." -See Kitchin, iii. pp. 102-128.--T. - -[20] See _Monte-Cristo_.--T. - -[21] Delivered to the French Association for the Advancement of Science -in 1893. - -[22] The battle fought on August 10, 1557, in which Egmont with a -combined force of Spaniards, Flemish, and English (sent by Queen Mary) -routed Constable Montmorency and the finest chivalry of France. It was -in commemoration of this victory that Philip II. built the palace of the -Escurial, shaped like a gridiron because the battle was fought on St. -Lawrence's day.--T. - -[23] The following unpublished letter from Pontchartrain to Bernaville, -intimating his probable nomination as governor of the Bastille, shows -exactly what Louis XIV.'s government demanded of the head of the great -state prison:- - -"Versailles, September 28, 1707. - - "I have received your letter of yesterday. I can only repeat what I - have already written: to pay constant attention to what goes on in - the Bastille; to neglect none of the duties of a good governor; to - maintain order and discipline among the soldiers of the garrison, - seeing that they keep watch with all the necessary exactitude, and - that their wages are regularly paid; to take care that the - prisoners are well fed and treated with kindness, preventing them, - however, from having any communication with people outside and from - writing letters; finally, to be yourself especially prompt in - informing me of anything particular that may happen at the - Bastille. You will understand that in following such a line of - action you cannot but please the king, and perhaps induce him to - grant you the post of governor; on my part, you may count on my - neglecting no means of representing your services to His Majesty in - the proper light. - -"I am, &c., - -"PONTCHARTRAIN." - - - - - -[24] The appellation of the eldest brother of the reigning king.--T. - -[25] Under the _ancien regime_, there being no Minister of the Interior -(Home Secretary), each of the ministers (the War Minister, Minister for -Foreign Affairs, &c.) had a part of France under his charge. The -Minister of Paris was usually what we should call the Lord -Chamberlain.--T. - -[26] The court which up to the time of the Revolution was the seat of -justice, presided over by the Provost of Paris. It held its sittings in -the castle known as the Chatelet.--T. - -[27] A judicial, not a legislative body. It was constantly in antagonism -to the king.--T. - -[28] The famous Encyclopaedia edited by D'Alembert and Diderot. It -occupied twenty years of the life of the latter, and went through many -vicissitudes; its free criticism of existing institutions provoking the -enmity of the government. Voltaire was one of its largest -contributors.--T. - -[29] This raised Linguet's indignation. "The consideration of this -enormous expense has given to some ministers, among others to M. Necker, -a notion of reform; if this should come to anything, it would be very -disgraceful to spring from no other cause. 'Suppress the Bastille out of -economy!' said on this subject, a few days ago, one of the youngest and -most eloquent orators of England." - -[30] The Hotel Carnavalet, museum in Paris, where a large number of -documents and books are preserved relating to the history of the -city.--T. - -[31] It may be noted that the different escapes contributed to the -gradual tightening of the rules of the Bastille. After the escape of the -Comte de Bucquoy, such ornaments as the prisoners could attach cords to -were at once removed, and knives were taken from them; after the escape -of Allegre and Latude, bars of iron were placed in the chimneys, and so -forth. - -[32] The second of the four principal officers of the Bastille. The -officers were: (1) the governor; (2) the king's lieutenant; (3) the -major; (4) the adjutant. There was also a doctor, a surgeon, a -confessor, &c. The garrison consisted of Invalides.--T. - -[33] The most surprising instance is that of an Englishman, who returned -spontaneously from England to become a prisoner in the Bastille. "On -Thursday, May 22, 1693, at nightfall, M. de Jones, an Englishman, -returned from England, having come back to prison for reasons concerning -the king's service. He was located outside the chateau, in a little room -where M. de Besmaus keeps his library, above his office, and he is not -to appear for some days for his examination, and is to be taken great -care of."--Du Junca's Journal. - -[34] This was not the Lauzun already mentioned, but his nephew, Armand -Louis de Gontaut, duke de Biron (1747-1793), who was notorious -throughout Europe for his gallantries.--T. - -[35] An official of the royal council, whose function originally was to -examine and report on petitions to the king. He became a sort of -superior magistrate's clerk.--T. - -[36] "1751, March 2. I have received a letter from Dr. Duval (secretary -to the lieutenant of police), in which he tells me that M. Berryer -(lieutenant of police) is struck with the cost of the clothes supplied -to the prisoners for some time past; but, as you know, I only supply -things when ordered by M. Berryer, and I try to supply good clothes, so -that they may last and give the prisoners satisfaction."--Letter from -Rochebrune, commissary to the Bastille, to Major Chevalier. - -[37] These extracts are translated literally, in order to preserve the -clumsy constructions of the unlettered official.--T. - -[38] Step-sister of Louis XIV. The following extracts from her -correspondence show how, even in circles that might have been expected -to be well informed, the legend had already seized on people's -imaginations:-- - -"Marly, October 10, 1711. A man remained long years in the Bastille, and -has died there, masked. At his side he had two musketeers ready to kill -him if he took off his mask. He ate and slept masked. No doubt there was -some reason for this, for otherwise he was well treated and lodged, and -given everything he wished for. He went to communion masked; he was very -devout and read continually. No one has ever been able to learn who he -was." - -"Versailles, October 22, 1711. I have just learnt who the masked man -was, who died in the Bastille. His wearing a mask was not due to -cruelty. He was an English lord who had been mixed up in the affair of -the Duke of Berwick (natural son of James II.) against King William. He -died there so that the king might never know what became of him." - -[39] The insurgents who rose for the king against the Revolutionists in -Brittany: see Balzac's famous novel. The movement smouldered for a great -many years.--T. - -[40] The Gregorian calendar was abolished by the National Convention in -1793, who decreed that September 22, 1792, should be regarded as the -first day of a new era. The year was divided into twelve months, with -names derived from natural phenomena. Nivose (snowy) was the fourth of -these months. Thus, the period mentioned in the text includes from -December 21, 1800, to January 19, 1801.--T. - -[41] Since M. Funck-Brentano's book was published, his conclusions have -been corroborated by Vicomte Maurice Boutry in a study published in the -_Revue des Etudes historiques_ (1899, p. 172). The Vicomte furnishes an -additional proof. He says that the Duchess de Crequy, in the third book -of her _Souvenirs_, gives a _resume_ of a conversation on the Iron Mask -between Marshal de Noailles, the Duchess de Luynes, and others, and -adds: "The most considerable and best informed persons of my time always -thought that the famous story had no other foundation than the capture -and captivity of the Piedmontese Mattioli."--T. - -[42] "I have seen these ills, and I am not twenty yet." - -[43] These verses were, of course, in Latin.--T. - -[44] Palissot was a dramatist and critic who in his comedy _Les -Philosophes_ had bitterly attacked Rousseau, Diderot, and the -Encyclopaedists generally.--T. - -[45] The old prison of Paris. It was the debtors' prison, famous also -for the number of actors who were imprisoned there under the _ancien -regime_. It was demolished in 1780.--T. - -[46] "Not unto us, O Lord, but unto Thy name give glory! - -"Know our heart and search out our ways." - -[47] "The victory is won!"--T. - -[48] Charenton was under the direction of a religious order known as the -_Freres de la Charite_, who undertook the care of sick and weak-minded -poor.--T. - -[49] This was Elizabeth Chudleigh (1720-1788), the notorious beauty who -privately married the Hon. Augustus Hervey, afterwards Earl of Bristol, -separated from him after three years, and became the mistress of the -second Duke of Kingston, whom she bigamously married. After his death -she was tried by the House of Lords for bigamy, and fled to France to -escape punishment. Her gallantries and eccentricities were the talk of -Europe.--T. - -[50] Instructed by his misfortunes and his captivity how to vanquish the -efforts and the rage of tyrants, he taught the French how true courage -can win liberty. - -[51] Jocrisse is the stock French type of the booby, and as such is a -character in many comedies. He breaks a plate, for instance; his master -asks him how he managed to be so clumsy, and he instantly smashes -another, saying, "_Just like that!_" His master asks him to be sure and -wake him early in the morning; Jocrisse answers: "Right, sir, depend on -me; _but of course you'll ring_!"--T. - -[52] The Girondists (so called from Gironde, a district of Bordeaux) -were the more sober republican party in the Assembly, who were forced by -circumstances to join the Jacobins against Louis XVI. With their fall -from power in the early summer of 1792 the last hope of the monarchy -disappeared.--T. - -[53] Referring to the horrible massacres of September, 1792, when about -1400 victims perished.--T. - -[54] The French Dick Turpin. Of good education, he formed when quite a -youth a band of robbers, and became the terror of France. Like Turpin, -he is the subject of dramas and stories.--T. - -[55] A forest near Paris, on the line to Avricourt. It was a famous -haunt of brigands. There is a well-known story of a dog which attacked -and killed the murderer of its master there.--T. - -[56] Literally "cut-top": we have no equivalent in English.--T. - -[57] A five-act comedy by Victorien Sardou. - -[58] The nickname given to the Jacobins, the extreme revolutionists, who -sat on the highest seats on the left in the National Assembly.--T. - -[59] Which were the strict preserves of the aristocrats: to fish in them -was as great a crime as to shoot a landlord's rabbit was, a few years -ago, in England.--T. - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Legends of the Bastille, by Frantz Funck-Brentano - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEGENDS OF THE BASTILLE *** - -***** This file should be named 43231.txt or 43231.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/2/3/43231/ - -Produced by Chris Curnow, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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