4
THE LIBRARY
OF THE
SIVERS

OMNIBUS. ARTIBUS
CLASS
8443829
JH
BOOK


:
1
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1


1


1
THE
HERMIT IN PRISON.
.





THE
HERMIT IN PRISON;
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH
OF
E. JOU Y,
Member of the Institute, and Author of the Hermit of the
Chaussée d'Antin, Sylla, foc. ;
AND
A. JAY
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
G. AND W. B. WHITTAKER,
AVE-MARIA LANE.
1823.
Kibiti wanita
اجدد


e
LONDON
PRINTED BY COX AND BAYLIS, GREAT QUEEN STREET.
),


8445827
JH
PREFACE.
а
We had just been condemned to a month's im-
prisonment by the Royal Court of Paris, on the
appeal of the King's Advocate. Twenty-four
hours were allowed us to abuse our judges : but
we contented ourselves with pitying them, and
sat down quietly to our dinner. There must cer-
tainly be something in the air of the Palais de
Justice, which sharpens the appetite; else it
would not be easy to account for the famous
way in which we conducted ourselves at table,
or the jolly obesity of the greater part of our
magistrates. If I were one of the faculty, ard
there should fall into my hands some of those
Sybarites, who are always on bad terms with
their stomach, I would prescribe for them a two
hours' walk in the hall of the Palais, and
after breathing the air of that place for a short
time, I am quite sure they would come away
with a ravenous appetite. Let some of our dis-
tinguished doctors find out the cause of this phe-
pro
nomena.
MAI 9 35
- At table we began to discuss the matter of
our trial, the fluency of the Advocate General,
the eloquence of Mons. Dupin, and the sentence
6264


vi
PREFACE.
against us. Do what we would with the subject,
it was all in vain, to attempt escaping this con-
clusion :
we must go to prison !' I do not
know five words in the language more difficult to
pronounce ; they do not convey a single agree-
able idea.
We have friends, a family, grandchildren ;
and we must part from them. What is still worse,
they will feel the confinement that awaits us,
more than we shall feel it ourselves. There will
be regrets, bitter complainings, even tears to be
wiped away,--and every thing which the law
does not foresee, but which aggravates the
punishment. In such circumstances we suffer
more for others than for ourselves. But the lot
is cast, and we must go to Sainte-Pélagie.
It is not enough, however, to go to prison,
one should know what to do there. Time has no
wings for the captive; on the contrary, he marches
with slow steps, sometimes even he takes it into his
head to make a full stop. This is a great incon-
venience, which ought to be remedied. If we can
contrive to escape from the heaviness of time, we
shall so far escape from the oppression of cap-
tivity. Why not invent something to fill up the
thirty days of our confinement? Though the
free exercise of the body Le denied us, shall we
a


PREFACE.
vii
therefore be prohibited the use of our intellectual
faculties ? No: the mind is as free behind bolts
and bars, as it is in the fields : no decree of
court can put it under arrest.
« All that," observed a friend, who had listened
to these reflexions, “is very reasonable. You
will behold new objects, and experience new
sensations. If
you
resolve to describe the one
and express the other, you will never be embar-
rassed by any leisure time. The collection of
your remarks will form a work that will at least
have the merit of originality. No one will accuse
you of having made up a book out of other
books,-a charge which is becoming every day
more common, and better founded.
something of Sainte-Pélagie, of its government,
and of the most remarkable prisoners you may
meet with there. You will find characters to de
scribe, misfortunes to relate, and philosophical
observations worth repeating. In such a work,
the useful and the agreeable will unite most ad-
mirably. What would you have besides ?"
These sagacious counsels determined our re-
solutions. But something more is wanting after
we have chosen our subject, and even after we
have written upon it. There must be a title ;
perhaps the most important point of all, at least
Tell us
a


viii
PREFACE.
with the bookseller. I am acquainted with some
who are so profound in the philosophy of title-
pages, and so skilful in their selections, that
they would be able to give circulation even to a
volume of academical harangues. For ourselves,
we shall be contented with any title, however
modest, provided it be significant.
“ What do you think of this ?— The Hermits
in Prison, or Consolations of Sainte-Pélagie?
There is no pretence about it, and it conveys all
it means to convey. It will even excite some in-
terest: for at the present day, it is worth hearing
how people manage to console themselves in
prison.”
Our friend was in raptures with the notion.
“ I hope," said he, “that your consolations will
afflict no one, and that it may not be said of you
as it was of a certain writer, thạt his pleasure
was the misfortune of his readers.'
We will endeavour to avoid the inconvenience;
but who can answer for destiny ? The public,
though sometimes an indulgent judge, is often a
severe one ; fortunately it is independent. and
its decrees are not the result of
any
dictation.
Let us hope !
A. J.


THE
HERMIT IN PRISON.
Nº I.-April 20, 1822.
OUR ADMISSION TO SAINTE-PÉLAGIE.
Virtus est domare quæ cuncti pavent.
SENECA.
>
BEHOLD me condemned to pass a month
in Sainte-Pélagie. “Well, be it so," said I
to Mons. Coche, our solicitor ; “I am ready
to drain the cup: so let us enter ourselves at
once in the books of the prison.”_“You are
monstrously impatient,” he replied; “ but
it is not every one who wishes it, can get
VOL. I.
B


2
OUR ADMISSION TO
into prison. First, the three days allowed
for your appeal must expire; then your
sentence, properly docketed, must be re-
turned to the office of the king's advocate:
then he, or his substitute, will grant you
permission to obey the sentence of the
court. All this preliminary business being
dispatched, we must find some loyal tip-
staff who will consent to be our escort;
and then, after all these formalities, I will
deposit you legally at the office of Sainte-
Pélagie.”
“ My dear Mons. Coche, you talk like a
solicitor of great experience, like a man
versed in the vernacular of law-courts;
you know excellently well their usages and
customs, and we cannot possibly do better
than follow your advice. If the world knew
what an interest you take in the affairs of


SAINTE-PÉLAGIE.
3
your clients, the activity and intelligence
with which you smooth away all diffi-
culties, you would be positively overwhelm-
ed with business. Do the best you can for
us, and contrive that my companion and I
may obtain as soon as possible the liberty
of being imprisoned !”
At length the matter is effected; behold
us in the office of Sainte-Pélagie. I em-
braced my son-in-law and my poor girl,
who turned away with a throbbing heart
and eyes full of tears; she was astonished
to find me as calm as if it were but an or-
dinary occasion of life. I have long since
learned to estimate things at their proper
valve.
“ Where are you taking us?” asked
Mons. Jouy of the turnkey, who pointed to
a dark narrow staircase.
B 2


4
OUR ADMISSION TO
you can
“ I am leading you to your rooms in the
red gallery.”
This red gallery was very black; it is di-
vided into the great and the small gallery,
which communicate with each other, and
are under the same superintendance.
« No. 4 of the small gallery is your
lodging,” said the turnkey to my fellow-
prisoner ; "you will be very well off there:
see the debtors in the court
through the grating, and that will distract
your attention : it is the pleasantest sight
we have in the prison.”
I expected to be placed in the adjoin-
ing cell. " Oh, no," said the keeper,
« they have thought it best to separate
you ; and you must come along to No. 17
in the great gallery."
“ As I have seen your cell, come and
)
-


SAINTE-PÉLAGIE.
5
look at mine," said I to Mons. Jouy. We
followed our guide, and about the middle
of the gallery we found a numerous group
of prisoners, detained for political offences,
who were waiting to give us a friendly
welcome. Our answer was such as their
politeness deserved, and we conversed with
them for a few moments. An event which
had happened that very day in the prison
formed the subject of the conversation. A
young woman who had just quitted her
husband, a debtor, had shot herself with a
brace of pistols. They raised her up, co-
vered with blood, and carried her into an
adjoining house. The cause of this des-
perate act was still unknown.
Amongst the persons who surrounded
us I remarked a young man of pleasing,
intelligent countenance, whose manners
B3


6
OUR ADMISSION TO
denoted a liberal education.
I learned
that his name was Magallon, and imme-
diately recollected the Album, his trial,
and Mons. Alexis Dumesnil. From that
moment I determined to become acquainted
with Mons. Magallon.
After saluting these gentlemen, I enter
my little cell. I place the lamp on a small
unpainted wooden table, which constituted
the most beautiful ornament of my apart-
ment; and, as it is yet early, I set about
putting the place in order. A small shelf
on the wall will serve me as a book-case:
come, let us arrange the few books I have
brought with me; that will occupy my
mind for a short time.
The Manual of Epictetus. Whenever I
am tempted to complain of the injustice
of men, and the infamy of calumniators, I


SAINTE-PÉLAGIE.
7
will demand the opinion of Epictetus. If
any feeling of hatred springs up in my
breast, I will have recourse to him. For
instance : « Tell me, Epictetus, ought I
not to seek for some revenge, and return
evil for evil?”-“ Ah, my friend,” he re-
plies, “ they have done you no evil, since
good and evil exist only in your own will.
Besides, if any one injures himself in
doing you an injustice, why should you
hurt yourself in striving to return the
injustice?"-" But they have strangely
wronged me; they have accused me of
impiety!”—“ Very well ! did they not
accuse Socrates in the same way?"~" But
they have sentenced me !"-"Was not So-
crates also condemned? Reflect that there
is no punishment except where there is
real guilt, and that the two things cannot
B 4


8
OUR ADMISSION TO
be separated. Do not consider yourself
unhappy. Which, think you, was the more
unfortunate, Socrates or his judges?”
In these consolations there is something
a little too stoical for me : but I will turn
them over in my mind, and see what ad-
vantage a prisoner of Sainte-Pélagie can
derive from them. What book shall I
put at the side of Epictetus?
The Gospels ;-and why not? Some per-
sons will have it that philosophy and
religion are irreconcileable foes, but I
maintain the reverse. It is only in very,
unimportant points that they differ; the
fundamental principles of both are the
same. I will demonstrate, whenever it
may be required, that to be really religious,
it is necessary to be a philosopher. I will
preserve my Evangelists; they will furnish


SAINTE-PÉLAGIE.
9
me with texts, if I shall need any, against
human depravity, and the fatal consequences
of iniquity. What is this?
Hume's History of the Stuarts. I am
glad of it: I love history when written with
impartiality. This praise has been denied
to Hume. It is said that he was too eager
to lessen the faults of the Stuarts ; that
he was too much of a Scotchman, and a
Royalist. I will read him again with at-
tention, and shall then know what to think
of this imputation. I promise myself a
great deal of pleasure from the examina-
tion of the colours he has used in painting
the famous Judges Scroggs and Jefferies.
Hume was a master painter. I wish to
study, his manner, as the day may come
when I shall have occasion to use it.
Moreover, it is perfectly just that he should
B 5


10
OUR ADMISSION TO
be confined in Sainte-Pélagie. He has
dared to say that Colonel Harrison, one of
those who sat in judgment on the unhappy
Charles I., was graced with many excellent
qualities. He has also eulogized Sir Harry
Vane, one of the most fiery demagogues of
the Long Parliament. It has been proved in
court, as clear as day, that such language
is an absolute attack upon public mo-
rals. I condemn Hume, therefore, to suffer
in my cell one month's imprisonment; the
crime being the same, it is just that the
punishment should be equal.
But this little volume is a treasure !
The Fables of Fontaine.- Amiable com-
forter! Philosopher without pomp, moralist
without pretence, great poet without seem-
ing to be conscious of it; and yet this af-
fected good-nature was not without a touch


SAINTE-PÉLAGIE.
11
of malice. I could quote, if I dared, some
I
of his best epigrams, in which certain per-
sons would not find much cause for laugh-
ter.
But I am afraid of the construction
which would be put upon them, and am
like the hare in his own fable, who was
afraid lest his ears should be mistaken for
horns. I am treading on live coals, and
must stop. If, like the hare, I could run
freely about the fields, I should ask nothing
better.-Let us proceed.
Report made to the Minister of the Inte-
rior on the Prisons of Paris, by M. de
Laborde.-Excellent! this is the very thing
for my case, and I will contrive to make
some good use of it.
Travels in the United States of America,
by M. de la Rochefoucauld Liancourt. This
is my book
book. It is the work of a genuine.
B6


12
OUR ADMISSION TO
philosopher, and a sincere friend of hu-
manity. It will enable me to while away
my time deliciously: it will recall some of
those wonderful places which I myself have
seen; it will remind me of those just and
equal laws under which I have so long lived,
of those manners which are so familiar to
me; it will speak to me of men arrived at a
high degree of civilization, and in compa-
rison with whom, spite of our niggard
vanity, we are still barbarians. What an
infinite debt of gratitude do I not owe to
M. de la Rochefoucauld, its noble author!
We shall find ourselves together on those
fertile plains, in those populous cities,
where protecting authorities watch over
society, and, like Providence, are only vi-
sible in the effects of their paternal solici-
tude. Happy land, where the 'worth of


SAINTE-PÉLAGIE.
13
human liberty is known; where jealous
l
power is not armed with criminal severity,
and does not stretch out the laws like
snares under the foot of the citizen; where
compassion is not a crime, and where hu-
manity is to be met with, in public institu-
tions as well as in private manners.
From
the narrow precincts within which I am
shut up, imagination will transport me to
those spots where I have heretofore re-
ceived such vivid impressions, and where
justice and peace reign undisturbed and
serene. I shall once again listen to the
free language of men who know their own
dignity, and the spectacle of a corrupt
world will for a moment cease to sadden
my reflexions. Such were my specula-
tions when I turned again to my books.
I had just taken up a Plato, when a strange


14
OUR ADMISSION TO
noise burst upon my ears. It was the clat-
ter of bolts, and the harsh grating of the
key turning in a massy lock. My illu-
sions vanished ;-I was again in France ;
-I was a prisoner !
It is time for repose, and my couch is
ready. I am alone, my conscience is pure,
I shall sleep tranquilly,—more tranquilly, I
dare to believe, than many of those who
are softly stretched on the down of power.
.
Nor was I mistaken, for no harassing
dream has disturbed my repose. It is six
o'clock, and they are opening the door of
my cell. I can ramble at pleasure in the
red gallery, and even descend into a court,
where a few stunted plants escape with
regret from the arid soil, as if they had a
feeling of their captivity.
I was preparing to go down, when a


SAINTE-PÉLAGIE.
15
66 Do you
young man, confined for his political opi-
nions, approached me with an agitated
look, and eyes wet with tears.
know what has happened in the prison this
morning ?--Mons. Magallon has been taken
away by force.”
«« Taken away by force! who? the young
man whose appearance was so interesting,
and for whom I already felt a sentiment
of friendship? Has he committed any new
offence? Has he disturbed the order of
Sainte-Pélagie? What grave subject of
complaint is there against him?”
“ No, indeed : his character is full of
gentleness; all the prisoners were charmed
with his society : the turnkeys themselves
(and that is saying every thing) could not
avoid feeling an interest for him. There
:


16
OUR ADMISSION TO
was no announcement of the misfortune
which threatened him ; he slept quietly
till about five o'clock, when two men en-
tered abruptly into his room, and ordered
him to go down to the office, telling him
at the same time that he was to be trans-
ferred to the central prison of Poissy. Mons.
Magallon, astonished at this information,
begged to remain a few hours to speak
with his wife, and prepare her for this new
separation. That young woman, a fond
.
wife and affectionate mother, is over-
whelmed with woes, pale with suffering,
in a wretched state of health, and all her
strength was just enough to support her
here for the solace of her husband. The
request of Mons. Magallon, so just and so
natural; was refused. It was by a higher


SAINTE-PÉLAGIE.
17
order ;-he must depart. He summoned
up his courage, grasped my hand, and
descended to the office.”
Here the young man stopped to wipe
away a tear, and then continued his story
in these words :
“ Mons. Magallon was accompanied by
some gend'armes. They told him that they
must put on the poucettes, that is, bind
his thumbs tightly with cord : a species
of torture hitherto reserved for the vilest
criminals; fasten him to a galley-slave,
who had been a second time condemned
for robbery; and compel him, in this way,
to pass through Paris, in open day, on his
route to Poissy. Mons. Magallon exclaimed
against tuch treatment. He begged, at
least, to be allowed a carriage at his own
expense; observing, that it was seven
:


18
OUR ADMISSION, ETC.
leagues from Paris to Poissy; and that
such a march on foot, in such a state,
would be an insufferable torture. The
officer of the gendarmerie could scarcely
suppress his emotion when he looked at
the prepossessing exterior of Mons. Magal-
lon; he took out his pocket-book, and
1
drawing forth his order, shewed it to my
friend in silence. Mons. Magallon raised
his head, and summoning all his fortitude,
stretched out his hands to the soldier,
and turning his eyes to heaven, exclaimed,
“ My poor wife-she will die!"
A. J.


No. II.-- April 21.
THE MORNING,
Le vrai peut quelquefois n'être pas vraisemblable.
BOILEAU.
Méret! Méret! bring me the team and
the newspapers ! -No one comes, and I
cannot find the cord of my bell ;-) shall
be obliged to go and awake him myself.
Hark! there is some one in the anti-
chamber :- -Méret! Méret ! “ What are
you about ?” said I.- What am I about !
Parbleu, I ought to ask you that ques-
tion; as change of lodging sometimes
prevents one from sleeping."


20
THE MORNING.
“ Change of lodging !-In truth, this
little grated window, this door with a
wicket, this paper-covered lamp, this
face that I do not recognize : surely I am
not at home!-where the devil am I ?”
My good sir, you are in prison."--" In
prison? I in prison ?"_“Yes, just the
same as any one else might be ; and if you
do not believe me, your comrade will be
here in a few minutes to tell you so.
In
the mean time collect yourself. There,
your door is open, and you may take the
air in the gallery, where you will find
most excellent company."
In saying these words, the head-turnkey
(for it was indeed a turnkey) saluted me
by raising his hand to his cap, and then
left me to my reflections.
Here am I then, seated on my little bed,


THE MORNING.
21
tha
this
am
and gazing idly round me; my ideas gra-
dually recovering themselves, and resum-
ing their usual order in my head. Yes,
yes, I remember, I did come into St. Pé-
lagie last night, under a sentence of the
Royal Court, which condemned me to a
fine and imprisonment, for having said,
that in 1815 the times were not the same
as in 1793.
40
In
he
NI
e
.
" J'avais tort, soit; la chose est par trop claire,
“ Et la prison a prouvé cette affaire.”
And was this an offence worth occupying
such an august areopag us for five long
days ? Honour, which has taken refuge
in the conscience of the magistrates (as
the Keeper of the Seals wittily observed),
has explained the words, 6 Times were
changed." The Advocate General la-
vished the flowers and the thunders of his


22
THE MORNING.
even worse.
eloquence to point out all their subtlety
and perfidy. I said, 66 the times were
changed ;” and they contended that I
meant to say they were the same, and
6 Why,”
said my distin-
guished advocate, “the poor man did
not mean anything malicious by the
expression. He knew, as well as any
academician, its meaning, and gave
to the words and figures the same signi-
fication which they bear in the Dic-
tionary; 1815 was no longer 1793 : that
is what he said, what he thought, and
what will seem to him indisputable, until
you shall have decided otherwise."
An inferior tribunal has so decided, and
the decision has been confirmed by a de-
cree of the Royal Court. We submit to
qur sentence out of respect to the offence,
:


THE MORNING,
23
but as there is no situation from which
an honest heart, and a well directed mind,
cannot derive advantage, let us see whe-
ther ours does not afford some consola-
tion.
In the first place, I would say with
Cicero: “I value the approbation of my
own conscience far more than the opi-
nions of the world." I have already ap-
pealed to that infallible tribunal, and it
has completely reversed the decree of the
Royal Court, supreme as it is : I look
upon myself as acquitted. This solemn
act of personal justice will not, it is true,
shorten my imprisonment a single hour,
but it will mitigate it; it will sweeten so--
litude, and nourish in my soul those senti-
ments, to which I owe all that I am worth,
and the strength of which is too often


24
THE MORNING,
enfeebled by the years which weigh upon
my head. Besides, this state of loneliness
is without inconvenience to the man of
lonely tastes, and has this advantage, that
it fits us for the hardships of our times, by
habituating us to behold, cool and un-
moved, the last and most imperious neces-
sity of all. Most of the evils with which
life abounds, spring with the greater part
of men from their invincible dislike of
solitude. Rarely do men wish to act
alone; they wish to act with others.
Another reflection presents itself to my
mind. There are few, circumstances
where a man, during his life-time, can
obtain a correct measure of the interest
which he inspires, and discover the place
which he holds in the esteem of his fellow
men.
At every age one of the greatest


THE MORNING.
25
miseries of life, is the not knowing whe-
ther we are loved or not; and though,
among the modes of ascertaining this
fact, a judicial sentence is not exactly
the proof I should have chosen, yet
since it has happened, I congratulate
myself sincerely, at finding in the tokens
of good-will and regard which I have re-
ceived, a soothing consolation for the
severity of the court.
Thus it is that self-love pays itself in
the feeling of persecution of which it sees
itself the object; we think that it raises
us in our own eyes; there is a sort of pride
of circumstance which does not misbecome
modesty itself. Never have I thought so
favourably of myself, never tasted so com-
pletely the success of my last dramatic
work, as when I saw the public throng to
VOL. I.
с


26
THE MORNING.
the sixty-fourth representation of Sylla,
on the very day that the judgment was
confirmed that visited me with a punish-
ment, which the law in every country
reserves to sharpers and vagabonds.
There is another consolation, by which,
more than by any other, I am upheld :
it is the season in which we entered into
our new abode. The Spring, which seems
desirous of sympathizing with us, keeps
back, and scarcely promises even that
which Shakspeare so poetically calls
“ The uncertain glory of an April day."
It is a kind of opportune necessity which
is inflicted upon us, of passing within four
walls that season, which is no longer win-
ter and yet not spring.
To continue: yesterday I was happy, tran-
quil, honoured in the bosom of a family which


THE MORNING.
27
heaven had bestowed upon me as some
recompense for all the misfortunes which
it is sometimes pleased to heap on a single
human being ; to-day I find myself, with-
out knowing wherefore, under four massy
bolts, in a prison where I must pass 726
hours of the latest, and therefore the
shortest, period of my life. In this re-
flexion there is, no doubt, something
painful : but I am acquitted in my own
mind; the regard of my friends, the sym-
l
pathy, and I dare to say it, the esteem of
the public, accompany me to my prison.
The severe cold, so disagreeable to
captive, has already passed away, and
the beautiful days of the country have not
yet returned. I have already formed the
idea of a little work, which cannot be
executed any where but in the prison
а
c 2


28
THE MORNING.
66
where I am ; I will therefore bear my mis-
fortune patiently, and say of myself, what
Lactantius said of Cicero, “He was al-
ready consoled, by reason, conscience, and
his friends, for that calamity which he
continued to lament."
E. J.


No. III.- April 22, 1823.
M. MAGALLON.
An injustice done to a single man is a threat to the whole
world.
MAXIMS OF CONFUCIUS.
The fears of Mons. Magallon have not
been realized. His wife, it is true, suf-
fered dreadfully on learning the trans-
ference of her husband, and above all, the
cruel treatment he had undergone; but
she collected all her strength, and recalled
the energy requisite to support her under
this new trial. The convict to whom Mons.
Magallon had been bound was eaten up with
C3


30
M. MAGALLON.
the itch, and as he passed through the
streets, and along the whole of the road,
he never ceased calling out, “ The galley-
slaves for ever! Huzza, for the galley-
slaves !”* The pointed manner in which
he uttered those shameful exclamations, as
if to force the attention of all who passed,
has given rise to a suspicion, that he had
received some secret instruction concern-
ing it. This last circumstance would be-
tray such an excess of malignity, such a
refinement of barbarity, that for the
honour of human nature I will not be-
lieve it.
Mme. Magallon hastened to the central
prison of Poissy. Pale, trembling, dis-
mayed, she asked for her husband : she
* “ Vivent les galériens ! honneur aux galériens."


M. MAGALLON.
31
beheld him clothed in the dress of a felon,
and would have flung herself into his arms :
but he, fearful of having caught the shame-
ful disease which afflicted his comrade,
drew back, and told his wretched wife the
danger she ran. But what can damp the
ardour of virtuous love ?
The by-stan-
ders melted into tears at the sight, enough
to soften, if such a thing were possible,
the savageness of an inquisitor.
But we must be just. The recital of
these severities, published in those jour-
nals not ministerial,* united the honourable
and candid of all parties in a feeling of
surprise and reprobation. An honourable de-
puty of Paris, Mons. Alexandre de la Borde,
with whom the opportunity of assisting
* The Constitutionnel, Courier Français, Drapeau Blanc,
Journal de Commerce, and Pilote.
c4


32
M. MAGALLON.
the unfortunate is a piece of good fortune
which he never rejects,* determined him-
self to verify such extraordinary facts. He
went to Poissy; he saw Mons. Magallon
clothed in the shameful uniform of the
place, thrown into the midst of felons, and
compelled to a kind of hard labour, con-
formable neither to his education nor
strength. He ascertained that the convict
to whom he had been bound was in the
hospital for the cure of that leprosy, the very
name of which cannot be pronounced with-
out disgust. Mons. Magallon told Mons. de
la Borde that he had offered the gend'armes
to pay for a carriage, a thing which is not
refused even to the greatest criminal : and
* The expression in the original is too idiomatic to bear
translation: Pour qui l'occasion de secourir le malheur est
une bonne fortune à laquelle il ne résiste jamais.


M. MAGALLON.
33
the brigadier answered that he could not
grant him the favour. From whom did
the orders given to this brigadier emanate?
by whose hand were they signed? Whose
imagination conceived this new species of
torture, to chain a man to contagion, and
to deliver him to a punishment as repug-
nant to justice as to humanity ? We might
almost believe that they wished to make
us regret the Bastile ; if that be the ulti-
mate design of those who are the natural
enemies of all liberal institutions, they will
never succeed in their intention. It is true
that the confinement of men of letters in
the Bastile was far from being rigorous,
and that they never were mixed up with
thieves and convicts. Marmontel, in his
Memoirs, has left us a description of his
abode in the Bastile, which does not excite
1
c 5


34
M. MAGALLON.
any painful feeling; he lived there like an
epicurean, who was fond of good cheer, and
who was conscious of it; he praises the
obliging manners of the governor, and the
care he took to ameliorate his situation:
yet it was against all law, against every
principle of justice, that Marmontel was
detained. Tried at the caprice of a courtier,
condemned without being heard, arrested
by a lettre de cachet, and ignorant of the
extent of his imprisonment, he suffered
under the iron rod of despotism. He was
not allowed to raise the voice of a freeman
against oppression, nor protest in the sight
of heaven against his oppressors. Had he
shewn the slightest sign of anger in his
chains, they might have plunged him into
a dungeon, and left him to perish by a slow
death of years. At the present day we may


M. MAGALLON.
35
complain : this is the solace of the un-
happy. At the present day, whatever be the
actuating motive, still the forms of law
are observed. You are brought before a
tribunal; the charge is discussed ; you
make your defence, and that defence is
public. The general opinion condemns or
acquits you. In our times, there must be,
if not a sufficient motive, at least a plau-
sible pretext for the accusation and the
prosecution: formerly, arbitrary power
decided every thing. A loose woman pro-
cured her husband's arrest; the hatred of
a great lord, or the vengeance of a clerk
in office, was enough to deprive you of
liberty, and a favourite mistress dictated
the list of proscriptions. There was no
fixed law beneath which to find shelter
from the attacks of despotism. I am aware
c 6


36
M. MAGALLON,
that laws may be abused, and that they are
often employed to gratify the vilest pur-
poses; but the triumph of iniquity cannot
be long-lived, when it opposes the morals
and the opinions of the public. Publicity
alone is an invaluable protection against
the protracted excesses of oppression ; and
little is lost when it is in the power of an
energetic protest to expose the oppressor
to indignation and contempt. The an-
.
cient parliaments strongly disapproved the
abuses of power. Distinguished magis-
trates, who knew and maintained their
duties, contended in behalf of the victims
of despotism ; but their courageous voices
;
were not heard, they died away at the feet
of ministerial tyranny, and could not pe-
netrate into those obscure dungeons where
innocence so often languished. No, the


M.
37
MAGALLON.
conduct of the judicial police towards
writers confined for their political offences,
will never make us regret the days of
lettres de cachet, or sigh for the restoration
of the Bastile.
Observe what has taken place in this un-
fortunate case of Mons. Magallon! Cruelty
is silent, and does not attempt to make
even an apology; they would, if it were
possible, deny the more atrocious circum-
stances of the transference: that remnant
of shame we owe to publicity. With respect
to the fact itself, freed from its disgraceful
accessories, an attempt has been made to
palliate it by saying it is the custom in
such cases. It is, say they, an administra-
tive measure, applied to all such as the law
condemns to an imprisonment beyond a


38
M. MAGALLON.
year. Mons. de la Borde has given to this
objection a triumphant reply.
“ The tribunals,” he observes, “ in con-
demning a person to imprisonment, leave
the execution of the sentence to the admi.
nistration, which takes such precautions
with reference to the individuals as it
thinks their safe-keeping requires. Thus
it is by a simple order of the police that
thieves and refractory criminals are march-
ed on foot, with their hands bound, and
guarded by soldiers, because the greater
part of those who are in the hands of jus-
tice have no other idea but that of escaping,
to begin again their infamous career; it
is natural enough, therefore, that a parti-
cular dress should be given to them, in
order that they might instantly be recog-


M. MAGALLON.
39
nized if they should escape from prison.
But is it to be credited that these shameful
precautions should be applied to persons
of condition, voluntarily surrendering them-
selves to the prison they are condemned
to, and who can never have any wish to
escape ? For them the sentence of banish-
ment would be a hundred times worse than
that of a short imprisonment. Is it to be
believed that such men are to be dragged
through the streets of Paris, a public gazing-
stock ;-a punishment more cruel than
the pillory itself, since it constantly renews
itself in every quarter through which they
pass? Is it to be believed that a gentleman
is to be fastened to a leprous convict, and
to be exposed to the hazard of a disease as
dangerous as it is disgusting? What
judge, asks Mr. Bentham, has ever con-
6


40
M. MAGALLON.
demned a culprit to rheumatisms, fevers,
or contagious maladies?'
“ When the head of the old government
commuted to indefinite imprisonment the
capital punishment to which the Polignacs
had been condemned, it never entered into
his mind to oblige these gentlemen to put
on the dress of convicts, and to card wool
and pick cotton : such an atrocious cle-
mency would have disgusted every one,
and the Polignacs themselves would have
scorned to buy their lives at such a price.
How then can they, at the present day, add
to a simple punishment of ordinary police,
so that which would have appeared barba-
rous in the days of despotism, though in
exchange for the penalty of death?”
It is perfectly clear that the Article 40
of the Penal Code, which has been cited in


M. MAGALLON.
41
justification of the mode in which some
persons detained for political offences have
been treated, was intended by the legislator
to apply to felons and vagabonds only.
That this is true appears from the ques-
tions addressed to ministers during their
discussion on the laws relating to the press.
They were asked whether political writers
would be subject to the ordinary regula-
tions of prisons. Mons. de Serre, the keeper
of the seals, indignantly replied, that “ to
think so was an insult to the royal govern-
ment; that it was odious to suppose the ad-
nistration so destitute of good sense, justice,
and humanity, as to treat men of letters,
whose offence was often nothing more than
an incorrectness of opinion, or intellectual
mistake, in the same way with rogues and
felons. Such had indeed been the case in


42
M. MAGALLON,
1793, but it would never be seen under a
royalist ministry.” It was even talked of
fixing some distinct place of confinement
for political and literary offenders. It is
clear, therefore, first, that the authors of
the Penal Code, in fixing the penalties for
material offences, never included those of
the press, which were then unknown, or
at least were punished as political crimes;
and the culprits, as I have observed, were
confined apart in the state prisons, where
they were subject to no sort of personal
disgrace; second, that the deputies of the
two Chambers, in voting on the laws re-
lative to the press, never intended more
than simple confinement, and by the ma-
gistrates ! Would it not be a gross insult
to suppose that, in condemning a writer
to a single month's detention, for a phrase


M. MAGALLON.
43
somewhat audacious, and frequently sus-
ceptible of various interpretations, they
meant to sentence him to the dungeons of
Bicêtre and Poissy ; that they included
handcuffs, binding to a galley-slave, and
hard labour!
No man of sense will deny the truth of
this reasoning, and the present adminis-
tration must therefore have the credit of
the treatment which those detained for
political offences have received. It has
confounded us with the dregs of the human
race. Subterfuge and apology are useless :
it is more honourable boldly to avow their
conduct, and spare themselves the trouble
and disgrace of hypocrisy.
There is, nevertheless, a Prison Society;
a sort of general council of philanthro-
pists. What has taken place proves the


44
M. MAGALLON.
inutility of all such societies, which are
no doubt animated by the best feelings,
but are without any rallying point of ac-
tion. They meet together, deliver speeches
carefully prepared, draw up reports whose
foundations are generally inexact; and
whilst they debate and speechify, justice
is outraged, and humanity suffers.
A single man, unsupported and alone,
has done more in this respect than all the
philanthropic societies in the world : that
man was Howard, the Englishman who
voluntarily passed his life in prisons.
He associated with the unfortunate, only
to relieve them; he listened to their com-
plaints, like some messenger from heaven,
and then made them resound through the
palaces of kings. Nothing discouraged
him ; neither the fatigues of his mission,


M. MAGALLON.
45
nor the discouragements of power; his
virtuous importunity burst through every
obstacle. How many unhappy wretches
owe to him their repose ! How many inno-
!
cent victims has he not rescued from de- '
spair! The necessity of being useful to
his fellow creatures multiplied his ener-
gies; and there was not a dungeon in
Great Britain, however obscure, which he
did not visit, and into which he did not
introduce a gleam of hope. To enter these
he did not need a formal stamped certifi-
cate of admission, which cost the prisoner
three pence halfpenny. But even this was
not enough for him. He passed over to
the Continent, and without noise, without
parade, he visited all the prisons of Eu-
rope.
Like Providence, he was recog-
nized only by his acts of goodness. He


46
M. MAGALLON.
gave rulers advice, and prisoners consola-
tion; he dried up the tears of the unhappy,
and he received his reward. Howard was
the first who gave the idea of those gaols,
which, in England and the United States,
receive vice and depravity, and make them
disappear before a system, wisely con-
ceived, and religiously executed. How
anxiously ought we to wish such examples
followed in France ! But we will not
despair ; there is amongst us one who has
:
inherited the virtues of Howard. Who
knows what is yet to be accomplished by
Alexander de la Borde?
A. J.


No. IV.-April 23, 1823.
DIALOGUE BETWEEN HIM AND MYSELF.
Suus cuique mos.
TERENCE.
Oye in power ! rarely have I known your justice, and
three times have I suffered from your oppression.
NIZAMI, the Persian Poet. (Khamsa, 5th Fable.)
He. Well ! what do you think of it?
Two soothsayers at Rome could not meet
without laughing; two philosophers, two
moralists, like you and I, who find them -
selves on a fine morning in the prison of
Sainte-Pélagie, ought they not to salute in
the same way?


48
DIALOGUE BETWEEN
1. Laugh as much as you please, but I
warn you that my temper is not quite so
gay. I shall wait until you shew me the
ludicrous side of this business, before I
begin to smile.
He. How ! Do you not find it an
amusing circumstance, that at our age,
fathers of a family, nay even grandfathers,
enjoying a reputation well established for
discretion, and able to produce good cer-
tificates of character,—that we should see
each other in a prison, under the same
bolts and bars with thieves and vaga-
bonds?
I. No: it seems to me abominable,
:
odious,—and I do not yet know how to
make a jest of public decency.
He. Have a care, my dear comrade in
prison and in philosophy, lest there enter


HIM AND MYSELF.
49
into your indignation a slight portion of
personal feeling; for we are not the only
honest people here, as you will soon dis-
cover; and the evil, of which you com-
plain for the first time, has existed for a
long period.
1. Do you believe that ten years are
enough to signalize all the abuses, verify
all the injustice, and to set off all the fol-
lies which may have arisen, been esta-
blished, and perpetuated in a country like
ours ? It is my habit to speak of such
things only as I know them from expe-
rience.
He. And you murmur when they come
before you! Let us talk coolly: set down
on the foot of my bed, until I get another
chair, and let us consider together whe-
ther we cannot derive some benefit from
VOL. I.
D


50
DIALOGUE BETWEEN
our present situation. We are in prison,
that is certainly true ; we have no cause to
blush, neither before others nor alone, for
that which brought us here; and if we
only knew how to employ the month we
are obliged to pass here, it may perhaps
form an honourable epoch in our life.
What shall we do?
1. I have already distributed my time.
I shall read a great deal : reading has a
special charm for persons in our situation ;
it is a mixed state, between conversation
and reflection : which has neither the fri-
volity of the one, nor the fatigue of the
other, and unites the advantages of both.
He. As for me, I will write a book on
the uses and pleasures of a prison.
I. For heaven's sake, do not sell the
honours of persecution so cheap, you will


HIM AND MYSELF.
51
disgust its victims, and weaken the hatred
which we ought to feel against our op-
pressors. I intend to write something
which the philosophy of the occasion may
dictate. I have already planned a work,
in which I will paint men in power as I
see them from Sainte-Pélagie, and this
shall be the motto :
Dis-moi qui tu châties, et je te dirai qui tu es.
He. The same cause produces on us
very different effects. A prison, which
sours your temper, sweetens mine, as the
night increases the bliss of love.
1. My mind is not so stoical. When I
suffer I must cry out, and I call men and
things by their proper names. A dungeon
is to me a tomb beneath the earth, where
nothing attaches us to the world except
the recollections of honour and virtue';
D 2


52
DIALOGUE BETWEEN
me.
these recollections oppress
What
degradation of spirit! what weakness of
heart! The social world, as they are now
reconstructing it, will soon become a go-
thic dungeon. France ! where is all thy
genius, thy power, thy glory? In vain
have thy philosophers written, thy heroes
fought; in vain has Voltaire, like the day-
star, showered forth floods of light for more
than a century. The African is still bought
and sold, and the trade in whites has not
ceased : they make bargains at Senegam-
bia, and treaties at Verona. Every where
the development of human virtue and
human intellect is arrested ; states totter
and are partitioned; kings are cast down,
nations are imbruted. Here we meet with.
fakirs, there with Austrian garrisons ;-
in the South, censorship and the police ;-


HIM AND MYSELF.
53
in the East, viziers, the stake, and the
mutes;-every where jugglers, halters, and
decorations. I will write The History of
Slavery.
He. You might as easily undertake an
universal history. With only thirty days
before you, why engage in a labour of
twenty years ?
1. You are right : I will contract my
canvass, and set about a tragedy. The sub-
ject is already in my brain, and I shall
have time enough to sketch out some of .
the scenes.
He. What is its title?
or
1. Cambyses, the Prevaricating
Judge.
He. This time you need not fear that
your writings will be applied to living
persons :
thank heaven we live in an age
D 3


54
DIALOGUE BETWEEN
when there are no prevaricating judges.
But if your tragedy have nothing to ap-
prehend from the censure, does not the
subject itself present an insuperable diffi-
culty?
1. Not at all. It is a passage of pure
history which I adapt to the stage. You
have seen
in the Museum that Dutch
picture
He. What! where there is a wretched
judge skinned alive by command of the
ferocious Cambyses, in order that the bench
on which the prevaricator sat might be
covered with his skin as a warning to
others?
I.
Il n'est point de serpent ni de monstre odieux,
Qui par l'art imité ne puisse plaire aux yeux.
He. Horace and Boileau forbid that this
poetic maxim ever be applied to our stage,


HIM AND MYSELF.
55
unless with great restrictions : there are
monstrosities which we can endure to
witness in the real world, but which would
strike us with horror on the stage; and,
moreover, what would be the moral and
philosophic purpose of such a work? To
Το
make us equally abhor inhuman justice
and execrable tyranny. I am quite con-
tent to see prevaricating judges punished,
but I do not wish to see them skinned
alive. Est modus in rebus.
I. When I reflect for a moment, it strikes
me that you are right. I abandon the idea
of my tragedy of Cambyses, especially as I
dislike narratives on the stage, and I fore-
see that it would puzzle me a good deal to
manage the catastrophe in actual represen-
tation: but now what am I to do? for it
a
D4


56
DIALOGUE BETWEEN
is absolutely necessary I should do some-
thing.
He. If you will be guided by me, let
each of us follow his old trade of observer
and gleaner. Plato imagines himself to be
enclosed in a dark cavern which had only
one small opening, through which the
shadows of the bodies that passed by on
the outside were traced on the opposite
wall. Now we are in the same situation
which Plato imagined for himself. From
the centre of our gloomy chamber we shall
behold for the next month nothing but
dim shadows passing before us : let us trace
out on the walls these shadowy outlines,
transfer them thence to our album, and on
quitting the place we will publish our
sketches. I am much mistaken if the


HIM AND MYSELF.
57
public do not receive them with great
good-will.
1. To business then! The idea is ex-
cellent, and I leave you to set about it.
E. J.
D 5


No. 5.-- April 24, 1823.
HISTORY OF MY APARTMENT.
Uno avulso, non deficit alter.
VIRG.
а
That walls have ears has long been
known; but I have discovered that they
have a voice and language also. I have se-
parately questioned those between which I
am confined ; they have answered me, and
it is from their recitals that I have com-
posed the history of my apartment, of
which the following is a faithful descrip-
tion. It is situated at the lower end of
the red gallery, which might have been


HISTORY OF MY APARTMENT.
59
just as well named from any other colour,
seeing that a mild obscurity prevails there,
which scarcely allows one to distinguish
the numbers inscribed over the doors, in
figures about two inches long. My apart-
ment is No. 4: it is ten feet long, seven
broad, and eight high ; so that a person of
the loftiest stature may stand upright, and
walk about at his ease. Formerly, air and
room were less liberally allowed to the
prisoners, though then indeed crimes of in-
tention, allusion, insinuation, and tendency
were unknown. Thus every thing is ba-
lanced ; and under this point of view, at
least, the progress of the age towards a
better order of things does not appear to me
to be so very evident. Perhaps there is a
little pettishness in this opinion, and there-
D 6


60
HISTORY OF
fore I quit these reflexions, and resume the
topic-my apartment.
The window, which is crossed by massy
bars, lets in the first rays of the dawn, and
enables me to look out into a court planted
with trees, where two classes of prisoners
enjoy, at different hours, the pleasures of
a walk. One of my predecessors has left
in the cell marks of his sojourn. The
papered canvass with which the walls are
still covered, and the ceiling hollowed
out in the centre, to give it the look
of a marquee,
shew that a soldier has made
in this narrow place one of those humi-
liating halts which a great general has
characterized by a stronger epithet. Whilst
I was examining more minutely some parts
of the wall which the unglued paper left


MY APARTMENT.
61
bare, my eye fell upon some capitals writ-
ten with a pencil, and now almost defaced.
One has always time to spare in a prison,
and I set about decyphering the inscrip-
tion, by joining the parts of the strokes
which still remained. Here is a fac-simile
of those fragments of the writing which
time had respected:
??
.
o els
After filling up the parts of the first
letter, I clearly perceived that it was meant
for a J. I was a full half hour engaged
in combining in twenty different ways the
remains of the second letter; and having
found that it would stand for a Z or an L,
I chose the last, because a greater number
of French names begun with it than with
the other. The third detained me a shorter


62
HISTORY OF
time; the extremities, unite them by
what stroke I would, belonged only to a P.
With respect to the last, after fumbling
for two or three hours in vain, I found in
it the elements of B, as written by the
English. Having finished this part of the
business, I then tried to ascertain to which
of my predecessors these initials would
apply, but could discover no one. I was
about to abandon the riddle, when one of
my young companions in captivity entering
the cell, I told him of my perplexity, and
pointed to the monogram.
« How !" said
he, “ can you not guess the meaning?
Nothing is more easy. Those letters be-
long to the most amiable and most illus-
trious captive the walls of Sainte-Pélagie
ever enclosed-JOSEPHINE LA PAGERIE
BONAPARTE."


MY APARTMENT.
63
« Is it possible !" I cried, in an unusual
transport of joy !". Nothing more cer-
tain,” he replied. “In 1793 the good and
beautiful Josephine was confined in Sainte-
Pélagie, and these letters are a certain
proof that she inhabited this cell." - There
is one objection,” I observed, “which
overthrows your otherwise-plausible con-
jecture: the illustrious Josephine, at the
time of her imprisonment, had not yet
assumed the name of the hero who cast
such a glory over her life. She was ar-
rested in 1793, and did not take the name
of Bonaparte until 1797.”_ But then she
bore that of her former husband, Beauhar-
nais, which serves equally well to explain
your monogram.'
This observation was borne out by the
fact. Mme. de Beauharnais was indeed


64
HISTORY OF
confined for some months in Sainte-Pés
lagie, and in this same gallery; and from all
the information I could procure, and the
circumstances being compared, I was con-
vinced that my poor cell was consecrated by
the recollection of the august and amiable
Josephine. This idea made me feel younger
by thirty years, and I was carried back to
those days of mourning and civil discord,
when power, in the hands of a stupidly fe-
,
rocious faction, persecuted, in the name of
France and freedom, their noblest and
most ardent defenders. I beheld, in the
middle of a tempestuous night, a young
fenale, more beautiful even from her ter-
ror and the scanty dress in which she was
surprised, conducted into these gloomy
vaults by a band of madmen, whom her
tears could not soften. The terrific bolts


MY APARTMENT.
65
are drawn upon her; I see her silently
seated before the window where I now
write, and I thrill with all the emotions
which disturb her bosom. She speaks,
and I am dumb.6. Wherefore am I in
this prison ? what crime have I committed?
-1, the wife of a patriot soldier, whose
glory and services have been recompensed
by the scaffold? But they arrested me on
a foreign soil ! Was my destiny linked to
that of the enemies of France ? No, no :
-my best affections were placed where
duty to my country commanded : and yet
have they dragged me, faint and dying,
from the bosom of my family, to wait a
prisoner for that knell of death which has
already tolled for so many unhappy vic-
tims!” She wept, and her eyes fell with
a shudder upon the sombre objects which


66
HISTORY OF
a
encircled her. Gradually the agitations of
her heart were quieted; she seemed to
listen to the consolations of some internal
monitor, and the smile of a far-off hope
beamed upon her lips. The amiable cap-
tive draws from her bosom a talisman, on
which is inscribed : You will weep, you
will suffer ; but hope,wait,-
and you will
become queen of a mighty empire.” “Poor
Amica,” she cried, after having read this
prediction ; “ my kind nurse, half of your
prophecy is already accomplished ; but
what power on earth will enable me to
realize the other? Yet I will still hope-
I will wait--for your predictions have
never yet deceived me.”
The series of astonishing events by
which fortune fulfilled the oracle of the
mulatto, and led, as it were, by the hand


MY APARTMENT.
67
the lovely creole of Martinique, from the
cell No. 4, of Sainte-Pélagie, to the first
throne of the world, is well known.
It would be unfair to suppose that such
an example was able to excite any ambition
in my breast, or that I flattered myself
that, by starting from the same point, I
was one day to reach the same height as
my illustrious predecessor ; first, because
no one has ever prophecied that I should
be made a king; and next, because I am
bound to say frankly, in order to discourage
such as may have turned their eyes to-
wards me, that it is a sort of business for
which I have not the slightest propensity.
From 1793 to 1815, it is quite clear
that my room could not have remained
empty, although the walls do not inform
me of the names of its occupants : but on


68
HISTORY OF
the 21st of April (I shall not soon forget
that date), in that sadly memorable year, a
slightly-made man, of the middle height,
with a quick black eye, of a tawny com-
plexion, and his lips firmly compressed,
took possession of the cell No. 4, in the
Red Gallery. This was Mina, the famous
Guerilla chief, who defended with so much
courage and perseverance his noble coun-
try against the conqueror of Europe and
his valiant army. At his return from Elba,
Napoleon, learning that Mina was then at
Paris, caused to be arrested, in the midst
of peace, that Spanish warrior, who had
so often flung a gloom over our arms dur-
ing an unjust war, the last result of which
was to be so fatal to its author. In this
retreat, where the foreign hero languished
for a month, and during which he was


MY APARTMENT.
69
heaping up the materials of future ven-
geance, he had leisure to recall to mind the
many glorious memoirs with which his-
tory will appropriate his name : the words
Salinas, Vittoria, the Carrascales, which he
wrote upon the wall beneath those of
Ocagna, Talavera, which a French hand
had previously written, form an answer
perfectly worthy the pride of a Castilian.
General Mina had for his comrade at
Sainte-Pélagie, Mons. de Torreno, whom
the cause of constitutional freedom counts
in the present day in the list of its defen-
ders. Mina's prodigious activity did not
well suit the tranquillity of a prison, and a
promenade in a court far too small for so
large an establishment, was to him but an
insipid sort of exercise. He converted the
covered gallery, which extends along one


70
HISTORY OF
of the sides of the parallelogram, into a
tennis court. The paintings with which
he ornamented the wall, at the two extre-
mities of the gallery are still visible. The
terrible events of the month of June 1815,
flung open to General Mina the gates of
his prison, but not those of his country.
He had fought gloriously for the cause of
a national and constitutional king ; but
Ferdinand, on his restoration, desirous of
wielding an absolute sceptre, compre-
hended in his proscriptions all the parti-
zans of a constitution which placed restric-
tions upon the royal power. The insur-
rection, which was then called at Madrid
the revolt of the Island of Leon, revived
the hopes of the hero of Catalonia. He
quitted France in 1820, and repaired to
the banks of the Ebro, where he is this
a


MY APARTMENT.
71
moment one of the principal arbiters of
his country's destiny.* The cell which the
foreign General Mina left vacant, was a
few days afterwards occupied by the un-
fortunate French General Bonnaire. How
brilliant, and yet how melancholy was his
destiny! A soldier, seventeen years old,
ssues from the department of Aisne in
1792, and opens his path, sword in hand,
to the honours of war : from battle to
battle Gerard Bonnaire became general of
brigade. He was struck by a Spanish bul-
let in the campaign of 1813, and rose
severely wounded, to take the command,
two years afterwards, of the garrison of
The reader will perceive that this is a mistake.
General Mina who was confined in Sainte-Pélagie, was the
nephew, and not Espoz y Mina now. commanding in
Spain.


72
HISTORY OF
а
Condé, which had been entrusted to him
by Napoleon during the hundred days.
Bonnaire commanded there when some
soldiers of the garrison shot a French offi-
cer, who came in the name of the Allied
Powers to propose a surrender. Sentence of
death was passed by a council of war against
the Aid-de-camp Miéton, who was charged
with having given the order for this dis-
loyal act; and General Bonnaire, so nobly
and energetically defended by Chaveau-
Lagarde, was condemned to the infamous
punishment of transportation. Conducted
to Sainte-Pélagie, after the afflicting de-
gradation which he underwent at the base
of that triumphal column, on which glory
had inscribed his name and his exploits,-
he could not survive the physical and
moral anguish of which he had so plenti-


MY APARTMENT.
73
.
fully drank, and died at the end of two
months of agony ;-the words honour and
my country were the last which he uttered,
as he felt with a feeble hand for that
“ star of the brave,” which he found no
longer on his breast, so often furrowed by
the sword of the foe. In this cell he
poured forth his last sigh!
I mentioned that the first and latest
recollection which my cell excited, related
to the soldier who had given it the shape
and appearance of a tent, which it still pre-
This officer was Colonel Aimé
Duvergier, who was sentenced to five years'
imprisonment, as the instigator or accom-
plice of “ the troubles of the month of
June.” To time and to history I resign
the office of revising those trials for opi-
nions, on which justice itself never pro-
serves.
VOL. I.
E


74
HISTORY OF
nounces until it has listened to the politics
of power. In such a cause, one who is
himself a prisoner and a defendant might
fairly be suspected of some partiality.
In Colonel Duvergier, therefore, I re-
cognize merely my immediate predecessor
in the little realm where I now preside.
This officer was thirty-six years of age
when the decree was made which con-
demned him to five years' imprisonment.
Such a lapse of time, lost to every sort of
glory, appeared to him sufficiently tedious,
and his first business, in entering Sainte-
Pélagie, was to devise the means of his
escape. He was, however, forced succes-
sively to abandon all the projects he had
conceived, when a friendly hand came to
his assistance, and smoothed away those
obstacles, against which his courage and


MY APARTMENT.
75
a
his patience had laboured in vain. This
enterprize, which I look at in a dramatic
point of view only, does too great honour
to the heart and mind of its leader, to per-
mit that I should pass by in silence its
principal details.
A young friend of Colonel Duvergier,
Mons. Eugène Pradel, was at this time a
prisoner for debt in Sainte-Pélagie, in a
quarter of the building completely distinct
from that which was occupied by the pri.
soners for political offences. Both classes
enjoyed, but at different hours, the favour
of walking in the same garden, where
they saw each other without ever being
able to meet. The debtors are treated with
less rigour than the others, to the great
regret of their creditors an order of per-
sons whose hearts are fintier than those
E 2


76
HISTORY OF
even of gaolers. The debtors may cor-
respond by writing with persons without,
and their friends and relatives may visit
them in their apartments, at all hours of
the day. Mons. Pradel had kept up a com-
munication with his friend Colonel Duver-
gier, on the subject of his escape, for more
than a month, and in the most ingenious
way. On the eve of the day fixed for its
execution the Colonel wrote to his friend :
“ I cannot make up my mind to quit the
prison without my grenadier.” (this was Cap-
tain Laverderie) : “ tell me, my dear Eu-
gène, if you think you can save us both; if
not-I remain.” This incident, by which the
difficulties of the enterprize were doubled,
only augmented the zeal and courage of
friendship. The first obstacle to surmount
was the transferring the two prisoners


MY APARTMENT.
77.
from the red gallery to that side of the
building which the debtors occupied. It
was at length effected in this way. On
Christmas Day, at
one o'clock, when
the political prisoners were about to quit
the garden to make way for the debtors,
Colonel Duvergier and Captain Laverderie
contrived to elude the vigilance of the
keeper, and remain concealed in the gar-
den, which was open to the debtors the
moment that the others had quitted it.
At a previously concerted signal they
glided into the debtor's side of the prison,
and took refuge in the room of a common
friend (Mons. Marchebout), where their
protecting angel instantly joined them.
Up to this moment the two fugitives had
effected nothing more than a change of
bolts and keepers: they then set aboût
E 3


78
HISTORY OF
disguising themselves. The immense whis-
kers of the Colonel were shaved away, and
a complete metamorphosis was wrought
in their appearance.
The prisoners were scarcely recogniza-
ble, and they had now only to go out in
the characters of two visitors, in whose
name M. de Pradel had obtained certifi-
cates of admission, by paying for them at
the Prefecture of Police. These admis-
sions, which are left with the inner turn-
key upon entering the prison, are given
up to the visitors when they go out. The
difficulty was to place the admissions of
two persons who had not entered, amongst
those which the keeper had received, and
without the return of which, escape would
be impossible. Eugène, who for several
days had become very intimate with the


MY APARTMENT.
79
keepers, through presents of wine and
segars, and still more so by showing them
some drawings which he had made in the
prison, went down with his collection of
designs under his arm, and drawing it
from the case, excited the curiosity of the
keeper with whom the admissions were
deposited, so much, that he begged to be
allowed to look it over. Eugène consented,
and whilst the gaoler's attention was occu.
pied by the drawings, he affected to be
surprised at the great number of visitors
whose admissions were lying on the table.
He pretended alarm that they should be
left in so loose a state, and so liable to be
lost ; they ought to be put in a case ; and
as he said this, he took them up and placed
them in the cover of the album, gliding in
at the same time the admissions for the
E 4


80
HISTORY OF
two unknown persons. The keeper thought
the design a good one, and said that if
the administration did not allow him
one, he would buy it at his own expense.
“ Keep mine,” replied Eugène, clapping
him familiarly on the shoulder. Whilst
the turnkey was thanking him, Duvergier
and Laverderie presented themselves. They
demanded their admissions: the turn-
key examined them for a moment,_their
hearts throbbed, but no sign of fear ap-
peared in their faces; the admissions were
found and given to them; the three
wickets opened, and once more the two
captives breathed the grateful air of
freedom. This action of Mons. de Pradel
was only generous,---but that which fol-
lowed was rare and noble indeed. The
escape of the prisoners brought the head


MY APARTMENT.
81
gaoler and turnkeys into great peril, and
was likely to be the cause of new rigours
towards the other prisoners. Mons. de
Pradel instantly avowed his share in the
transaction, and three additional months
of severe imprisonment, whilst it satisfied
the law, procured for him the unalloyed
esteem and sympathy of the public.
It is in a prison that the imagination is
warmed and exalted; like all natural
powers, when compressed, it acquires a
higher portion of energy, and expands it-
self in the ratio of the resistance which is
opposed to it. I had thus passed an entire
day in company with the four prisoners
whose memory my apartment awakened.
For more than two hours the sound of
bolts drawn, and triple locks, warned me
that until the next sun-rise I could hold
E 5


82
HISTORY OF MY APARTMENT.
no communication with any living being.
The lamp had wasted away, and I stretched
myself on my truckle bed. Some notion
of the strength of the illusions which had
fastened upon me may be conceived, when
I say that I fancied I saw, and I actually did
see before me, those persons whose history
,
was associated with that of my apartment.
The conversation which passed between us
will be found in the ensuing chapter.
E. J.


No. VI.- April 25, 1823.
THE LIVING AND THE DEAD:
A DIALOGUE.
Pour qui connut les misères humaines,
Mourir n'est pas le plus grand des malheurs.
MADAME DESHOULIERES.
Josephine. I cannot imagine by what
sort of double enchantment it is that I am
made to behold once more the light of day,
which for more than eight years I had
quitted, and to find myself in your com-
pany in this little room, where I remember
to have passed some frightful days during
the reign of terror,
Mina. The miracle perhaps is not so
wonderful as that which procures me the
E 6


84
THE LIVING
pleasure of once more beholding your Ma-
jesty. The dead may revisit the world
again, but that bodies like those of Col.
Duvergier and myself should be in two
different places at the same time is a pro-
digy indeed!
Duvergier. It is useless to waste any
time in endeavouring to comprehend what
is incomprehensible. Since we are all as-
sembled here, in spite of probability, in a
paltry cell in the Rue de la Clef, let us talk
a little about our beloved France, where
this lady at least has left behind her a
cherished memory.
Josephine. Some such assurance as this
was necessary to erase the remembrance of
those frightful circumstances which em-
bittered my
last moments. I had seen cast
down from the loftiest throne in the


AND THE DEAD.
85
world, him who raised me to it; I had
seen France invaded by united Europe, and
the inglorious standards, of foes a thousand
times vanquished, float from the battle-
ments of the French Pantheon. To crown
all my sorrows, my son, in exile, was un-
able to receive my parting sighs.
Bonnaire. The august Josephine had,
some years earlier, been tried by a mis-
fortune which should have made her feel
this last one less sensibly.
Josephine." In divorcing me, the Em-
peror divorced himself from his own high
fortune. Of that I had an infallible pre-
sentiment, and the thought afflicted me
infinitely more than the loss of the crown
which encircled my brows. In the poli-
tical interests of the measure, I saw the
motive' of a divorce which shattered our


86
THE LIVING
destinies; but I should have been able, if
not to approve it, at least to yield more
calmly, had he espoused a native of France.
Mina. At any rate, you would have
believed that love had some part in his
choice.
Josephine. I should have been less cer-
tain of his misfortune, and consequently
less unhappy myself. Often had I heard
Napoleon inveigh against those diplomatic
marriages, of which, he used to say, the
slightest evil was to denationalize kings
down to the third and fourth generation.
His mode of proving this had something
so severe and positive about it, that I have
not forgotten it. “ I suppose an instance,"
said he, “ where an European monarch
marries a negress; the hereditary prince
born from such a marriage will neces-


AND THE DEAD.
87
sarily be a mulatto. Suppose this prince
should marry a black woman, the royal
heir will approach still more closely
to the colour of his mother; and if he
becomes, in his turn, the husband of a
negress, it is evident that his children, as
black and woolly as the natives of Guinea,
will have in their veins but a slight tinge
of European blood, which, in succeeding
generations, would entirely disappear.
Now, in the place of negresses, fancy
just so many strangers introduced into the
royal beds of France, and tell me what
will remain of the national blood at the
end of seven or eight generations ?”
This, however, was the weakest of all
the objections which he urged against fo-
reign matrimonial alliances. With history
in his hand, he shewed how they had been


88
THE LIVING
almost always a source of misfortune and
of war, both to princes and nations. I
recalled to Napoleon his own words, on
that day when his minister of hateful me-
mory came to prepare me for the most
painful of sacrifices. “ Remember,” said
I, “ that Henry IV. is almost the only so-
vereign of his race who espoused a French
woman : yet he repudiated Margaret de
Valois, to marry the foreigner Mary de Me-
dicis : recollect the consequences of that
deplorable alliance." But I spoke in vain-
pride and policy had dictated the decree,
and Napoleon united himself with the grand-
daughter of Maria Theresa. Five years after-
wards his throne was subverted, the enemy
poured in torrents over France, and stranger
sovereigns surrounded my funeral couch!
But I see that I am giving way to the sad
9


AND THE DEAD.
89
pleasure of telling those sorrows which
death has sealed, without knowing those
to whom I am speaking.
The Hermit. It is my business to do the
honours of the humble apartment to which
justice has condemned me for a month,
and where the strength of fanciful asso-
ciations has recalled your presence. The
individuals before you are General Bon-
naire, Colonel Duvergier, General Mina,
and the Hermit of the Chaussée-d'Antin,
whose pages have sometimes amused your
leisure hours.
At the name of Mina, the mild looks of
the Empress were fixed with astonishment
on the Spanish general. 66 You at Sainte-
Pélagie!” said she.
Mina. Like yourself, Madam, under a


90
THE LIVING
plastic form, which does not prevent me
from fighting in Catalonia at the same
moment. This last circumstance is some-
thing surprising, but the other I can easily
explain. Desirous of touching gently on
the object of your affection, I will not now
complain of the treatment which I expe-
rienced from Napoleon on his return from
Elba ; but merely say that, in the midst of
peace, he caused me to be arrested at Paris,
and to be confined in this prison, where I
passed sixty-five days in the very apart-
ment where we now are.
Josephine. Perhaps Buonaparte too
bitterly remembered your conduct in the
Spanish war. He often spoke to me of
your talents and courage in the field, but I
ought to say that he strongly censured


AND THE DEAD.
9)
your severity towards prisoners, and the
nature of those means of attack and de-
fence which you frequently employed.
Mina. The war which he declared
against us was unjust. Without any provo-
cation, and after having fomented civil dis-
cords in the bosom of our country, he in-
vaded it. He wished to set over us a king
of his own family, and to annihilate our
liberties, without giving us, as a recom-
pense, that independence and glory which
France owed to his genius and his arms.
We fought for our fire-sides, for our
existence, for our honour, against legions
used to victory, led on by the greatest cap-
tains of modern times. I will not dissemble,
that I myself exercised a terrible influence in
that terrible war, Catalonia, Arragon, and


92
THE LIVING
Avala, saw me an ever-moving and indo-
mitable scourge, bearing in every quarter
havoc and death. Amongst us, courage
bore the character of despair, and wrath
was elevated into vengeance. The new, or
rather the ancient government of France,
has succeeded to the inheritance of injus-
tice and hatred which Napoleon bequeath-
ed them. The happiness and freedom that
Spain enjoyed under a constitution, which
(with the exception of the Emperor of
France) all the sovereigns of Europe re-
cognized in 1812, have become a subject
of alarm on the other side of the Pyrenées.
The French have repaired to the banks of
the Ebro, and I have once more resumed
my arms, to defend the liberty of Spain
against foreign armies.


AND THE DEAD.
93
.
Josephine sighed, and turned her eyes
towards General Bonnaire, whose features
she endeavoured to recollect.
Bonnaire. You have rarely seen me,
Madam. My life has been passed in camps,
and that foreign general, against whom I
have so long and so often fought, is the only
one present of whom I have any personal
knowledge. Even my country herself
scarcely knows me, except through my mis-
fortunes. My blood had been shed for the
third time on the Spanish soil, when fortune
brought back the Bourbons to the throne of
France. The Emperor had abdicated; I sent
in my adhesion to the Royal Government,
after the declaration of St. Ouen : I
wounded, and they gave me no employ-
ment. On the 20th of March in the ensu-
ing year, Napoleon reappeared in France ;
was


94
THE LIVING
he thought that I might still be of some
service in defending a garrison, and he
entrusted me with the command of Condé.
I was in that town in the month of June
1815, when a French officer, sent with a
flag of truce from the Allies, was killed
by some soldiers of the garrison, before I
could have the slightest knowledge of the
danger which he run. Dragged before a
council of war, I was condemned to the
infamous punishment of deportation ; but I
.
was destined to suffer only the most terrible
part of it. I saw myself, without dying
on the instant, led to the base of the column
of Austerlitz. “ Kneel,” cried out a foreign
voice.“ Alas !" I replied, “ I am unable
to kneel; these knees, which you require
me to bend, have been stiffened by a
wound received in battle.” At the same
.


AND THE DEAD.
95
moment a ferocious
grasp
forced me,
in
the midst of torment, into the attitude of
a suppliant. I underwent the public infa-
my of degradation. The mortal blow had
been given; they transported me to Sainte-
Pélagie, and in this very room, a few
weeks afterwards, I ceased to exist.
At this recital Josephine gave way to a
burst of tears, which she had vainly en-
deavoured to repress.
Duvergier. How can I think of lament-
ing my fate, in the presence of such a
noble victim ! Let me be permitted, how-
ever, to justify, in your eyes, that exile into
which I have been forced. After having
served my country with honour, and of an
age to serve it still, I consoled myself for
the loss of our glory, in the hope of that
civil and political freedom, the inappre-


96
THE LIVING
ciable value of which had been guaranteed
by the Royal Charter. The rights of the
nation are there recognized and conse-
crated; but even here in Sainte-Pélagie
it must be admitted, that the five or six
administrations, which have so rapidly suc-
ceeded each other for the last eight years,
have not yet conceded to us a complete
enjoyment of its blessings. In the month
of June 1820, the ardent and patriotic
crowd of young men who then attended
the schools of Medicine and Law, assem-
bled several days in succession around the
Chamber of Deputies, to protect certain
members of the constitutional opposition
from the insults of which they had been
the object. Chance led me and kept me
in the midst of one of these unfortunate
assemblages, of which the cry vive la


AND THE DEAD.
97
charte! was the only rallying point. It
was thought necessary to employ force for
the dispersion of these groups of unarmed
young men. I was arrested in the midst
of them, tried, and condemned to five
years' detention in Sainte-Pélagie. This
decree appeared to me to be too severe.
A friend resolved to commute the punish-
ment, and procured me the means of
shortening my imprisonment. I fled, and
in the exile in which I am forced to live,
I pray, as Themistocles did, to heaven,
that it may bestow upon my country mul-
titudes of more valuable citizens than
myself.
Whilst he was speaking, my lamp gra-
dually expired, the charm had vanished,
I fell asleep only to change the character
of my dream.
E. J.
VOL. I.
F


No. VII.- April 26, 1823.
THE RESOURCES OF A PRISON.
Qui uti scit ei bona.
TERENCE.
The mind must be very happily consti-
tuted in order to appreciate the advantages
of a prison. At that word alone the ima-
gination is excited : it sees nothing but
bolts, grates, keepers with savage faces;
it hears nothing but groans and sighs. A
A
wise man does not allow himself to be
surprised by these sinister notions : he
wishes to understand before he offers to


THE RESOURCES OF A PRISON.
99
judge. I have a narrow cell, which I can
traverse in two steps. It will not admit a
numérous company, but it will hold my
family, and leave room for a friend. So-
crates did not ask for a larger space,-and
why should I be more difficult to please
than Socrates ? Napoleon passed from
the sumptuous palace of a monarch to a
wretched cabin at Longwood. But for-
tune, in precipitating him from the sum-
mit of human greatness, had gained no
mastery over his soul : that was still upon
the throne, and reigned even in captivity.
What did he lose ?-Wealth, gilded cano-
pies, courtiers, and flatterers. But none
of these were peculiar to him alone : they
are found with the Mogul as well as
at Paris. He remained to himself; he
abdicated neither his genius nor his glory;
F 2


100
THE RESOURCES
he was at Longwood, as he was every where
else-Napoleon !
We are shut up every night, and thus
divided from the whole world. Is there
not something frightful in this? I con-
fess, indeed, that at first this ceremony
was very unpleasant. The deafening clang
of bars and bolts sounded disagreeably in
my ears. I am at length accustomed to it.
I reflect that I used to enclose myself at
night in my own chamber without any pain-
ful feeling ; and that, after all, the mode
of shutting up was in itself a matter of great
indifference. I have, therefore, chosen the
part of a rational man; and whenever I
hear the periodical noise of the turnkey,
I think of the poor man's solicitude, who
keeps me under lock and key as though I
were something precious. He must watch
a


OF A PRISON.
101
his prisoners; he must be always in mo-
tion; he must have his ear constantly open.
Am I not more at liberty than such a
man ?
But you insist upon the matter, and urge
that I am shut up in the same prison with
malefactors with men degraded by vice;
that I ought to blush at coming in contact
with such people ; and you ask me what I
have to urge in reply? I answer without
hesitation, that if I were called upon to
blush, it would be for those who confound
what ought to be separated; I should blush
for a civilized country, where men, desti-
tute of every human feeling, would cover
themselves with dishonour, by using their
brief authority of a day as an instrument
of vengeance and of hatred. Poor wretches !
F 3


102
THE RESOURCES
they have the ferocious joys and pleasures
of the tiger!
But as to myself personally, what have
I to do with this affair? Must I answer
for all the folly and brutality that I may
hear ? - No. My responsibility does not
extend quite so far. As long as the life of
a man is pure, and his conscience without
reproach, nothing can force him to blush.
Shame is the portion of the wicked; it is
a punishment which they can neither inflict
nor avoid.
After all, who are those unhappy beings,
clothed in the livery of wretchedness, that
I behold from my window? They are the
ignorant ones, which a badly organized
society has abandoned to their own de-
pravity. Many of them were born with


OF A PRISON.
103
good inclinations, but the blast of want
has poisoned the seed, and withered
;
their soul. Surrounded by the necessities
of life, they strove to escape from their
destiny, and fell into vice. How much
guiltier do those appear who are so re-
nowned in the world, but who have attained
wealth and distinction only by the aid of
baseness and crime! Their understandings
have been cultivated; they are sufficiently
enlightened to know themselves; but their
infamy is gilded over-their shame is co-
vered with purple : -- the vulgar soul,
dazzled with the sight, gazes with stupid
admiration, while the honest man turns
away from it with contempt.
The world itself-what is it but a prion !
True it is more capacious than Sainte-Pé-
lagie : but in both there are to be met with
F4


104
THE RESOURCES
a mixture of all sorts—the weak and the
wicked, the virtuous and the depraved.
And is it to be accounted a shameful thing,
to live in the same world with corrupt
men, multiplying daily before our eyes ?-
to breathe the same air,mbe warmed by
the same sun,--and often to live under the
same roof? In this narrow prison I am
condemned to pass a single month; in the
larger prison of the world I have perhaps
some years to linger. Behold the difference
between them !
It is generally thought that a prison is
à tiresome place to reside in : it may be so
to those whose existence depends on mate-
rial objects only—who are oppressed by
time and space; but he whose mind is in-
formed, who can escape on the wings of
fancy from the narrow circle which confines


OF A PRISON.
105
him, never feels weariness or ennui. When
he seems to be absorbed, he is in reality far
away from his prison. The imagination,
that unparalleled magician! touches him
with her aerial wand, and transports him
to other times and other scenes. A throng
of fascinating images crowd upon his sight,
a thousand gentle recollections agitate his
heart. And even if one would dwell upon
more palpable objects, there are here ob-
jects enough for attention and meditation.
I said that the world was a vast prison :
Sainte-Pélagie is a little world. Opposite
characters develope themselves there, the
investigation of which is full of gratifica-
tion; there we may study at leisure the
human heart. For instance, my nearest
,
neighbour is a famous vine-dresser from
a
Vanvres, and he is worth examination,
F5


106
THE RESOURCES
Father Blin-that is his name is a pro-
digy at vine cutting, and sings psalms to per-
fection. His renown has travelled over the
whole of the district of Sceaux, and his air
and manner betray a consciousness of merit.
He is the proprietor of four or five French
aeres of vines, which he cultivates him-
self, and which have raised him to the
dignity of an elector. He is about sixty
years of age, and has lived so long without
having ever misconducted himself. How
happens it, then, that he should be in
prison?
In his quality of chapel clerk, he has
a special respect for the bottle ; he never
sells all the half hogsheads of his vintage,
and often assures one that, on solemn oc-
casions, “ he never failed to put himself
in prime order!” He is the wag of the


OF A PRISON,
107
district, and his jokes are quoted as far as
the tap-houses of Vaugirard. His cha-
racter is very jovial ; all the young love
him, and no holiday is complete without
his presence. One day, one unfortunate
day—it was Shrove Tuesday-Father Blin
opened his cellar ; he tippled quietly with
other vine-dressers, his friends, when he
learned that some squabbles had troubled
the general tranquillity, and that, in order
to prevent any further discord, Mons.
Jouanin, the Mayor of Vanvres, had sus-
pended the village festival, proscribed the
rustic music, and opposed his redoutable
veto to the immemorial law of the country,
which ordains that every body must dance
at Vanvres on Shrove Tuesday. Blin, if
he had been prudent, would have obeyed
the commands of authority; but his blood
F6


108
THE RESOURCES
was heated, and his imagination on fire.
The information filled him with indigna-
tion. 6. What! not dance on Shrove Tues-
day! that never happened, and never shall
happen,” said he, jumping up in a passion;
“ follow me, my lads, I'll dance, we'll all
dance !" Father Blin immediately put his
daring project into execution. He went
to the salon to prepare for the ball; the
dancers of both sexes, and all the rest of
the villagers, crowd around him. What
must we do?” they cry from all sides, ad-
dressing this Nestor of vine-dressers.-
“Dance, my friends,” he answered, in a
voice that echoed again, “dance !"_" But
the order of Mons. Jouanin !” __Here
Father Blin ventured a remark a little too
smart, and calculated to put a village
mayor into a rage. An Englishman would
а


OF A PRISON.
109
have styled it “ excessively indelicate,”
and I dare not write it down. However,
the musicians, who had been dispersed, as-
sembled again under new auspices. Our
friend Blin, to set the example, and to
revive the drooping spirits of the company,
led out a partner; the rest followed his
example; the signal is given, and away
they foot it. But the watchful Mons.
Jouanin, whose authority was a little com-
promised by this disobedience, was not far
off, and presently, he appeared with an
armed force, and demanded the managers
of this most seditious ball. All was be-
trayed, and poor Father Blin, in the very
height of his triumph, was nabbed by the
gend'armes. A procès-verbal was drawn
up, stating that he had been taken flagrante
delicto, and, together with two others of


110
THE RESOURCES
the most unruly among the dancers, he was
dragged before the police, and sentenced to
a month's imprisonment. And this is the
way that Father Blin managed to get into
Sainte-Pélagie. That his relation is li-
terally true, may be established by the
testimony of all Vanvres. Father Blin is
the most conscientious of historians. I
have persuaded him more than once to go
through his tragic story, and he never
varies in the slightest incident. I wish
that all our historiographers had the same
veneration for truth.
It may be an object of interest to some
persons to learn how our hero conducts
himself in Sainte-Pélagie. The first two
or three days he was rather gloomy. He
thought of the vines which suffered from
his absence ; he regretted his wife, who is


OF A PRISON.
111
a famous housewife, and whose pathetic
supplications could not soften the heart of
Mons. Jouanin. He spoke of his son,
whom he was anxious to bring out into the
world: but who, somewhat wiser than him-
self, was content to cultivate his hereditary
vineyard. He thought, also, with tender-
ness of the singing-desk of Vanvres, to
which all his glory was attached, and
which had so often trembled under his
vociferous intonations. These melancholy
thoughts, however, gradually faded away;
his sadness was soothed by frequent visits
to the canteen, and already had his good-
humour resumed its ascendancy, when the
Royal Court prescribed for me, as a salu-
tary regimen, a month's residence in
Sainte-Pélagie.
There it was that I first had the pleasure


112
THE RESOURCES
of studying the character of Father Blin to-
the bottom. I have before mentioned that
the characters of men shew themselves
more openly in a prison than elsewhere.
People very seldom give themselves the
trouble of putting on a mask. Every one
appears with all his good and bad qualities
in full relief. It is of great advantage
therefore to a moralist to be in prison,
whenever he wishes to pursue his studies
in humanity.
The basis of our friend Blin's character
is vanity: it enters into all his conversa-
tion. He did not suffer me to remain long
in ignorance of the fact that he held a very
distinguished rank among the vintagers of
his native place, and that his substance, to
use his own expression, amounted to near
forty thousand francs. He is likewise very


OF A PRISON.
113
vain of his wife, who belongs to the Bou-
tilliers, or Boutiliers, of Meudon: I write
the name of her family in both ways, that
I may not be liable to a process, as in-
portant as that which brought before the
tribunals the descendants of the houses of
Croi and Croui. The family of Boutilliers,
or Boutiliers, traces its descent from a
wealthy pastry-cook, whom fortune, in one
of her civil moods, conducted by the hand
from a shop in the Rue St. Denis to the
honourable fabrication of churchwarden
at Meudon. I am not at all surprised that
Father Blin should be vain of such an
alliance. He is, moreover, vain of his
son, whose education has been so carefully
attended to, that he can write a famous
hand whenever he has a mind to do it.
To crown all, he is proud of his counter-


114
THE RESOURCES
a
tenor voice, which has been the admiration
of the whole parish for the last forty
years. This pride as a chaunter lately
received a blow, which still rankles in his
breast, and will not soon be forgotten.
Every Sunday in the chapel of the prison
mass is celebrated, at which the greater
part of the prisoners attend. Blin was
brought in on Saturday. The next day he
went, like the rest, to the chapel, and as
soon as the creed began, he, thinking he
was still at Vanvres, opened his monstrous
mouth, and bellowed out in a voice like
thunder. The awful noise filled the whole
congregation with fright. His nearest
neighbour immediately clapped both hands
over his mouth, and ordered him to be
silent. He was told that it was prohibited
the prisoners to sing at mass. Father


OF A PRISON.
115
Blin never speaks of this event but with
the deepest bitterness. “What an insult,"
he said to me one day, “ to a singer of my
power and my practice ! These people
have no ears.”
In other respects Father Blin is the
best fellow in the world. He never had a
quarrel with any one; his peaceable dis-
position, gaiety, jocoseness, and wine, have
made him the delight of the inhabitants of
his village. If, gentle reader, you should
ever visit Vanvres, and should meet by
chance with a man
above the middle
height, with thighs and legs rather slen-
der, his walk a little pompous like that of
a schoolmaster, his mouth wide, nose
red, face the colour of wine-lees, head
sharp and covered with a black silk cap,
puffing up his cheeks now and then as if


116
THE RESOURCES OF A PRISON.
on very good terms with himself as I have
sometimes seen Mons. Lacretelle, the histo-
rian, do-you may confidently say—“ There
goes Father Blin! who was imprisoned for
a month in Sainte-Pélagie, because he
would dance on Shrove-Tuesday!”
A. J.


No. VIII. April 27, 1823.
LIBERTY.
Il n'est point de misères attachées à la condition humaine
qui ne soient accompagnées de ces consolations qui, en les
adoucissant, en prouvent la nécessité.
NICOLE.
O slavery! slavery ! disguise thyself as thou wilt, thou
art a bitter draught.
STERNE.
WAENEVER I reflect that the larger
portion of the world is sunk in the most
frightful slavery,—that in Europe alone
two or three hundred thousand human
beings are perishing, at the very moment
I am writing, in the obscurity of dungeons,
- look upon myself as comparatively
free in Sainte-Pélagie; and the meditations


118
LIBERTY.
in which ny mind indulges do not spring
from any painful feeling of personal pri-
vation. Yesterday evening, as I was sitting
near my window, which I somewhat pet-
tishly style my vent-hole, I beheld the last
beams of daylight fade away, and gazed
through my gratings upon that sky, of
which I could see so small a part. Judges
have sentenced in vain : they cannot bind
down the thoughts; and mine had sprung
upon their wings, and traversing, as Milton
has it, “ the concave of this airy dome,”
assembled around me beings from all coun-
tries, and of all complexions ; having first
contracted their dimensions, like Milton's
imps, that they might enter Pandemonium.
As fast as they presented themselves I
ranged them along the four walls, without
any regard to the colour of their skins :


LIBERTY.
119
Caffres, Italians, Turks, Tartars, Brazi-
lians, Greeks, Patagonians, and Persians ;
then passing the whole human race in
review, in the person of its representa-
tives, I put to each of them this question,
ARE YOU FREE ?
“ Very free,” answered the Italian, “on
condition that I may visit the Madonna,
once at least every day; that I make no sort
of use of my ten fingers for the maintenance
of my family on Sundays and holidays, that
is to say, a full third part of every year ;
and that I be not obliged to go into my
own house whenever I find the sandals
of Father Carceretto at the door."
“ I am infinitely more free,” said a man
with a turban, “ for I can insult a Franc,
or kill a Greek, whenever I take the whim
into my head; and can choose between the


120.
LIBERTY.
bow-string and the scimitar, when his
Highness the Sultan has need of my head
to ornament the walls of the seraglio.”
“ There is no liberty,” cried an inhabi-
tant of Thibet, “ except in those places
where the Daïly-Lama reigns. In my
country there never was any revolution,
and no wars of succession; since, by the
grace of Bud, we have a king who never
dies, and whose bonzes exercise their
power in the most paternal way imagi-
nable, provided we pour exactly four-fifths
of our revenues into the treasure of the
ministerial convent; provided we enrol all
our male children, at the age of sixteen,
in the standing army, which the reigning
bonzes keep up on the frontiers of Mogol
and China; provided we receive with the
profoundest respect, and swear to die in


LIBERTY.
121
defence of the Pouch, when the grand
Lama vouchsafes to decorate us with it;
provided we work three days in each week
for the advantage of the immortal, that is
to say, for five hundred priests, with long
beards, who represent him ; provided we
eat the flesh of no ruminating animal, and
that we visit, three times a day, the grand
pagoda; provided we do all these things,
we are free as air, and certain after death
of passing into the body of a cow, or at
least into that of a she-goat."
“What liberty!” cried an inhabitant of
the north of Europe. « Tell me of that
-
which we enjoy on the banks of the Spree.
Putting on our uniform the moment we
get rid of our swaddling-clothes, we beat
all the world in our military evolutions.
Recently our youth, somewhat too strongly
a
VOL. I.


122
LIBERTY.
tinctured with the prejudices of the schools,
foolishly supposed that there could be some
other industry besides that of handling a
musket,--some other liberty than that of
killing or being killed, in order to trans-
form an electorate into a kingdom; and
that, after all, mankind could have some
other destination on earth than that of
marching in step, and charging in quick
time ; but happily this beardless insurrec-
; ;
tion had no lasting effect, and we remain,
as before, the freest, that is, the best dis-
ciplined nation in Europe.”
« If by liberty, you mean passive obe-
dience,” interrupted a Chinese, “we ought,
it strikes me, to proclaim ourselves the
freest people on earth. Confucius has said
that there is no freedom where there are
no laws. Now, as we have more laws


LIBERTY.
123
1
than all other nations together, and man-
darins without number to put them into exe-
cution, it is clear that there must be more
liberty amongst us than any where else.
As the excess of population might embar-
rass our paternal government, we are at
liberty to expose our children on the banks
of the river. Our women have strong
passions; and as the sedentary life to
which the laws and the care of our honour
confine them would not suit them very well,
we are at full liberty to bind up the feet
of our daughters in their infancy, so as to
render them useless when they arrive at
an age at which they might abuse them.
Our great king Fo-Hi has defined liberty
to be order joined with politeness, and
this in truth is the great distinction of the
Chinese. What stranger is not struck with
G 2


124
LIBERTY.
admiration when he traverses the streets
and markets of Canton and Pekin; in the
midst of an immense crowd, arranged in
two files, each marching steadily along
in contrary directions, without any noise
or confusion to disturb their course. If,
by chance, any hair-brained fellow de-
range this beautiful procession, the police-
mandarin, accompanied by two exécu-
tioners, is always at hand to administer
justice. Brought before this ambulatory
judge, who squats himself down in the
street on a cusliion which is carried be-
hind him, the delinquent is stripped to his
waist, and receives on the shoulders so
many half-scores of blows of the chambouc
as the magistrate raises fingers during the
operation. The patient dresses himself
again, bows to the chambouc-bearer, kisses


LIBERTY.
125
the mandarin's hand, and withdraws. All
his passes, on both sides, with a politeness
and tranquillity which cannot be too much
admired.”
« Silence ! vile slave !" exclaimed a
Mahratta, as he brandished his 'assagay ;
“ is it for you, a people conquered by some
hordes of Tartars, who can defend your-
selves only by building massy walls, and who
are ruled by a bastinado, is it for you to
raise your voices when liberty is the theme?
They alone are free who choose their own
leaders, who make their neighbours tremble,
who know no laws but those of nature,
strength, and courage. Freemen are the
most daring pirates, and the best knights
in the world; and such are the Mahrattas.
True our Peishwa has the right of life and
death over the whole nation; but that most
G 3


126
LIBERTY.
a
excellent prince never uses it, and has
always been content to hire out a part of
his subjects, at the price of a rupee per
head, to our friends the English, who pre-
tend to be still more free than we are.”
“ Since this class of beings,” cried the
European islander, with a smile of disdain,
• has had the insolence to name the Eng-
lish people, when speaking of our sti-
pendiaries on the Persian Gulph, I will
take the trouble to shew that not only is
there no liberty except in the United King-
dom, but that there cannot be any else-
where, because such is our sovereign will
and pleasure. No one will deny, I sus-
pect, that modern freedom had its birth in
our island, and that the title of majesty of
the people, given by Lord Chatham, is the
result of our sovereignty, proclaimed by the


LIBERTY.
127
voice of Victory from one end of the world
to the other. If indeed we have left to
our chief the name of king, which was so
offensive to the Romans, we have managed
to restrain his power by those laws of which
he is the first subject. We live under the
empire of a representative government,
whose strength consists in the wise balance
of the three powers which constitute it;
and we enjoy with too just a pride the
freedom we have conquered, to suffer any
other nation to participate in the blessing.
Perhaps there will be objected to me facts,
which belie every day the rights of which
we are so proud. I shall be asked, what
the liberty of that country is, where two
or three families have made themselves
masters of the government, which con-
centers all the prejudices and all the abuses
G4


128
LIBERTY.
of aristocracy,—where the sovereignty of
the people is confined to the saturnalia
of the hustings,where the citizen, who
is taking his walk on the banks of the
Thames, may be pressed by a parcel of
drunken sailors, and at the orders of
a subaltern agent of the Admiralty put
on board a vessel, which transports him to
the other end of the world, to the tune of
Rule, Britannia !' I shall be asked what
liberty is in a country, where the law of
habeas corpus does not prevent a man from
being thrown into prison for a debt of five
shillings, at the first request of a creditor,
to whom he may prove, when he gets out,
that he owes only three, I shall, perhaps,
be asked a thousand questions of this
nature: instead of answering them, I shall
say, that we Englishmen are free to knock
6
a


LIBERTY
129
out the brains of a ministerial candidate,
to box in the street with a peer of the
realm, to sell our wives at market, and
to break the windows of the King's.coach
when he goes down to Parliament."
After this discourse from the representa-
tive of the majesty of the British people,
I thought myself called upon to say a few
words. “I hope," said I, raising my voice,
“ that this gentleman will not be offended
when I assert, that if liberty be in fact the
fruit of the highest civilization, of the
oldest recollections, and of the proudest
glory that any nation ever yet attained,
then France ought to be accounted its
classic soil. It was the spirit of liberty
.
which presided there a thousand years ago,
over the confederation of the Gaulish Re-
publics, and which consecrated the stone
Ġ 5


130
LIBERTY.
of the oath, around which their deputies
assembled. It was liberty which presided
over the meetings of the Champs de Mai,
and which raised on high the great shield
on which the bravest was borne, consensu
populi. For some centuries the feudal
system had exiled it from the soil of France,
but philosophy and victory brought back
freedom to their country. She reigned there
under the sway of a constitutional chart,
where the duties of the prince are marked
out, and where his rights and those of the
people are guaranteed. With us all men are
perfectly equal in the eye of the law ; taxes
are equally divided, ministers are respon-
sible, the judiciary power is independent,
the judges are unremovable, and every
citizen who loves his country, and who
contributes to its prosperity by his industry


LIBERTY.
131
and his talent, and who confers honour on
it by his virtue, lives happy, free, and is
under the protection of the laws.” At
these words, a loud laugh burst from all
of
my
cell_all
my guests va-
nished, and their voices repeated, as they
died away in the air, He is in Sainte-
Pélagie!
corners
>
A. J.
G 6


No. IX.- April 28, 1823.
STOICISM.
L'homme est un être ondoyant et divers.
MONTAIGNE.
Since my residence at Sainte-Pélagie,
I have read a great many philosophical
writers. I have attempted to make myself
acquainted with the doctrines of the diffe-
rent sects, which, from Pythagoras down
to Mons. Azaïs, have taken possession of
the human mind as their own domain.
I have more particularly applied myself
to the study of morals, as being more
essential to me in my present situation. It
would not vex me to know to a certainty


STOICISM.
133
whether the world be eternal or not, or
whether it had a beginning or not; to
know the true principle of motion, a point
which has often set me a dreaming ; to be
able to explain with precision by what
laws it is that the vegetables grow up
around me, that brute animals act, and
that man deliberates and reasons. Mons.
Azaïs would explain it to me very satis-
factorily if I would but listen to him
;
but
that would be a sacrifice of labour, for my
understanding does not reach to that
point: I must content myself, therefore,
with that which is within my grasp.. I am
positively certain, that I live in a country
named France, under a government which
calls itself constitutional ; that I have
written certain phrases, in which the
King's Advocate finds something very


134
STOICISM.
:
frightful, and that I am in prison. What
concerns me most is, to know how I qught
to conduct myself in this situation. Mora)
philosophers alone can satisfy my curiosity
in this particular : I have at various times
applied to them, in the leisure of confine-
ment, and have calmly examined their
different systems : and, after all, I have
found only two of them that were worth
the trouble of attending to, and have
balanced for some time between the Epi-
cureans and the Stoics. I agreed in the
outset with Epicurus, as the fundamental
principle of my system, that pleasure was
,
the chief good. This maxim, on the first
glance, appeared to me to be perfectly
reasonable : but upon examining it more
closely, I perceived that it was only a
chimera. A precept, which is not appli-


STOICISM.
135
cable to all the circumstances of life, can
never serve as a rule. What am I to do,
for instance, to attain pleasure in Sainte-
Pélagie? I might torture myself in a
thousand ways, and all without effecting
my purpose. The sight of the gratings,
and the aspect of my gaolers, would put
mirth and laughter instantly to flight. I
must choose my part, and I renounce the
doctrine of pleasure. Still I am desirous
of having good reasons for not being unfor-
tunate, in whatever situation of life my
fortune may fling me. I have found the
object of my search, and have become a
Stoic. In me you behold a genuine dis-
ciple of Zeno. I defy injustice and perse-
cution ; I disdain calumny; I am armed
7
against all the attacks of fortune. I even
make it a point to tell the world of it, in


136
STOICISM.
order that it may be known to all who are
about to give themselves the pain or the
pleasure of sending me to prison, that I
shall not feel the slightest grief from it.
The excellence of stoicism is that it never
quits you, and is always at your command
the very moment you require it. If, for
example, I experience some sad reverse of
fortune, and am deprived of that property
so, laboriously acquired, do you sup-
pose I would work myself into a rage
against destiny, curse heaven and man for
my cruel fortunes, and burst into com-
plaints and outcries ? Not so: all this is
well enough for vulgar people, but for me,
I shall say calmly with Zeno, “ It does not
depend upon yourself to be rich, but it
rests with yourself to be happy. Riches
themselves are not always a blessing, and


STOICISM.
137
certainly they are always of short duration ;
but the happiness which is derived from
wisdom endures for ever."
To understand this consolation properly,
we must know who is a wise man accord-
ing the Stoics. He is one who has neither
desires nor fears, and who, to use an ex-
pression of the schools, gives his soul to
freedom. Though the heavens should
tumble upon his head, he would not be
more agitated than if it were only a shower
of roses.
He exists for the outward world
by accident only, he is centered all in him-
self. That wisdom which he has created
for his own use suffices for all occasions :
he is always happy, because he is always
virtuous. A Stoic chained, like Mons.
Magallon, to a leprous convict, condemned,
like him, to the punishment of public ex-


138
STOICISM
posure in all the quarters of Paris, com-
pelled to march on foot to Poissy, and
there to work as a hatter, would have
completely disappointed the hopes of the
authors of such treatment. He would have
looked upon all this as a poor jest. Imagine
it to have been Arian or Simplicius. He
would have reasoned with himself thus :
“ The slavery of the body is the work of
fortune, that of the soul is the consequence
of vice. He whose body is free, if his soul
be trammelled and confined, is a slave;
and he whose soul is unfettered, though
weighed down by his chainsis a perfect
freeman.”
I doubt whether I myself, with all my
anxiety, shall ever attain this high point
of perfection. Stoicism requires that we
should keep down our wrath, as a passion


STOICISM.
139
at once fatal and unbecoming a philoso-
pher. Now, I wish, like Alceste,* to rail
whenever it suits me against the whole
world. There are some things to which I
cannot habituate myself, do what I may.
I must watch over myself with great vigi-
lance, to repress any outbreak of my
feelings : they are always on my lips, or at
the end of my pen; but I discipline myself
according to the precept of Crates as much
as I can, and I do not despair of becoming,
in the end, as patient as Epictetus himself.
That which would require from me. the
least sacrifice, in this effort to become a
perfect sage, would be the forgiveness of
injuries. My hatreds are fugitive-they
pass away more speedily than my con-
tempts. The doctrines of the Porch do
* In Le Misanthrope of Molière.


140
STOICISM.
.
:
not prevent me from despising what is
base, and I cherish the privilege; in these
times there are objects enough deserving
our contempt to employ the leisure of an
honest man, and I require nothing more.
The Porch interdicts from its disciples
ambition and vanity; it commands them
to fear neither grief, nor fetters, nor death :
in a word, to be always the same in all the
circumstances of life. I shall examine
these precepts in their order, and see if I
am in a condition to obey them.
Ambition. This is a malady of which
it will not be very difficult to cure me. If
I had any great power, I should not know
what to do with it, and it would be to me
an intolerable burthen. I could endure
it for a short time in the hopes of doing
good, if it were possible; but if this were
difficult, I would get rid of it at once.


STOICISM.
141
The honour which authority confers has
no temptation for me: I would rather do
honour to my situation than seek honour
from it. I do not find that the titles My
Lord, Your Highness, &c. have a more
musical sound than many others to which
no importance is attached; all they can do
is to flatter the ear of a fool, and I have
been told that this is not unfrequently the
case.
Vanity. Without ambition, what could
I do with vanity? It would be a very dis-
agreeable companion, wearying me to
death. Besides, my character is one which
does not at all incline to a weakness of that
sort. I know the infirmities of human
nature too well to feel vain for belonging
to such a miserable species. I cultivate
letters from inclination, because it gives a


142
STOICISM.
salutary exercise to my understanding : but
the fumes of literary glory never intoxicate
my brain, nor are my views, like those of
most of my fellow students, always fixed
.
on the future. I am not so well contented
with my writings myself, as to hope much
from posterity. Let it decide as it pleases,
I declare before-hand, that I shall never
appeal from that decision, however severe
may be. With respect to my contempo-
raries, if their opinions of me resemble
mine of a great many amongst them, I
have no great reason to be proud. One
thing alone is able to excite a sentiment of
vanity in my breast, and that is my pri-
son. I would give way to it but for the
strong desire I have to pass for a philo-
sopher.
The fear of pain and fetters. This is a
it
а


STOICISM
143
little more serious. The followers of the
Porch talk of it at their ease; they pretend
that pain is merely a chimera—that it
exists merely in idea. It strikes me that
there is something very exaggerated in this
pretence. I do not think that I could
follow the example of that philosopher,
who when bruised to pieces in a mortar,
cried with his last breath, “Oh pain,
they can never force me to confess that you
are an evil." All that I can promise the
Stoics is, that I will arm myself with
patience, whenever pain comes upon me;
but if I could get rid of it by complaining,
I think I should not be able to withstand
the temptation. But patience is something,
and the rest will come in due time. With
respect to death, I do not precisely know
what it is, and therefore I think as little


144
STOICISM.
of it as possible. If it be, as I hope it is,
true, that families and friends meet again,
and recognize each other in the great
rendez-vous of humanity, it is clear that
death, by separating us from the wicked
and the persecuting, is a blessing instead
of a calamity.
Here my course of philosophy ends. I
méan for the future to be firm as a rock
against all the accidents of life; I mean to
give way neither to harassing emotion, nor
passion, nor resentment-I will be wholly
impassive. I had just written these
lines, when the person who watches over
my safety with such inquiet solicitude, in-
formed me that my wife and daughter had
come to visit me. Zeno himself does not
forbid us to love our family, and I em-
braced them with pleasure. They related


STOICISM.
145
to me a little misfortune which had hap-
pened to them. My old and faithful dog,
who for years had been always near me, and
was anxious to see me once more, accom-
panied them to the prison, and had been re-
fused admission by the keeper. A stamped
certificate from the police was necessary,
and they had forgotten to obtain it. Poor
Zerbina whined most piteously at the gate
of the prison, and melted every heart, ex-
cept that of the turnkey. I wished to see
my poor dog ; irritated by the disappoint-
:
ment, I burst out into reprobation, and
was full of wrath at such petty despotism.
Farewell my philosophy!—farewell to my
stoical dreams!-I am a human being once
more.
A. J.
VOL. I.
H


No. X.-- April 29, 1823.
ILLUSTRATIONS OF A PRISON.
Quisnam igitur liber ? sapiens, sibi imperiosus,
Quem neque pauperies, neque mors, neque vincula terrent.
Responsare cupidinibus, contemnere bonores
Fortis.
HORACE.
WHENEVER we attempt to shew off our
erudition on the subject of human suffer-
ings, it is easy to display a great deal
of scholarship at a very small expence.
Examples multiply under the pen; our
faculties are absolutely beset with them ;
and the page covered over with facts has
no room left for reflections.
If I were
not afraid some one would find out, in a
simple remark, a feeling of vanity as far


ILLUSTRATIONS OF A PRISON.
147
from my disposition as it is unbecoming
my situation, I would say that persecution
always directs itself against some superio-
rity, real or pretended; and that, to attain
a high reputation, we must have the
courage to bear up against great injustice.
Sophocles was dragged before a tribunal
by his own children. Aristides and The-
mistocles were exiled. Phocion and So-
crates drank hemlock: the memory of the
last was insulted by Cicero himself, who,
in one of his familiar epistles, speaks of
him as an usurer, when he gives orders
under his hand to buy up the property of
his friend the Crotoniat, confiscated by a ju-
dicial decree. The virtuous Plato was ac-
cused of envy by Athenæus, of falsehood by
Theopompus, of theft by Aulus Gellius, of
avarice by Suidas, of debauchery by Por-
h 2


148
ILLUSTRATIONS
phyry, and of impiety by that rogue Aris-
tophanes, who was paid by the Athenians
for calumniating the most virtuous men
of the age, and who worked well for his
wages.
With regard to the corporal punishment
of a prison, with which I am at present
more particularly occupied, because I have
the subject under my own eyes, it would
be easy to fill a volume with the names
only of scholars, men of letters and philo-
sophers, on whom this chastisement has
been inflicted.
Anaxagoras was imprisoned for having
asserted that there was à God; Boethius
for having been an upright minister ; Bu-
chanan for speaking the truth ; Galileo
for demonstrating that the earth revolved
round the sun. It was in prison that


OF A PRISON.
149
Boethius wrote his most valuable work,
and Buchanan his beautiful paraphrases of
the psalms of David.
Five years' imprisonment were inflicted
on the most courageous and the most
grateful of poets-Pelisson; and there he
wrote his verses for posterity. The im-
mortal author of the Jerusalem Delivered
died in a dungeon; and Don Quixote first
saw the light in one. There is no better
work on English jurisprudence than Fleta,
composed in the Fleet, by a lawyer con-
fined for debt, and who remained there
till his death.
Louis XII., Duke of Orleans, was im-
prisoned before he ascended the throne ;
and in the old tower of Bourges he first
received his lessons in the art of govern-
ing. It is remarkable that two of the best
н 3


150
ILLUSTRATIONS
:
kings that France ever had, Louis IV. and
Henry IV., received the same lesson of
misfortune; and, what is still more won-
derful, knew how to turn it to advantage.
Raleigh wrote his History of the World,
-a chef-d'ouvre of eloquence and good
sense, --in a cell : he died because he had
been a hero. Selden composed most of
his valuable works in a prison. Polignac
occupied his hours of confinement with
the Anti-Lucretius. Fréret studied Bayle
during his long sojourn in the Bastile;
and the great genius of our age, Voltaire,
sketched out, in the same place, the plan
of the only epic poem we possess. The
royalist poet, Davenant, whose life Milton
saved during the Protectorate, and who
returned the favour to the English Homer
after the Restoration,-Davenant finished


OF A PRISON.'
151
!
his poem in Carisbrook Castle, where he
was confined by order of Cromwell. The
author of Robinson Crusoe, the only book
which Rousseau would permit to be placed
in the hands of children, finished his ro-
mance in Newgate. De Foe had written
against those ministers who disgraced the
nation : they sent him to prison; and,
when he was liberated, they had lost their
situations, and he had achieved his own.
A prison seems to bring good fortune to
authors. The Gondibert of Sir William
Davenant is the only one of his works
which was worth preserving; and the
Review of De Foe, which he began in the
cells of Newgate, and which has been so
happily imitated by Addison and Steele in
the Spectator, was the origin of a hundred
H 4


152
ILLUSTRATIONS
periodical essays of the same sort, of which
England boasts, and which I have en-
deavoured to introduce into France under
the title of the Hermit. The prisoner of
Sainte-Pélagie pays this homage to the
prisoner of Newgate, for whatever success
he may have obtained in a kind of writing
of which De Foe was the inventor.
Politics also flung Wicquefort into a
state prison, where he wrote his curious
treatise on Ambassadors. Few persons are
aware that an Italian named Maggi, after
having defended, with as much courage as
talent, the city of Famagosta, besieged by
the Turks, became their prisoner, and was
treated by them in the true Turkish style.
They burnt his house, books, instruments,
and flung him into a subterraneous dun-


OF A PRISON.
153
geon, where he was entombed for fourteen
months, and where he composed his ex-
cellent
essay
De Tintinnabulis.
It is said that misfortune disarms envy,
and that the envious are sometimes sus-
ceptible of compassion. This remark is
refuted by experience; the powerful feel a
desire to pardon the deserving; the weak,
who are the envious, never pardon it. An
imbecile prince delighted in being able to
burn the works of the Abbé Trithemus,
who was guilty of having invented steno-
graphy; but poor Virgilius, Bishop of
Salzbourg, was burnt himself at the re-
quest of an envious theologian, for having
had the audacity to write that the earth was
round, and that there must necessarily be
Antipodes.
It would be too easy to increase this
H 5


154
ILLUSTRATIONS
catalogue of unfortunate scholars, with
names collected from all kinds and classes
of talent; but I leave to those who are
aspiring to the class of sciences and
belles-lettres" these gratifying researches.
Since the persecution of philosophers
and men of letters appears to be the in-
variable maxim of all governments, and
that they will not, even in this enlightened
age, allow them a separate prison, I would
propose (without prejudice to the seve-
rities which they might still wish to exer-
cise against the living) that an expiatory
monument should be raised to the dead.
Whatever form the artist might think
proper to give to this edifice, I should
desire that the following portraits be
placed there, without any respect to age,
country, or the kind of their calamity : of


OF A PRISON.
155
Camoens, who perished of hunger in the
public streets ; of Otway, who expired on
:
the straw in a garret, after having sold his
last moveables a few days before; of Tasso,
who borrowed two shillings for his sup-
port during the week :
Non avendo candele per iscrivere i versi suoi ;
of Ariosto, who complains in his satires
so bitterly of having but one ragged cloak :
of Dryden, who was nearly all his life in
the pay of Tonson the bookseller, and
рау
who sold for twelve pounds, ten thousand of
the best verses in the English language;
and of Gilbert, who died in a hospital.
The prominent places should be set
apart for Milton, forced to sell bis Paradise
Lost for ten guineas; for Le Sage, who
in his old age lived upon the bread of
charity; for Corneille, who had not even
-
н 6


156
ILLUSTRATIONS OF A PRISON.
a basin of broth the evening before his
death; for Vondel, who wrote his tragedies
in a miserable shop, where he died at the
age of ninety years; for Voltaire, who
passed in exile sixty years of his glorious
life; for Rousseau, a wanderer; for David,
a proscript; for Sydenham, who died in a
lock-up-house ; for the learned Adanson,
who apologized, at eighty years of age,
for not going to the academy, because he
was without money to purchase a pair
of shoes.
The inscription for such a monument
should be
Here at last we may
repose.
E. J,


No. XI.-- April 30, 1823.
LA DÉTENTION;*
THE PRESIDENT OF THE ROBBERS.
Il n'est point d'homme parvenu à un certain degré de
perversité qui n'ait de soi une idée supérieure.
DUCLOS.
I SHOULD have been greatly dissatisfied
with myself if I had left Sainte-Pélagie
without having acquired a perfect know-
ledge of that place of sorrow, where so
many illustrious victims of our political
dissentions have pined, and which receives,
* This is the name of a particular part of the prison,
and the translator has retained it in preference to any Eng-
lish word.


158
LA DETENTION.
at the present day, by an arbitrary sen-
tence, whatever of honourable or base is
to be met with in society. At different
hours of the day I see, walking about in
what is called the court-yard of La Déten-
tion, sometimes men who are dressed in
jackets and trowsers of coarse grey cloth,
and sometimes children, who appear to be
condemned to the same punishment. Before
I speak of these prisoners, I will say some-
thing of their place of confinement. The
gallery of La Détention occupies the whole
of the second story of the principal build-
ing of Sainte-Pélagie, and a part of the
third. It forms a right angle, one side
stretching to the south, the other to the
west. It is in the exterior galleries of the
ground floor that the shops are, where the
greater part of the prisoners labour. They


LA DETENTION.
159
1
make lace, ornaments of mother-o'-pearl,
straw hats, and various other things, the
profit from which is thus divided. One
third goes to the administration of the
prison, another to the workmen, and the
other is retained. This last is likewise the
property of the prisoner, but he does not
receive it until he gains his freedom. This
precaution is deserving of praise. Some
rooms have been built in the galleries for
the superintendants. On the first floor are
the cells where the disorderly and re-
fractory are confined. In the north-west
part is the préfecture, the name given by
the prisoners to the apartment where they
are subjected to a sort of temporary con-
finement on their arrival. A camp bed
occupies its whole length on one side.
There they remain until they have obtained
1


160
LA DETENTION.
*
the pistole,* an odd expression, which I
will presently explain. Opposite this dépôt,
and on a line parallel with it, is the apart-
ment for the old men : the rest of the
gallery consists of rooms for the workmen.
The gallery which forms the line opening
to the south, is called the pistole gallery, a
word meant to indicate every thing neces-
sary to form a bed. This is a favour which
is not granted indiscriminately to the pri-
The pistole belongs of right only
to those whose term of confinement does
not exceed three months. Others, who
wish for this privilege, cannot obtain it
without using the most strenuous exer-
tions. The Prefect of the Police is the
a
a
soners.
It is impossible to translate the arbitrary and unmean-
ing technicals of a prison : the original names therefore have
been retained.
:


LA DETENTION.
161
arbitrary dispenser of the pistole, granting
or refusing it at his own pleasure, and thus
the prisoners who solicit this high favour,
never fail to address him with the title of
“ My Lord,” and to extol his humanity to
the clouds. Those who have the happiness
to possess a completely furnished bed, may
likewise obtain some other of the more
necessary articles of furniture, and these
are the sybarites of Sainte-Pélagie. But
to return to the préfecture, our place of
dépôt. There all kinds of inisery, depra-
vity, and suffering are crowded together.
At six every evening, the inhabitants of
this sad chamber are shut up. They sleep
on straw, and in the severest weather have
only a single rude covering. The place is
much too small for the number of the pri-
soners, and as the greater part of them


162
LA DETENTION.
smoke tobacco, and cannot quit the room
even on the most urgent necessities, the
atmosphere is necessarily hot and polluted.
It is here that men are crowded together,
to the shame of humanity, and though con-
demned for offences of various degrees of
criminality, are all made to undergo the
sâme torture.
Ye pompous friends of religion who
thus abuse your power, come here and
behold the unfortunate! Look upon those
whom the Gospel commands you to regard
with compassion, even in their most abject
state! Come and behold them, stretched
upon their straw, breathing a tainted air,
and covered with loathsome vermin, and
on the verge of the convulsions of despair !
Those who are degraded by vice, and are
condemned to imprisonment by the law, are


LA DETENTION.
163
condemned in mercy, and not in wrath.
Whence, then, these hitherto unheard-of
severities ? Allow them, at least, to inhale
a less polluted air ;-do not condemn them
to infection, the inevitable source of so
many maladies.
You make a constant
parade of benevolence and charity: show
yourselves, then, charitable and benevo-
lent. Your words are religious, let your
actions be so likewise. If
you
do not fear
men, at least respect the judgment of
God!
Until nine o'clock every night, this
earthly hell resounds with a confusion of
voices. Sometimes the brigadier* of the
préfecture commands silence, and announces
* This is a name given to the person who superintends
the distribution of the daily allowance. It is usually a
prisoner with a trifling allowance and some privileges.


164
LA DETENTION.
that a new prisoner is desirous of relating
his story. This is generally some rascal,
who makes a speech either to detail the
circumstances and the motives of his arrest,
or to celebrate the exploits of some
old comrade, who perished in the field of
honour, that is, in the Place de Grève. *
His recital is commonly listened to with
the greatest interest, though expressed in
a jargon wholly unintelligible to the civi-
lized part of society. If the speaker in
the course of his story, points out any new
and crafty mode of eluding the law, and
completing the crime, the interest is
redoubled, the audience are moved with
delight, and applaud with enthusiasm.
Thus it is that they mutually strengthen
each other in crime, and that the moral
Where the public executions take place,


LA DETENTION.
165
contagion spreads even amongst those
whose hearts are not yet hardened, and
whom a humane treatment and wise ad-
monitions might have led to repentance.
This haunt contains not only orators,
but likewise poets, who, in their gross
rhymes, sing their brutal amours and
adventures in a prison. Here, too, are
advocates, who can discuss the penal code
better than any jurisconsult, and who
explain it to their hearers with a surprising
sagacity.
But nine o'clock strikes-the hoarse
voices of the keepers echo heavily along
the gloomy vaults of the galleries, and a
deep silence begins. Soon the watch is
called, the gate creaks on its hinges, and
the massy bolts are drawn. At day-break


166
LA DETENTION.
the tumult recommences, and is continued
until night.
Such prisoners as are more than sixty
years of age, or labour under some ap-
parent infirmity, are dispensed from all
sort of labour, and receive every day a full
allowance. This allowance consists of a
little broth, some wine, and a small piece
of boiled meat. It is the first sign of an
ameliorated system, with which humanity
has cause to be gratified. The old men
sleep alone in beds, consisting of a straw
bed, a mattrass, and pair of sheets. The
greater part of these prisoners are pa-
triarchs of the science of plunder. I shall
presently say something of a prisoner, now
in his ninety-fifth year, who is held by all
the rest of his tribe in great veneration as


LA DETENTION.
167
president of the order in France, and pro-
bably throughout Europe.
The fourth story of Sainte-Pélagie is
occupied, at the south end, by the debtors;
and the west by the mummies, the name
given to a crowd of children who have not
yet attained their sixteenth year : they are
chiefly children who have been abandoned,
or vagrants, who have pursued or might
pursue some criminal calling. Some of
these froward or vicious children have been
delivered by their parents over to the ri-
gours of justice; others are punished in this
way for publicly begging in the streets.
Not a few of these poor creatures, who
are thus beginning life with such wretch-
ed auspices, are under eight years of
age. They are divided into two classes
--the great and small : this distinction,


168
LA DETENTION.
however, is merely nominal. They live
together, sleep in the same apartments, and
are compelled to perform the same labours.
The only difference is, that the larger and
older boys are always beating the others,
an abuse of strength not uncommon in
other places. These children are awakened
like other prisoners at day-break. One of
the officers of the house is appointed to
keep order and silence amongst them. As
they sleep in pairs, they are obliged to
comb and dress each other reciprocally,
and discharge those little services which
their unfeeling parents refuse to perform.
When these are over, prayers begin, and
then they proceed to their daily work.
They are employed in carding wool or
cotton. At half-past ten their workshop is
opened, and they go down into a court


LA DETENTION.
169
which is large enough, but which is some-
what deficient in free circulation of air, in
consequence of the lofty buildings which
surround it. Here they make up for the
silence which is imposed upon them for
the rest of the day. The thoughtlessness
and gaiety natural to childhood is manifest
upon their countenances, some of which
seem to have escaped from the pencils of
Raphael and Michael Angelo : still there
is something sad and cruel even in their
sports. They are violent, throwing each
other down, and then dragging the weaker
along the pavement, and spattering them
with mud; their most peaceful relaxations
1
are tinged with a mixture of brutal hu-
mour and ferocious passion ; they play
for a sou with the gloomy energy and
greedy interest of a gamester, risking on a
VOL. 1.
I.


170
LA DETENTION.
fatal card the fortunes of his family and
the repose of his own life. Every few
minutes the court re-echoes with the most
frightful execrations. The keeper, who
walks about in the erowd carrying a whip
made of bull's hide, is treated with very
little attention by them. His whip falls
only on the more obstinate of the gamblers,
and those who conquer in the struggles.
It is in this court that they receive their
provisions. Whatever be the severity of
the weather, they go down there with
naked feet or wooden shoes, and very
thinly clad. All administrations we know
are notorious for their economy, but the
managers of this prison carry their fruga-
lity to a vicious extent. I am told that
'these poor creatures are sometimes in a
state of want which excites the liveliest com-


LA DETENTION.
171
passion : for there is something vivacious
and graceful in childhood which is incon-
sistent with the notion of depravity, and
inspires a touching interest in its favour.
The course which is adopted in regard to
the education of these children is very
irrational. They have a master who follows
the ancient method of instruction, and
whose labours are almost always unpro-
fitable. Their principal instruction is li-
mited to church-music: every Thursday
an hour is set apart for practice. In the
days of Charlemagne this would have been
something ; but in our times humanity is
bound to bestow on these unhappy beings
a more judicious civil and religious edu-
cation. Under such regulations these
children cannot contract any other than
vicious propensities. They abandon them-
1 2


172
LA DETENTION.
selves gladly and prematurely to those con-
suming passions, which are the scourge
of society. Many among them languish
and die about the age of fourteen ; those
who survive, and are not still kept there
through any motives of precaution, receive
their liberty when they have completed
their sixteenth year. They are then flung
back into the bosom of society, without
haring the slightest notion of their new
duties, and they soon fall into the guiltiest
It is about three months since
two of them were liberated : a fortnight
afterwards they were again sent to another
prison for a burglary, and sentenced to be
ironed.
These children have the opportunity of
seeing the Duke de Montmorency* five
excesses.
At that time the Minister to whom the superintendance
of the prisons belonged.


LA DETENTION.
173
a
or six times every year. The visit of this
personage is always a great blessing to them.
They are informed of his visit beforehand,
and with great diligence get together their
old sabots, wash their hands and faces, and
put on whatever linen and clothes they may
have, and appear before him in a tole-
rably. decent state. The Duke sees them,
talks for a few minutes with the overseers,
believes that every day is like that of his
visit, and retires perfectly satisfied with the
progress which these poor creatures have
made in the Gregorian chaunt !
Were I the minister to whose superin-
tendance the public prisoners were con-
signed, I would pursue a very different
course. In the first place, I should require
that the children be fed as became their age,
at which nature needs great strength for
1 3


174
LA DETENTION.
!
its gradual and healthy development. At
present, during five days of the week they
eat nothing but bread; it is only on Thurs-
day and Sunday that they receive a little
greasy soup and boiled meat. That which
is now the exception, should, in my method,
be the general rule. In the season they
should have a certain quantity of ripe fruit :
it is infinitely cruel to deprive children of
those fruits which they love so passionately,
and which no doubt do them so much
good. They should be always decently
clothed, and I would give them shoes of
leather instead of wood : a man or a child
covered with rags is not likely to feel
much respect for himself. In place of
teaching them church-music, which is of
very little use in common life, I would set
apart for them a place for a school of
:


LA DETENTION.
175
mutual instruction. Labour in common
excites emulation, and the regularity of
these schools lays the foundation of those
habits of order which is so necessary to
inculcate upon children. Their master
should instruct them in reading, writing,
and a little arithmetic; the elements of
religion, and especially the moral part of
it, should form the basis of their education.
I would not have the name and nature of
Hell constantly drummed into their ears;
but they should be frequently taught the
nature of their social duties, the advan-
tages of an industrious life, and the respect
and happiness which always follow good
conduct. These principles should be put in
practice. Those who abstained from swear-
ing, passion, and ferocious sports, should
obtain distinctions and slight privileges ;
14


176
LA DETENTION.
the others should not be beaten with a
bull's hide, but they should be subjected to
contempt and privations. The incorrigible
should always be separated from the rest ;
they would be few in number, or my know-
ledge of the human heart is incorrect.
When they arrived at the age of sixteen,
and the law required their freedom, I
would take good care that they were not
abandoned to themselves. I would have a
fund in reserve to place them in some
situation, according to their industry and
their progress. I would keep my eye upon
them, and would not be satisfied until I
saw them leading a regular life, useful to
themselves and to society. To' adopt and
execute such a system, some other and
better place is needed than Sainte-Pélagie,
Such an establishment might require new


LA DETENTION.
177
construction, and would occasion some .
expense: and thus my visions, like those
of Saint-Pierre, would never be realized.
Statues and opera houses will be built at a
vast expense, and the children of Sainte-Pé-
lagie will continue to learn psalm-singing.
I have already spoken of the advanced
age of some of the prisoners; of them
there is no hope-they will die as they have
lived, utterly depraved.
Among these,, Father Tristan,* nearly
a hundred years of age, is a striking ex-
ample. Though he has outlived many
generations of thieves, he still looks back
with complacency on his past life, and
flatters himself that he shall yet achieve
something to command the attention of the
!
a
* I call him by this name, as I am told that his family
and relations are very respectable.
I 5


178
LA DETENTION.
world. His father, according to his state-
ment, lived to the age of one hundred
and twenty-five, and his mother to one hun-
dred and fifteen ; and he calculates that he
is himself entitled to live to the mean age
of one hundred and twenty years. Tristan
was a slater by trade, and up to his fortieth
year had never been accused of any dis-
graceful action. One day, as he was at
work
upon
the roof of a house in the Rue
St. Honoré, he saw through a half-opened
window a superb gold watch hanging from
a chimney-piece, and feeling a violent
desire to make himself master of the valu-
able toy, he had not moral strength enough
to resist the temptation. The chance was
in his favour : he crept secretly into the
chamber, and carried off the watch. From
that instant he was a lost man. The sale
:


LA DETENTION.
179
of the watch enabled him to live for some
time in idleness. This sort of existence
appeared very agreeable ; he lost the habits
of a labourer, the only protection for the
morality of the lower orders; he became
a frequenter of ale-houses, made acquaint-
ance with profligate characters, and in a
short time was up to all the mysteries of
the profession. Tristan had some reading,
and was not without shrewdness; he drew
up a sort of theory for his own use, and is
at the present moment ready to develope
his principles, and to explain his conduct.
“ I know,” said he to a person confined
for a political offence, from whom I re-
ceived these details, “what people think
of me; they treat me with severity, and
look at me with disgust. This would not
have been so if I had lived in Sparta,
6


180
LA DETENTION.
where my industry and intelligence would
have excited the admiration of my fellow
citizens. You think it is otherwise in
France : and so it is, with regard to petty
thieves like myself; but had I been a villain
on a larger scale, it would have been a
different thing. Had I ruined at a single
blow hundreds of families, had I secured
a fortune of millions by putting it in foreign
funds, or entering it in my wife's name,
instead of being here I should have been
driving my carriage, bearding my, credi-
tors, giving balls, and contracting loans ;
the counsellors of the state would speak to
me with respect, and ministers themselves
stretch out a friendly hand; I should have
my house and table crowded with friends,
who would extol my prosperity to the third
heavens.


LA DETENTION.
181
“ When I got out of conceit with my
trade of slater, where I ran a constant
risk of breaking my arms and legs, I sat
down to look about me, and saw nothing
but rogues and dupes. As I had no wish
to be a dupe, I became a rogue-of a petty
order, it is true, because I had neither the
knowledge nor the funds necessary to esta -
blish agencies, and to catch the turns of
the market, or to speculate with the pub-
lic fortune, and escape from peril at the
proper moment. I could not swim in the
open sea, and was forced to fish in troubled
waters; and as I could not be a plunderer
on a larger scale, I became a thief in
detail.
“ I took a fancy one day to turn honest
man. I was then pretty nearly seventy
years of age, and had just passed six of


182
LA DETENTION.
them in prison. Tristan, said I to myself,
take warning by your last lesson; you see
that your course is a very rough one;
choose another, and perhaps you may find
it a smooth one. I was plunged in this
reverie, when I was met by an old com-
rade, who had some how or other become
a confidential valet to a newly created
prince,
« Ah,' said he, I have fallen in with
you very opportunely; step a little this
way, and I will tell you something worth
listening to. I have just seen on my mas-
ter's table a large pocket-book full of bank
notes, and close by it a pile of napoleons.
What do you say to that?' I answered,
that the notes and the gold of his master
should soon tumble into my pockets, and
that we would divide them like honest


LA DETENTION
183
fellows, provided he would give me the
necessary information. I asked him if there
were any sort of repairs going on about
the roof of the hotel. He told me that
there was something to be done to his mas-
ter's country house, and that the architect
was to be there the next day to examine
the plan, and commence the execution of
it. That will do finely,' I answered, and
it will be hard indeed if I cannot manage
the business. I told him to leave me, in
order that we might not be seen together,
and to remember to be at the door, in order
to assist me if necessary. This I thought
was a famous opportunity for turning
honest man ; with so many notes, and so
much gold, nothing would prevent me
from quitting business and living quietly.
I was tired of always quarrelling with
а


184
LA DETENTION.
6
the laws, and it was fit we should at last
be good friends. My plan had been well
digested. The next day I dressed myself
up as an architect; in black, with a white
cravat, modest looks, and a rule in my
hand, went to the house and asked for the
prince. My comrade said, “Ah! Mr. Ar-
chitect, are you come ? my master is wait-
ing for you.'
“ I was shown into a room, where his
highness was talking with some person of
distinction. • What is your business ?” he
asked. The architect,'I answered, who
was to have been here to-day is prevented
from coming, and he has sent me to
I understand-' he replied; go into that
cabinet and wait for me.' I entered, and
in the twinkling of an eye my business was
done. It required all my dexterity, for he
6


LA DETENTION.
-185
}
was close at my heels. The plan was spread
out on the table; he shewed it to me, and
pointed out in detail all the alterations he
wished to have made. I sat on thorns,
expecting every minute to see the real
architect come in. At last a new visitor
was announced, when the prince gave me
the plan and dismissed me. Quite at ease
as to the event, I descended the staircase.
Some of the rooms were open, and on a
chair in one of them I saw a black velvet
spencer : recollecting that my grand-niece
had that morning asked me to bring her a
black spencer, I seized this and put it in
my pocket; but a hussey of a servant maid
that I had not seen witnessed my appro-
priation, and cried out thieves ! thieves !'
I attempted to escape, but was laid hold


186
LA DETENTION.
of by two rascally footmen. The treasure
was found upon me: I was tried, and con-
demned for the second time to ten years'
imprisonment. Thus you see that fate
was unwilling I should become an honest
man; I must therefore make the best of
it, and submit to my destiny."
Father Tristan, however, throughout
his long and profligate life, has never been
sentenced to any disgraceful . corporal
punishment. He has never committed a
burglary, or any of those crimes which
are punished with the galleys. When he
is asked how he has contrived to escape so
well, he answers, “I never rob except
with the penal code in my hand.”
It is commonly reported in the prison
that old Tristan has between five and six


LA DETENTION.
187
thousand francs of income; his passion
for larceny however is so deeply rooted,
that he is wholly unable to resist tempta-
tion, and will end his days in Poissy or
Sainte-Pélagie.
A. J.


No. XII.- May 1, 1823.
THE RED GALLERY.
.. Les cours opprimés ne sont jamais soumis.
VOLTAIRE.
It was necessary to invent a name for
those actions which Governments resolved
to punish, but which did not come within
the operation of any ancient law. Thus
it is that we call political offences certain
passages or phrases, or even words of a
writing, in which a jury, the judges of
intention, may see, or believe it sees, a
censure by allusion, of the acts of adminis-
tration generally, or of any particular
minister. The imputed tendency of any


THE RED GALLERY.
189
writing towards doctrines which Govern-
ment does not hold, or has ceased to hold
any longer, is also regarded as a political
libel, as well as all those remarks and
expressions which, had they been spoken
instead of being written, could not have
been denounced as seditious, without the
grossest absurdity. For the utter repres-
sion of these vague offences, which are
offences only according to circumstances,
a law has been passed, investing the tribu-
nals with the right of deciding on the
criminality of such writings, and of visiting
the authors with a punishment hitherto
appropriated to thieves and vagabonds.
When it was 'debated, during the last
year, whether this law should be added to
that collection of twenty-five or thirty
thousand statutes by which we
are go-


190
THE RED GALLERY.
verned, together with about twenty-four
folio volumes of royal ordinances, which
are resorted to in case of need, the disad-
vantages and injustice of the proposition
were clearly displayed.
Those indefatigable defenders of the na-
tional rights, Messrs. B. Constant, Foy,
Manuel, and Girardin, contended that, at
least some explanation was necessary as
to the nature of the imprisonment with
which the authors of political libels were
menaced, and that the Chamber of Deputies
ought not to associate them with those
wretched beings—the refuse of society, with
whom the prisons were thronged. The mi-
nister himself pretended that such a suppo-
sition was an insult : he went so far as to
think that even a separate quarter of a
common prison would not be a sufficient


THE RED GALLERY.
191
distinction; and it was nearly decided that
1
a new place of confinement (which was
pointed out by name) should be assigned to
this class of political offenders; and, until
the necessary arrangements might be made,
the red gallery of Sainte-Pélagie was to be
exclusively appropriated to them. We have
been furnished with the means of ascertain-
ing the precise manner in which these
parliamentary promises have been dis-
charged, as will be evident from the fol-
lowing description.
The red gallery is composed of twenty-
three small cells (I will not call them
dungeons); all of which are occupied, and
some of them by two persons; and yet
there are not, at this moment, in this gal-
lery, more than thirteen prisoners for po-
litical offences. It will be concluded that
.


192
THE RED GALLERY.
offenders of another class have been in
troduced, and that those of the first order
have the exclusive enjoyment of the eight
feet square cells. The first part of the
conclusion is true; the last is not.
At six o'clock in the morning I hear the
bolts withdrawn, and can then walk out
into the gallery. All the doors are opened
in succession, and I sometimes amuse
myself with observing the morning details
of the prisoners, less sumptuous, no doubt,
but perhaps more gay than those oft he
Tuileries. The old milk-woman arrives,
and every one is in haste to fill, with milk
clarified by the water from the Seine, a
little earthen jug not quite so beautiful as
those from the fabrique à Sèvres. Little
chafing-dishes are lighted on all sides; the
milk and coffee begin to simmer : some of


THE RED GALLERY.
193
the prisoners take breakfast; others, with
pipes in their mouths, stride through the gal-
lery with a gloomy or dreaming air; some
swear, others sing, and the air which they
hum generally indicates the feeling that en-
grosses
them. If this observation be true,
to say that the patriotic songs of our dis-
tinguished Béranger are almost the only
ones I have heard during my residence in
Sainte-Pélagie, is enough to make known
the characters and opinions of my compa-
nions in misfortune. Some of these, how-
ever, are distinguished by such noble traits,
and such estimable qualities, that I cannot
deny myself the pleasure of tracing their
portraits whilst I have the originals under
my eyes. But let us first fling a glance or
two over their habitations. I said that
each of the apartments was too small to
VOL. I.
K


194
THE RED GALLERY.
admit of a single prisoner being confined
there, without injury to his health in such
seasons when the window cannot be kept
open; how much more unwholesome and
disagreeable must it be when a second
bed is introduced, and a man is, in the
language of the prison, doubled! Nothing
can be more hideous than the appearance
of these cells in their primitive state :
four bare, dirty walls, with a door covered
with locks and enormous bolts; lighted by
a small square window, whose thick bars
form a kind of iron curtain, which in-
tercepts part of the daylight; the furni-
ture (unless by special permission, and at
your own expense, you procure something
better) consists of a turn-up bed, techni-
called' a pistol, a straw mattrass, a bad
coverlet, and a bucket, whose uses I can only


THE RED GALLERY.
195
conjecture. Such is the appearance of the
greater part of the cells, although some
of them present an aspect less repulsive, in
proportion to the industry and wealth of
their occupants. As a veracious historian,
I am bound to state that one of these apart-
ments is very unlike the rest of the gallery:
it is that which is occupied by Lieutenant
de B- If we could forget the anti-
chamber which leads to it, we might ima-
gine ourselves in a boudoir of the Chaussée-
d'Antin. As soon as you enter, the door is
concealed from your sight by a fashionable
screen. A bed in the shape of a couch, and
ornamented with as much taste as elegance,
occupies the bottom of the room, which is
covered with muslin-paper, bordered with
a garland of roses. A superb piano stands
opposite the bed. Several pictures, and
K 2


196
THE RED GALLERY.
portraits of charming females (the origi-
nal of one of which I have seen wandering
in the gloomy gallery) are multiplied in
the mirrors which cover the pannels of
the room, and give it a larger look. The
windows (there are in this room two) are
hung with curtains of purple silk, and the
stalks of flowers which are placed along
the bars serve to relieve the eye from
every thing which could remind you of a
prison. It might at first be supposed that
this luxury, so foreign to the sumptuary
laws that prevail in the red gallery, was
the result of some exclusive privilege : but
I am anxious to rescue the keeper from any
suspicion which compromises his impar-
tiality, and I assure my readers that Lieu-
tenant de B-, though an inhabitant
of the red gallery, is not confined there on
>


THE RBD GALLERY.
197
the application of the King's advocate, but
simply at the instance of his creditors.
In the next chapter I will state the cir-
cumstances which have occasioned his
being placed in a part of the building
distinct from the other debtors.
E. J.
3


No. XIII.—May 2, 1823.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
Estetiam ubi profectò damnum præstet facere quam lucrum.
PLAUTUS.
A PRISON is in one respect like a voyage
on board ship : in a single month of forced
cohabitation we become more thoroughly
acquainted with the characters of our
comrades in misfortune or travel, than we
should have been from ten years' intimacy
under the ordinary relations of life. People
generally love to speak of themselves, as
being the subject they best understand;
and when they can find a pretext so na-


BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
199
tural as that of demonstrating the injustice
of their treatment, they readily yield to a
temptation which is every day augmented
and renewed. Whoever sets about to
collect this sort of confidence, would run
the risk of having nothing to write but
panegyrics, unless he paid some attention
to the private comments which some other
more impartial tongue is generally prompt
to furnish. I have had this double ad.
vantage. The persons I am about to de-
scribe are as yet only at the entrance of their
career. I judge them only from their first
steps: but I dare to assert that their after-
life will never disappoint the high expec-
tations which their outset has excited. I
shall begin with Mons. Magallon, whose
misfortunes have entitled him to a place
in the biographical notices.
K4


200
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
Dominique Magallon was born at Bag-
nols. He was educated at the different
lyceums of Nimes, Grenoble, Toulouse,
and dix, in all of which he left behind
him the reputation of a youth of amiable
manners and a superior mind. United by
friendship with Mons. Augier, an advocate
at Valence, they conceived the project of
founding an academy of the poets of the
South of France, under the name of the
Society of Troubadours of Vaucluse."
Government approved of the association,
and in the early numbers of their produc-
tions, published by M. Magallon, amongst
much agreeable verse there were some
pieces full of energy and spirit, which
announced that ardent love of country and
liberty in the authors (among whom was
Mons. Magallon), which they have since


BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
201
more abundantly displayed. 66 The Trou-
badours are now dissolved. Most of the
members have quitted their poetical coun-
try; and some of them, in the bloom of
youth, have enjoyed the honours of that
persecution, which the hatreds of power
generally reserve for consummate talents.
Mons. Magallon, whose character unites
all the social and domestic virtues, has
given proofs of the most distinguished
poetical powers. His manner is not unlike
that of Parny. Gifted with genuine'sen-
sibility, and a lively imagination, his soul
is ever open to the inspirations of a happy
and fertile genius. Conducted to Paris by
that impatient love of glory so natural to
youth and talent, he married, and engaged
in literature as a profession. He became
editor of the Album, a literary journal,
K 5


202
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
whose success soon excited the watchful-
ness of the police. The Album, above all,
attacked with great severity that indestruc-
tible sect, which it was believed had
perished before the wrath of nations and
kings, but which strove in silence to regain
the monastic sceptre, which philosophy
had torn from its grasp. Such was, if not
the cause of Mons. Magallon's misfortunes,
at least the pretext for a treatment, the
unexampled ferocity of which cannot re-
main unpunished without attesting the
neglect of law, and the triumph of arbi-
trary power. Mons. Magallon was arrested
as principal editor and proprietor of the
Album. Mons. Alexis Dumesnil, one of the
most courageous and witty men, of a period
fertile in wit and courage, avowed himself
as the author of the articles directed against


BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
203
that mystical association in which he
thought he detected the spirit and the
principles of the followers of Loyola. He
was sentenced to an imprisonment of one
month, and Mons. Magallon to thirteen.
This is the reason why he was transferred
to Sainte-Pélagie, where he shared the
narrow cell of his young friend Mons. Bar-
ginet, of Grenoble.
oble. On our entry into the
prison we were received by this excellent
young man with great kindness, and we
ranked, amongst the few consolations that
we expected to meet here, the pleasure of
his society. The very next day, at five in
o'clock in the morning, he was torn from
the arms of his friend, and informed that
he was to be removed to the disgraceful
prison of Poissy. He summoned all his
strength, clasped his friend to his bosom,
K 6


204
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
and descended to the grates where the
gend'armes waited to take him into cus-
tody. Will any one believe that the facts
which I am about to relate took place in
France-in a country renowned for its
civilization, under a constitutional govern-
ment, in the midst of a people proud of
those laws and that freedom, of which it
boasts without cessation ? Will it be cre-
dited, that a young man of irreproachable
character and manners, punished with an
excessive severity for an offence, whose
importance he had no means of sus-
pecting, which he had aggravated by no
resistance and no murmur,—that such a
youth was chained to a convict covered
with a hideous leprosy,—that he was com-
pelled to traverse Paris on foot, and in that
condition to march seven leagues with a


BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
205
wretch, who did not once forbear from
filling the air with cries of " The galley-
slaves for ever!”-that, on arriving at Poissy,
he was clothed in the livery of guilt, con-
demned to the same labour, the same pri.
vations, in short, to the same life with
the miserable beings shut up in that sink
of vice and corruption? Yet all this is
true: it is attested by pure and indisputa-
ble witnesses, and excited a general feeling
of indignation, but the public attention
was fascinated by fêtes and shews, and
Mons. Magallon remains at Poissy.
Mons. Alexander Barginet is the friend
from whom Mons. Magallon was so cruelly
séparated. He was born at Grenoble, and
educated at the lyceum of that town. He is
now about twenty-five years of age, and he
entered
upon
the career of letters when he


206
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
a
was only fifteen years and a half old. Some
advantages gained over the Austrians, who
besieged Grenoble in 1815, inflamed the
youthful imagination of the school-boy,
and in the night after the success, he com-
posed extemporaneously, under the title
of “ The Austrians at Montmeillant,” a
little vaudeville, the performance of which
was commanded by the civil and military
authorities, and received with
port by the fellow-citizens of Barginet,
who called loudly for the author. He was
led upon the stage, where the public
lavished upon him all kinds of encourage-
ment and congratulation. From that mo-
ment Barginet devoted himself to litera-
ture, and had already commenced his
serious studies, which were interrupted by
the return from the Isle of Elba. A singu-
trans-


BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
207
>
lar circumstance happened to him, which,
as it belongs to the most marvellous event
of the age, is worth relating: it is that
young Barginet, on the road from Lamure
to Vizille, had with Napoleon a conversa-
tion of some length, in which the young
scholar gave this “man of prodigies ” (as
he has been baptized by Mons. de Fon-
tanes) such topographical information as
determined Napoleon to proceed the same
night to Grenoble. Barginet followed the
Emperor to Paris (it must not be forgotten
that he was then only sixteen years of
age); he received a brevet of admission as
a national pupil to the military school of
St. Cyr, and was even excused from pro-
viding the school appointments, a forma-
lity until then indispensable. He preferred,
however, to enter into the regiment of


208
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
Corsican Flankers, which accompanied
Napoleon from the Isle of Elba, in which
he made the terrible campaign of 1815,
and was wounded at Waterloo. Mons.
Barginet came to Paris in 1817, to resume
his course of study, and published succes-
sively several writings, all of which shew
much flexibility of talent, with great noble-
ness of heart and independence of spirit.
I will mention some of the most successful.*
The latest work published by Mons.
Barginet was entitled Histoire véritable de
Tchen-Tcheou-li. It is the history, under
* La Guerre de Trois Jours, a poem on the subject of
the disturbance in the affair of Mons. Bavoux. Généalogie
critique et littéraire des Maisons de Croï-chanel et de Croż-
d'Havré. La Nuit de Sainte-Hélène. L'Apocalypse de
1821. De la Reine d'Angleterre et de Napoléon Buonaparte,
tous deux morts d'un cancer à l'estomac. Considérations
politiques et religieuses sur l' Emancipation des Grecs.


BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
209
Chinese names, of a minister now in dis-
grace, and of the persons who belonged to
his administration. For the publication of
this allegorical satire Mons. Barginet was
sentenced to fifteen months' imprisonment,
and a fine of three thousand francs. · He
was brought to Sainte-Pélagie, where, in
the gallery of La Détention, the first five
months of his confinement passed away.
He was obliged to put on the shameful
dress of the felons, and forced to drink
fetid water, and eat the black bread which
was allowed to the prisoners. At length
he obtained the favour of being removed to
the red gallery. He is now occupied with
a collection of Traditions of Dauphiny,
which he intends to publish under the
title of The Highlanders. They are short
poems in prose, in the style of Ossian,


210
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
the subjects of which are drawn from the
traditional history of his own province,
and have been sketched out on the spot.
It seems that this new Macpherson, with
the aid of much archeological research,
and some study of the romance language,
will be able to afford an idea of the
poetry of the Allobroges and Voconces,
the ancient inhabitants of the Alps, who
(like all people in mountainous countries)
have preserved until our days some general
trace of their primitive manners. This
work is worthy of occupying the imagina-
tion and the patriotic pen of the youngest
denizen of the red gallery.
When we consider that, at the epoch in
which we live, the severities of the law
against the press are intended to check the
flight of those young persons, carried away


BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
211
by the notions of glory and independence
in the midst of which they have been
educated ;--we cannot so easily explain
the legal harshnesses, of which men of an
age and character like that of Mons.
Bonnin have been the victims.
Mons. J. B. Bonnin is not less than fifty
years of age. He was born at Paris, and
.
distinguished himself in his early studies.
He intended to pursue the medical pro-
fession, when the events of the Revolution
flung him into the career of politics, where
he made himself known by several works,*
米
​* In 1795, he published Réflexions sur Montesquieu. In
1798, Réfutation des Systèmes des Publicistes, ou Examen
des Causes de la Société et du Droit Naturel. In 1805, Ma.
nière d'étudier les Lois. In 1806, a pamphlet on the Con-
cordat and the Law organizing religious Worship. In 1807,
Principes d'Administration publique, which went through
three editions in the course of two years. His other works
are: Traité du Droit Naturel de l'Homme et des Nations;


212
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
which have assigned him an honourable
rank among publicists.
In 1821, he published his Etudes Légis-
latives, à compilation of some of his former
works, to which he affixed a new essay, on
La Nécesssité de l'Etude des Discussions
in the national assemblies of France, as
the sources of positive legislation. For
this last writing he was brought before
the tribunals, and was condemned to
thirteen months' imprisonment and three
thousand francs fine, for having attacked
religious morality, in a passage where he
had spoken of religions in themselves, and
Des Considérations, politiques et morales, sur les Constitutions ;
Histoire de la Révolution Européenne ; a Letter to Volney,
entitled Elémens naturels de la Chronologie et la Doctrine
Sociale, which appeared in 1820, and was translated into
Spanish and Portuguese by order of the Cortes, to whom
he had addressed it.


BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES,
213
had opposed to them pure and simple
morality as the basis of true policy. It
would not be easy to convince Mons. Bonnin
that the Jesuits, from the depth of their
tomb, were entirely strangers to the decree
which ruined him, and sent him to prison
for thirteen months, on account of a writing
published twenty-four years before his
condemnation ! He is a peaceable, inoffen-
sive citizen, the father of an estimable
family; a well-informed and industrious
writer, whose pen has always been guided
by conscience, reason, and probity; and
yet he is at Sainte-Pélagie !—Perhaps I
ought to be still more astonished at finding
in the same place-
Mons. Le Page. This young man was
born at Paris, and educated at the lyceum
of Versailles, where he left behind him


214
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
the reputation of being one of the best
scholars of that establishment. At eighteen
years of age he went to Spain as a sub-
altern officer, but was soon obliged to
leave the army through the feebleness of
his health. He left France with the in-
tention of going to Mons. Deslandes, his
maternal uncle, who was private secretary
to King Joseph Napoleon: when he learned
at Bayonne that his kinsman had been
massacred, not far from Hiéron, in the
arms of his wife. (I recollect that this
event formed one of the most touching
episodes in the beautiful picture of General
Lejeune). Mme. Deslandes was detained
for six months in the suite of Mina's army,
and was finally exchanged for the sister of
that officer. It is worth adverting again
to the circumstance, that Mina himself, a


BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
215
few years afterwards, was imprisoned in
the same red gallery of Sainte-Pélagie in
which the nephew of Mme. Deslandes is
at present confined. After residing four
years at Naples with one of his relatives,
who was receiver-general of the province
of Bari, Mons. Le Page returned to Paris
in 1816, and demanded, with Figaro, what
was to be done? They told him that the
press was perfectly free, provided he wrote
neither about politics, nor philosophy,
nor religion. He instantly purchased the
Courier des Spectacles, and soon found that
he had hung a mill-stone round his neck.
He was accused of having spoken, or of
having allowed others to speak of politics
by allusion, and the court condemned him
to one month, then to two, and afterwards
to six months of imprisonment. The only


216
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
literary title in which Mons. Le Page
glories is that of being the author of La
Journée du Lycéen, of which eight colleges
dispute the palm. Of all the prisoners in
Sainte-Pélagie for political offences, this
gentleman is unquestionably the one whose
case excites the greatest compassion, and
far the greatest surprise. The urbanity of
his manners, the extreme prudence of his
opinions, and the general mildness of his
character, seem to rescue him from every
sort of dispute with the police ;-how hap-
pens it, then, that he should be a prisoner
in Sainte-Pélagie? I shall not have the
same question to ask respecting
Mons. Marchand. This young man,
twenty-five years of age, rich, educated,
witty, and modest, has been sentenced to
six months' imprisonment, on account of


BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
217
letters written to the juries in the affair of
Rochelle. It is of little consequence that
he conducted himself upon his trial with
a magnanimity of which there are few
examples ; that he took upon himself all
the force of an accusation from which he
might have escaped; and that he is, in pri-
son, a model of resignation, goodness and
beneficence, of which he has shewn the most
honourable proofs. Justice had nothing to
do with all these qualities of his mind and
his heart; she had to pronounce upon a
writing which the law condemned, and of
which Mons. Marchand was known to be
the author,
With respect to M.Chaufard, a student of
medicine, aged twenty-four years, and con-
victed of having cried with all his strength
Vive Manuel ! under the windows of that
VOL. I.
L


218
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
deputy on the 3d of March 1823, I must
confess that it requires all my respect for
justice, and all the deference I pay to her
decisions, to prevent me from regarding
as a little too severe the punishment of
eight months' imprisonment inflicted on
this poor young man, for an action which
I believe in my soul and conscience to be
so much the more innocent, because I
have committed it a hundred times myself.
Indeed I always feel disposed to join,
heart and mind, with those who cry out
Vive Manuel ! Vive la Charte! Vive la
France, la gloire et la liberte !
If I add to this list of six persons another
young Manuelist,* the bookseller Lhuil-
* The name bestowed in Sainte-Pélagie upon those
young men who were imprisoned for the same offence.
There are several of them.


BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
219
lier, whose painful situation ought to excite
a deep sympathy, and three officers whose
praise is in the mouths and hearts of
every one here, I should mention all the
inhabitants of the red gallery who are
confined for political crimes. Still I do
not wish to end this brief biography
without mentioning, as I promised, one
of our most amiable fellow-sufferers, sepa-
rated by a particular measure from the
other debtors, who live in a different quar-
ter of the building.
Gustave L. de B., formerly lieutenant
of cavalry, and member of the legion of
honour, left France for America two
years after the disbanding of the army of
the Loire. On his return to Paris, he
launched out into all the luxury and dis-
L2


220
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
sipation of the gay world; his love of
pleasure led him into excessive expense,
which flung his finances into disorder, and
induced him to adopt all the projects
which dangerous friends recommended for
his relief, One advised him to engage in
speculations, by which his ruin was acce-
lerated; and another, by initiating him
into the mysteries of the exchange, opened
an abyss in which the greater part of his
fortune was speedily swallowed up. Ruin
ensued; his friends abandoned him ac-
cording to custom, and he was given up
to the wrath of his creditors. Arrested
in 1820, he was conducted to Sainte-Pé-
lagie, and a few days afterwards contrived
a scheme for escaping, which he instantly
put in practice. He had not lost every


BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
221
:
thing: one friend remained, who came
every day to console him in his confine-
ment. To him he imparted his project,
and, through the aid of a friendship the
most active and ingenious, success crowned
his undertaking
On the 13th January 1821 he escaped
from prison, in a way which would do
credit to the imagination of the most skil-
ful dramatist. He found a secure asylum
with the friend who had aided him in
recovering his freedom.
That devoted
friend redoubled his care and zeal for the
ten days that Lieutenant de B- remained
under his protection ; but this last, fearful
of abusing the generous hospitality which
he received with so much gratitude, re-
solved, for the second time, to expatriate
L 3


222
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES
himself to America. The very day fixed
for his departure he was arrested in a
café, whilst reading the public journals.
One of his former friends recognized him,
and addressed him by his name. That
name had been too often mentioned in the
journals not to be known, and it excited
the attention of one of those wretches with
whom infamy is a trade. He followed the
fugitive: and as soon as he learned the
place where the Lieutenant was to expect
his post-chaise, he ran in haste to Sainte-
Pélagie, and for the sum of two thousand
francs sold to the keeper of the prison the
secret of his prisoner's retreat, who was
again arrested as he was stepping into the
carriage, and reconducted to prison. After
a month of vigilance, as unpleasant to the
:


BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
223
keeper as to the prisoner, the latter con-
sented to reside in the red gallery, where
he now enjoys all the privileges of a pri-
soner confined for debt. A few months
after his second arrest, he made propo-
;ا
sitions to his creditors, which were ac-
cepted, and he flattered himself with the
hope of freedom. A single detainer, how-
ever, filled him with apprehension; it was
that of a young and handsome female
creditor, who thought thus to revenge
herself of the infidelity of a lover. He
addressed her in the following verses :
A la plus jolie des Créancières.
En dépit de tout mon courroux,
C'est à toi que j'écris, mon ange;
Toi qui me tiens sous les verroux
Pour me punir de cette erreur étrange
Qui me fit te signer plusieurs lettres de change,
Et garder l'anonyme au bas des billets doux.
L 4


224
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
Dans mon âme flétrie, éteinte,
Le plaisir fait place aux remords,
Et j'ai lu chacun de mes torts
Sur chaque mur de cette enceinte.
Ah! fallait-il une contrainte
Pour te donner prise de corps ?
The anger of Mlle. F- melted away
before this reparation : the next day she
came to Sainte-Pélagie, and cancelled the
detainer,--but on what conditions I have
never heard. The negociations with the
other creditors were less fortunate, and he
then resolved to remain in prison until he
had satisfied the provisions of the law,
which makes a confinement of five years
equivalent to the full payment of all his
debts. Lieutenant de B— has already been
for two years a tenant of the red gallery,
dividing his time between music, litera-
ture, and the society of the loveliest of
creditors.


BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
225
1
It was necessary that I should thus make
known individually each of my companions
in captivity, to be warranted in saying that
it is rare at present in Paris to assemble, in
the same salon, so many persons remarkable
for their wit, amiable qualities, and excel-
lent society. Whatever certainty I have
acquired from the example of Mons. Ma-
gallon of the hateful treatment to which
we are exposed, the example of Mons.
Franchet ought to fill us with hopes of a
better future.
Il connut le malheur et doit y compatir.
He was arrested by an order of the Council
of State in 1811, and conducted to Sainte-
Pélagie, where he passed three years in
the red gallery. True, he was only accused
of a secret correspondence with the enemy,
a
L 5


226
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
but then that passed for a political offence
of the gravest cast, and one trembles to
think, that, under the stormy govern-
ment of that period, so simple an act
should have been looked upon as a crime
against the state. Fortunately Mons. Fran-
chet was the victim of a simple adminis-
trative measure, and the director of the
police did not aggravate his punishment;
at least I never heard that he was con-
fined in la détention, that they refused
him the pistole,—that they put him into
the dress of a convict,-nor even that he
was compelled to labour eight hours every
day in picking wool or cotton. Be this as
it may, Mons. Franchet, imprisoned by
order of Napoleon, was set at liberty by
virtue of an order signed “ Alexander,


BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
227
Emperor of all the Russias.” - Let the
poor prisoners for political offences con-
sole themselves ;-Mons. Franchet is di-
rector-general of police !
E. J.
L 6


No. XIV.-May 3, 1823.
THE VISIT OF OUR ADVOCATE.
We have just been visited by our advo-
cate, Mons. Dupin. We embraced with
cordiality this eloquent defender of so
many illustrious victims of our political
dissensions. He regretted having failed in
our affair; but observing that we were not
much disposed to lament our case, he
abandoned the subject, and said, looking
around him, “ This is your salon de com-
pagnie. The furniture indeed is not very
sumptuous, and the ladies who visit you will


VISIT OF OUR ADVOCATE.
229
find these seats rather hard. But do you
know that it is not very easy to get here
for all that? There are almost as many
formalities required in order to see a pri-
soner, as to go to prison one's-self.”
“I know it well. The bolts of Sainte-
Pélagie would have remained immoveable,
if you had not been provided with a cer-
tificate signed Cleau, (a clerk of the
'
police), which accords to you the liberty of
passing the grate. You will find the de-
scription of your person carefully written
down in it,—eyes bright and lively,-nose
large,--mouth small,—and so on.”
Exactly so; but what surprised me
was, that instead of giving me a single
permission to visit you both, they obliged
me to take two. This double trouble ap-
>


230
THE VISIT OF
peared to me as very useless ; I made the
5
remark to Mons. Cleau, the agent, who
paid no attention to it, and contented him-
self with a smile, whilst he demanded of
me seventy centimes for the stamp.”
“ You perceive that it was for the pur-
pose of getting your fourteen sous instead
of seven, that they obliged you to take
double admission. Even the relatives of
the prisoners are subjected to this tax. A
mother cannot come here to mourn with
her son; a wife cannot embrace her hus-
band, without the permission of Mons.
Cleau, and having paid his demand. The
revenue speculates on the tenderness of the
affection and friendship; its greedy drain
is always in operation. But you who are
the oracle of our bar, -you who penetrate


OUR ADVOCATE.
231
without losing your way into the labyrinth
of our laws,—tell me, I beg of you, whe-
ther this new sort of tax is legal ?”
“ I am sure of the contrary, and these
are my reasons. The law relating to
stamps says that they shall be affixed to
all papers intended for civil and judicial
purposes, and to all writings capable of
being produced in evidence in a court of
justice; the stamp act, therefore, cannot
legally be applied to papers used in any
other way. So true is this, that a special
law was required to extend it to lottery
tickets.”
“ Now only reflect for a moment on this
manifest abuse of authority ;-a fine ille-
gally imposed, and what a fine! To sell
the rights of nature! to sell a child the


232
THE VISIT OF
privilege of consoling his unhappy father!
But the fact is that this tax, so freely im-
posed by the police, brings in a consi-
derable revenue.”
“ I have no doubt of it. In quitting
Mons. Cleau, and crossing the lobby in
front of his desk, I saw that it was filled
with men and women covered with the
rags of poverty. They came to deposit
in the hands of the clerk of the police, the
seven sous, which would have purchased
their bread for the day. If we recollect
the crowd of prisoners who populate the
prisons of Paris, and the still greater
number of visitors, above all, since the law
relating to the liberty of the press, it will
be perfectly clear that the revenue, from
the taxed certificates of admission, ought


OUR ADVOCATE.
233
>
to bring in a large sum. I look upon this
receipt as an abuse, and I had a good mind
to say so to Mons. Cleau. But, frankly,
it is worth more
to write over your
door office for stamps, than office for the
prisons.”
6 Mons. Cleau can do nothing : he fills
his subordinate office with integrity, and
even with politeness. The responsibility
falls upon those who, without the sanction
of legislative authority, have arbitrarily
extended the operation of this stamp duty.
But I speak of responsibility as if this
word were not, at the present day, desti-
tute of signification. Perhaps it will one
day or other acquire a meaning. In the
mean time the abuse continues, and you
cannot visit a prisoner without paying seven
sous to Mons. Cleau.”


234
THE VISIT OF
My conversation with Mons. Dupin had
gone thus far, when my fellow-prisoner
began to speak. 66 We shall never end, if
you will persist in talking about abuses.
Let us leave Mons. Dupin to satisfy his
curiosity. He seems to regard with at-
tention some of the debtors who are at
this moment in the court, or, if
you
like
the sound better, in our garden.”
6 What, is that your garden ?”
“ Yes; the enjoyment of it is divided.
Politics are to be found there from six
in the morning till noon; then debt gets
possession of it, and does not quit it until
four o'clock : from that time until seven,
politics may build castles there in full
quiet.”
“ Tell me, I pray you, who is that old
gentleman with white hair, a remarkable


OUR ADVOCATE.
235
a
cause
physiognomy, and wearing a blue riding
coat? I observe that he walks about alone,
with a sufficiently sad air.”
“ It is the Marquis de la Roche-Aymon,
whose trial has made considerable noise
in society.
He is a lieutenant, who,
in the most stormy periods, served the
royal
with
a complete devo-
tion. His son is a peer of France, his
relatives hold important situations about
the court, and he himself is at Sainte-
Pélagie.”
66 I feel for the old man : his appearance
is venerable and resigned."
“ He inspires sympathy in all who be-
hold him. But there are no courtiers who
visit here. The Marquis de la Roche-
Aymon would not have been in Sainte-


236
THE VISIT OF
Pélagie if he had belonged to a wealthy
plebeian family."
“ Are the debtors subject to the same
measures of precaution as the other pri-
soners ?”
same.
66 Their treatment is very nearly the
They have a more extended per-
mission to receive in their cells indiscri-
minately all who visit them. But they are
so much the more compulsorily watched,
as the keeper of the prison is responsible
to the creditors for the amount of the debts
of any one who effects his escape, and this
responsibility is far more serious than that
of ministers."
“ I perceive amongst them several per-
sons, who might be taken, from their man-
ners and dress, for ordinary laborers.”


OUR ADVOCATE.
237
66 You are not mistaken.
There are
some who are detained for only a hundred
and fifty or two hundred francs. Personal
imprisonment had no other object than
the security of commerce, and out of these
two hundred prisoners there are not pro-
bably more than ten tradesmen. These
people are too adroit to allow themselves
to be arrested; they know too well how
to manage their creditors. The severity
of the laws generally falls on those only
who are ignorant of business, and who
have had the imprudence to accept or draw
bills of exchange. This was the case of
the Marquis of Montchenu.”
“ Who?--the Marquis of Montchenu,
commissary on the part of the French Go-
vernment at Saint Helena ?”


238
THE VISIT OF
“ The very same.
His creditors paid no
greater respect to him on account of his
voyage, and they most inhumanly locked
him up in this prison. I ought to add, for
the honour of the peerage, that he re-
mained in prison only thirty-six hours. If
I were not afraid of giving you a bad
idea of my own character, I would say, I
greatly regretted that he had left the
prison when I entered it. I should not
have been displeased to see what sort of
figure he, who knew so well the nature of
captivity, made in confinement himself.”
“ His captive suffered much from his
imprisonment. How do you bear your
restraints ?"
“ Individually we should be wrong to
complain. We owe it to the keeper of


OUR ADVOCATE.
239
Sainte-Pélagie to say, that he has done
nothing to aggravate the evils of our situa-
tion. It is even probable that the abuses
which we have censured in the govern-
ment of the prison, will be taken into con-
sideration by authority,
I presume this
from a conversation which I had with the
Inspector General. It would not be easy
to display greater humanity and more love
of justice. But if the objections come from
a higher quarter, all attempts at improve-
ment will fall to the ground.”
Pray what does that turnkey want who
is coming this way?”
“ He comes to tell us that the hours set
apart for receiving our friends have already
expired. We will go as far as the grate
with you. You must excuse our incivility
>
CC


240
VISIT OF OUR ADVOCATE.
>
for not going farther. Stoop, if you please,
or you cannot go out through that door.”
“ Is it not necessary sometimes to stoop
still lower, in order not to come in?”
A. J.


No. XV.- May 4, 1823.
PHILOSOPHICAL SPECULATIONS.
Is it not indisputable that our bodies
cannot be in more than one place at the
same time?
Of what importance is it,
then, whether this place be selected by
the caprice of the individual himself, or
by that of a few persons in long black
gowns and black caps ? The important
point is, wherever we may find ourselves,
to be on good terms with our own con-
sciences.
Imprisonment, when stript of those phy-
.
VOL. I.
M


242
PHILOSOPHICAL SPECULATIONS,
sical sufferings of all sorts with which the
dispensers of our Draconian code have so
copiously embellished it, is nothing more
than the necessity of continuing in the
same place so long as it may please those
who send us there. This constraint is a
trifle to him who lives chiefly in medita-
tion. Is it not in solitude that the soul
learns the nature and extent of all its
faculties ? that the mind is forced in every
sense to fall back upon its own powers,
questioning, examining, investigating itself,
and, as Montaigne has it, feeling its own
pulse? Let authors, therefore, be over-
whelmed with lettres de cachet and gaols.
Talents would perish for want of storms,
as vessels are useless in a dead calm.
What, after all, is talent, or genius itself?


PHILOSOPHICAL SPECULATIONS.
243
-The power of turning to the advantage
of others the pleasures derived from its
studies, its impressions, and its recollec-
tions. How can we gain this complete
mastery over our moral being, unless we
concentre all our faculties in ourselves ?
unless we create, if I may use such an ex-
pression, a void around us? All these
advantages are to be found in a prison. It
is pretty generally agreed that the tribunals
do not spare men of letters : it may be
asserted, therefore, that their severity tends
to multiply men of genius and talent
throughout France. I should not be at all
surprised, however, if these last should
consider themselves absolved from every
thing like gratitude.
Reputation is a kind of existence in
a
M 2


244
PHILOSOPHICAL SPECULATIONS.
places where we are not. A prison, aber
sence, or death, always add something to
the best or worst reputation.
There are persons whose nature is so
indulgent, that nothing but the grossest
injustice can force them to a sentiment of
hatred. Until that point, they are satisfied
with feeling contempt.
If the opportunities of making men
miserable are very frequent with men in
power, it must be admitted that the rulers
of our times have not suffered any of them
to escape.
Sir William Jones speaks of a country
on the banks of the Indus, where, every
ten years, the judgments of the courts are
revised by a supreme council. Those who
have been condemned may appear there as


PHILOSOPHICAL SPECULATIONS,
245
the accusers of their former judges; and
if they succeed in proving their own inno-
cence, the magistrates are, in their turn,
obliged to undergo the same punishment
they may have pronounced. Sir William
observes, that the supreme tribunal is never
convoked ; a circumstance, he adds, which
would do infinite honour to the judges of
that country, if there were any example
of a prisoner having survived his sentence
for ten years.
Which philosopher is it who says, that a
police spy is a prudent and timid man,
who has carefully calculated all the incon-
veniences of the profession of a thief, and
all the dangers of the trade of an assassin ?
A curious book might be written to point
out by what scale of baseness, injustice,
M 3


246
PHILOSOPHICAL SPECULATIONS.
and impudence, the most common-place,
the most contemptible, and the most
wicked of men, have sometimes contrived
to procure the title of Your Excellency.
The French Flora is enriched with a
foreign plant, which flowers once only
every thirty years. This plant would
resemble liberty, if the last had, like the
other, already flourished on our soil.
It is the advantage and disadvantage of
a prison, that every thing in it is marked
and prominent, as in the depth of silence
the lightest sounds are audible.
We never write more energetically about
freedom than when we are in a prison. Mil-
ton wrote his account of Eden in restraint;
Apollo pronounced his oracles in the cavern
of Delos.


PHILOSOPHICAL SPECULATIONS,
247
It is by a succession of light echoes that
the most petty injustice is made public ;-
it increases in size every moment, and
ends by exciting as much commotion as the
most enormous cruelty.
Vast space is unnecessary to happiness.
In all things one feels the want of seeing
or feeling a limit. For this reason Milton
has imagnied Paradise to be of trifling size,
and Hell to be immeasurable in vastness.
I will end these reflections, which have no
other connecting link than the place which
has suggested them, by an anecdote which
the painful recollection of the two brothers
Faucher* recals to my mind. If the strong
* It was for some passages in the article on these young
men in the Biographie Nouvelle that Mr. Jouy was imprisoned.
M 4


248
PHILOSOPHICAL SPECULATIONS,
personal resemblance between brothers has
frequently given rise to fatal mistakes,
it has likewise afforded examples of the
most heroic devotion. The two brothers
Montain, both of them distinguished phy-
sicians, practised their art at Lyons, where
they acquired the esteem and friendship of
their fellow citizens when, in the year
1815, all who had the spirit of Frenchmen
in that city, united to oppose a national
defence to the torrent of armed foes. Doc-
tor Montain, senior, was compromised in a
charge of conspiracy, and sentenced to five
years' imprisonment. He had already
passed more than a year in one of the un-
healthy prisons of Lyons, and contracted
such painful diseases, as obtained for him
the permission of being transferred to


PHILOSOPHICAL SPECULATIONS.
249
Paris, and of passing in Sainte-Pélagie the
remainder of his sentence. On quitting the
dungeons of Lyons, he had so completely
lost the use of his limbs, as to be unable to
move except with the aid of crutches.
His brother accompanied him on his jour-
ney, which protracted it considerably, as
the gendarmerie were not able to travel
more than three or four leagues a day.
The air and exercise were, however, of
the greatest service to the invalid. On
their arrival at Paris, Doctor Montain was
locked up in Sainte-Pélagie; the brothers
tenderly embraced each other, and then
separated. A week had passed away when
the prisoner received a letter, informing
him that his brother was safe in one of the
M 5


250
PHILOSOPHICAL SPECULATIONS,
towns of Belgium. He instantly demanded
to be brought before the Attorney General;
who visited him in prison. He, Doctor
Montain, complained that he was kept
in confinement illegally and arbitrarily,
since it was his brother, and not himself,
who had been condemned at Lyons. An
inquiry was immediately instituted, and it
appeared that the younger brother had
found the means, during the journey, to
substitute himself for the elder, and had
been imprisoned in Sainte-Pélagie in the
place of him who had been condemned by
the decree. There was no law in the Cri-
minal Code which applied to this generous
action, and the two brothers were thus
restored to liberty.


PHILOSOPHICAL SPECULATIONS.
251
The memoirs of Sainte-Pélagie would
form a very singular work-I will think of
it myself.
E. J.
M 6


No. XVI.-May 5, 1823.
VISITS.
It was only four o'clock in the morning,
and I had slept very nearly as ill as if I had
been in a palace; without motion, myelbow
resting on the little unpainted wooden
table, which I could scarcely keep steady
on its unequal legs, and my face exposed
in profile to the first rays of the rising sun,
if
my mouth had uttered any harmonious
sounds, they might have taken me for the
statue of Memnon, but instead of singing,
I was busy philosophizing. Before me lay


VISITS.
253
a five-franc piece, which represented the
bust of his Majesty, to which I ventured very
familiarly to address the following words.
“ Sire, will you condescend to inform
me if you are much freer than I am? To
Your Majesty, who knows Horace by heart,
I need not recall these lines of the poet :
Aliena negotia centum
Per caput, &c. &c.
What business! what duties! what en-
nui ! you must be over head and ears (I
beg a thousand pardons for this vulgar
expression, but you know better than any
person that there is no other way of trans-
lating per caput et circa saliunt latus). For
me, who am neither perplexed with a
Spanish war, nor the ministers of France
and England, nor the ultras, nor the jesuits,


254
VISITS.
I think myself, and I really am, infinitely
more free than a king, whose mind, vast
as it is profound, is obliged to struggle
through so many affairs at once, to reconcile
so many things that are irreconcileable, to
separate so many things that are insepa-
rable, and to conduct this most complicated
machine of government without breaking
any of its springs. If it appear paradoxical
to maintain that I, in a prison, am more
free than your Majesty on a throne, it is at
least certain that I am far more happy."
Etre heureux comme un roi, dit le peuple hébété;
Pauvres fous! un bonheur que fait la Majesté ?
I had soared too far into the higher
regions of philosophy to stop myself in the
career. The greater part of mankind, I
said to myself, have no peculiar motions of


VISITS.
255
1
their own : they are influenced in all ways
by the breath of opinion, of favour, or of
disgrace. Individual will is counted for
nothing, in the evolutions which these
outward impulses produce. Imagine forty
or fifty thousand poor wretches compelled
to wander abroad when they prefer re-
maining at home : marching, encamping,
and decamping without cessation; taking
towns garrisoned or defenceless; cannons
open or spiked :—these people are as much
in prison as I am, for a prison is only a
place where you are compelled to remain
in spite of yourself, and do whatever you
are unwilling to do : with this difference in
my favour, that I sometimes think, and
these brave fellows never do. Solitude
has been too inuch calumniated, and I am


256
VISITS.
frequently of Scipio's opinion : Nunquàm
minùs solus quàm cùm solus, said that
excellent man, who knew how to be at the
same time a hero and an orator; a modest
man, and a man of genius. What are the
great means of thinking ?-Time, patience,
and meditation. Where can you find any
more time than in a prison? where is the
patience more effectually tried ? where can
we better fit ourselves to habits of medita-
tion? It is in prison, according to the
Scriptures, that we learn to employ the
leisure of every moment; I will further
add, that it is in prison that we learn to
know our species.
I had just ended this last phrase, when
the turnkey came to inform me that I was
wanted in the salon. This interruption


VISITS.
257
changed the whole course of my ideas,
and I foresaw that, after having begun the
present chapter with reflections on soli-
tude, I should end it by observations on
visits.
*
After having passed three hours below
stairs, I return to myself. I believe I have
already said, that the place so emphatically
called the salon at Sainte-Pélagie is a
sort of parlour, about five feet beneath the
soil of a court planted with stunted trees;
which court is, in its turn, called a garden.
Four are and dirty walls, lighted by a
few vent-holes, form a kind of gallery,
whose only furniture consists of some
worm-eaten benches. There, every day in
the week, except Thursdays and Sundays,


258
VISITS.
we hold our cour-plénière. If any one
quarrels with this phrase for its vanity, we
could justify it by publishing the list of
the assiduous courtiers of our captivity,
among whom would be found not only
warriors who have filled Europe with their
glory, great orators whose accents are
still echoed from the tribunes, noble peers,
illustrious strangers, physicians, men of
letters, celebrated artists, and beautiful
women; but likewise there would be seen,
seated on the same benches, very honest
people, artizans, tradesmen, &c. to whom
we owe nothing, but who love us suffi-
ciently well to waste their useful time in
coming to pay us their visits. I rarely go
to the Academy, of which I have, never-
theless, the honour to be a member, and


VISITS.
259
I have no right to expect that my thirty-
nine immortal brethren should come to
abase their academic brows beneath the
vaults of my prison : six of them, how-
ever, have paid me this personal proof
of their esteem and friendship, and have
come here to assure themselves, by their
own eyes, that I have not been sent to
Poissy chained to a galley-slave. And
wherefore not? Is it because I belong to
the Academy? Have they not sent to that
prison of malefactors M. Magallon, and
other men of letters, who will, in their
turn, be members of the Academy when
we shall be no more? Perhaps it is to
shew that the illustrious society to which
I belong is instituted, not only to honour
Jetters, but also to protect those who cul-
>


260
VISITS.
tivate them ; and that the persecutions of
which those last are the subjects, ought
not to remain so completely unknown to
them. If the Academy flatters itself that
its members are at all freed from the
treatment which young Magallon expe-
rienced, I would send them in a body to
consult that learned advocate, who said a
few days ago, with that intemperance of
manner which is the peculiar character
of his eloquence: “ The law is equal for
all; it makes no distinction between what
are now-a-days called political offences,
and those which have in all times been con-
sidered as infamous crimes, and therefore
the same punishment ought to be inflicted
on the same transgressions."
But, to quit the Academy, we will say


VISITS.
261
say something of the ladies, who have not
deserted us in our solitude. In order that
the merit of their self-denial may not be
diminished in the slightest degree, we will
begin by stating that the youngest of the
prisoners, whom they came to soothe with
their gentle presence, has already passed
his tenth lustre. This will make the con-
trast still more touching, between this
place of horror and disgust and the habits
of indulgence and luxury, in which those
females are brought up, who are thus shut
up with us some hours every day. Ladies
who are used to breathe an atmosphere
embalmed with perfumes and flowers,
whose seats are of the eider-down, and
whose feet tread upon superb carpets, are
not afraid to tempt the thick and humid


262
VISITs.
atmosphere of our subterranean apart-
ment, and to sit down upon these narrow
benches, whose hardness is the slightest of
their inconveniences. I dwell upon these
physical vexations, because they are the
only ones to which women attach any im-
portance, and of which they wish that we
should remind them of. The conversation
at these delightful meetings is only a long
commentary on these friendly inquiries :
“ How do your healths sustain the priva-
tions of the prison ?” 66 What can we do
to make your situation more endurable ?”
“ How do you manage to pass your time?”
-These discourses, which are enlivened
by reflexions, more or less piquant, more
less
gay, upon the manners of our times,
would not be sufficiently interesting to be
or


VISITS.
263
inserted here. Besides, it is four o'clock;
our friends are leaving us, and I return to
my cell to finish my chapter. I find on
my table the piece of money, and continuing
my address to the noble effigy which it
bears, say :-“ Sire, you have known the
misery of exile far more cruel than that
of a prison : did your friends, like mine,
remain faithful to you in your misfortune?
Were you as happy at Hartwell, as I am in
Sainte-Pélagie ?”
E. J.
END OF VOL. I.


LONDON:
PRINTED BY COX AND BAYLIS, GRTAT QUEEN STREET.





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UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
wils v.1
844J829 JH
Jouy, Etienne de, 1764-1846.
The hermit in prison / tr. from the Fren
3 1951 002 086 790 O
WILSON
ANNEX
AISLE 66

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