CHAP. foot of the scaffold. XV. 1794. The greater part walked about unable to bear the torture of thought when sitting still; few remained at rest. "Supin giaceva in terra alcuna gente ; Ed altra andava continuamente. The day before his execution, the poet Ducorneau composed a beautiful ode, which was sung in chorus by the whole prisoners, and repeated, with a slight variation, after his execution. At other times the scene changed; in the midst of their ravings the prisoners first destined for the scaffold were transported by the Phedon of Plato and the death of Socrates; infidelity in its last moments betook itself with delight to the sublime belief of the immortality of the soul. The prisoners whose hearts were overflowing with domestic sorrow, were in a peculiar manner open to the generous emotions; friendships were formed in a few hours; common dangers excited a universal and mutual sympathy; even the passion of love was often felt on the verge of the tomb. Th. vi. 320. The universal uncertainty of life, combined with the mulPrisons, i. titude exposed to similar chances, induced both a warm Lam. Hist. sympathy in hearts which in other circumstances might des Gir. viii. have remained strangers to it, and a strange indifference to individual fate.1 Religion penetrated those gloomy 1 Riouffe, 108, 111. Tableau des 27, 47, 57. 132. "On the earth some lay supine, Some crouching close were seated, others paced More numerous; those fewer who beneath The torment lay, but louder in their grief." DANTE, Inferno, xiv. 22. In the transport of the moment another exclaimed in extempore verse "Amis! combien il a d'attraits L'instant où s'unissent nos âmes ! Le cœur juste est toujours en paix; L'ambitieux avec ses trames! Venez, bourreaux ! nous sommes prêts." XV. abodes, and often lent its never-failing support to suffer- CHAP. ing humanity and nothing astonished the few who escaped from confinement so much as the want of sympathy for the sufferings of mankind which generally prevailed in the world. 1794. 18. From the furthest extremities of France crowds of prisoners daily arrived at the gates of the Conciergerie, Picture of which successively sent forth its bands of victims to the the prisons during this scaffold. Gray hairs and youthful forms; countenances period. blooming with health, and faces worn with suffering; beauty and talent, rank and virtue, were indiscriminately rolled together to the fatal doors. With truth might have been written over the portals what Dante placed over the entrance of his Inferno. "Per me si va nella città dolente; Per me si va nell' eterno dolore ; * Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch' entrate."* Sixty persons often arrived in a day, and as many were "Through me you pass into the city of woe; DANTE, Inferno, iii. 1. Tableau des Prisons pendant la 79, 88. 84. Th. vi. XV. 1794. CHAP. increasing the daily number to one hundred and fifty.* An immense aquaduct, to remove the gore, had been dug from the Seine as far as the Place St Antoine, where latterly the executions took place; and four men were daily employed in emptying the blood of the victims into that reservoir.+ 19. searching of prisoners. The female prisoners, on entering the jails, and frequently Indecent during the course of their detention, were subjected to the female indignities so shocking, that they were often worse than death itself. Under the pretence of searching for concealed articles, money, or jewels, they were obliged to undress in presence of their brutal jailers, who, if they were young or handsome, subjected them to searches of the most rigorous and revolting description. This process was so common that it acquired a name, and was called "Rapiotage." Many monsters made their fortunes by this infamous robbery. A bed of straw alone awaited the prisoners when they arrived in their wretched cells: the heat was such, from the multitudes thrust into them, that they were * "Ils avaient tout disposé pour en envoyer cent-cinquante à la fois à la place du supplice. Dejà un aqueduc immense, qui devait voiturer du sang, avait été creusé à la Place St Antoine. Tous les jours le sang humain se puisait par seaux, et quatre hommes étaient occupés au moment de l'exécution à les vider dans cet aqueduc."-RIOUFFE, sur les Prisons, 84; Rév. Mémoires, xxiii. 84. แ † “ Α, που ποτ ̓ ἤγαγες με ; προς ποιαν στεγην ; Προς την Ατρειδων· ει συ μη τοδ' εννοείς Αυτοφονα κακα τε κ' αρταναι Ανδρος σφαγειον και πεδον ραντηριον.” ESCHYLUS, Agam. 1050. "Whither do you lead me? To what bourne? To the house of the Atreides, if you do not already know it-dwelling abhorred of Heaven-human shamble-house, and floor blood-bespattered." Verily, says Bulwer, no prophet like the poet. "La prisonnière en entrant est fouillée, volée: on ne lui laisse que son mouchoir; couteau, ciseaux, argent, assignats, or et bijoux-tout est pris : vous entrez nu et dépouillé. Ce brigandage s'appelle rapioter. Les femmes offraient à la brutalité des geoliers tout ce qui pouvait éveiller leurs féroces désirs et leurs dégoûtants propos : les plus jeunes étaient déshabillées, fouillées : la cupidité satisfaite, la lubricité s'éveille; et ces infortunées, les yeux baissés, tremblantes, éplorées dévant ces bandits, ne pouvaient cacher à leurs yeux ce que la pudeur même dérobe à l'amour trop heureux. Cet affreux brigandage a fait la fortune de ces monstres."-Tableaux des Prisons de Paris pendant la Terreur, 1797, vol. ii. 84. XV. 1794. to be seen crowding to the windows, with pale and cada- CHAP. verous countenances, striving through the bars to inhale the fresh air. Fathers and mothers, surrounded by their weeping children, long remained locked in each other's arms, in agonies of grief, when the fatal hour of separation arrived. The parents were in general absorbed in the solemn reflections which the near approach of death seldom des Prisons fails to awaken; but the children, with frantic grief, clung pendant la with their little hands round their necks, and loudly im- 83, 87. plored to be placed, still embraced in each other's arms, xii. 204,207. under the guillotine.1 1 Tableau de Paris Terreur, ii. Deux Amis, 20. The condition of the prisoners in these jails of Paris, where above ten thousand persons were at last Frightful confined, was dreadful beyond what imagination could the prison The following description is from an eye-witness of these horrors the fastidiousness of modern manners may revolt at some of its details, but the truth of history requires that they should be recorded. "From the outer room, where examinations are conducted, you enter by two enormous doors into the dungeons-infected and damp abodes, where large rats carry on a continual war against the unhappy wretches who are there accumulated together, gnawing their ears, noses, and clothing, and depriving them of a moment's respite even by sleep. Hardly ever does daylight penetrate into these gloomy abodes: the straw which composes the litter of the prisoners soon becomes rotten from want of air, and from the ordure and excrement with which it is covered; and such is the stench thence arising, that a stranger, on entering the door, feels as if he were suffocating. The prisoners are all either in * Paradise Lost, i. 63. condition of ers in the jails. XV. 1794. CHAP. what are called the straw chambers or in the dungeons. Thus poverty is there regarded as a fresh crime, and leads to the most dreadful punishment; for a lengthened abode in these horrid receptacles is worse than death itself. The dungeons are never opened but for inspection, to give food to the prisoners, or to empty the vases. The superior class of chambers, called the straw apartments, do not differ from the dungeons except in this, that their inhabitants are permitted to go out at eight in the morning, and to remain out till an hour before sunset. During the intervening period, they are allowed to walk in the court, or huddle together in the galleries which surround it, where they are suffocated by infectious odours. There is the same accumulation of horror in their sleeping chambers: no air, rotten straw, and perhaps fifty prisoners thrust into one hole, with their heads lying on their own filth, surrounded by every species of dirt and contagion. Nor were these disgusting circumstances the only degradation which awaited the unhappy prisoners. No one could conceive the woful state to which the human species can be reduced, who had not witnessed the calling of the roll in the evening, when three or four turnkeys, each with half a dozen fierce dogs held in a leash, call the unhappy prisoners to answer to their names, threatening, swearing, and insulting, while they are supplicating, weeping, imploring: often they ordered them des Prisons to go out and come in three or four times over, till they were satisfied that the trembling troop was complete. The cells for the women were as horrid as those for Hist. de la the men, equally dark, humid, filthy, crowded, and suffoiii. 383,386. cating and it was there that all the rank and beauty of Paris was assembled."1 1 Tableau de Paris pendant la Terreur, i. 17, 19. Convention, It was three in the afternoon when the melancholy procession set out from the Conciergerie; the troop slowly passed through the vaulted passages of the prison, amidst crowds of captives, who gazed with insatiable avidity on the aspect of those about to undergo a fate which might |