THE LION'S DEN
If the material aspect of a vast house of detention, constructed with every
reference to comfort and salubrity claimed by humanity, presents, as we
have said, nothing gloomy or sinister, the sight of the prisoners causes a
contrary impression. A person is commonly touched with sadness and pity
when he finds himself in the midst of a crowd of female prisoners, in
thinking that these unfortunates are almost always forced to crime less
from their own will than by the pernicious influence of the first who
betrayed them. And then, again, women, the most criminal, preserve at the
bottom of the heart two holy ties, which the violent action of passions the
most detestable, the most impetuous, never breaks entirely--Love and
Maternity! To speak of love and maternity, is to say that with these poor
creatures a soft and pure emotion can still light up here and there the
profound gloom of a wretched corruption. But with men, such as the prison
makes them and casts into the world, there is nothing similar. It is crime
of one cast; it is a lump of brass, which only becomes red in the fire of
infernal passions. Thus, at the sight of the criminals who encumber the
prisons, one is at first seized with a shudder of alarm and horror.
Reflection alone leads you to thoughts more compassionate, but of great
bitterness. Yes, of great bitterness; for one reflects that the vicious
population of jails and hulks, the bloody harvest of the executioner,
springs up from that mire of ignorance, of misery, and of stupidity. To
comprehend this alarming and horrible proposition, let the reader follow us
into the Lions' Den. One of the courts of La Force is thus called. There
are ordinarily placed the prisoners most dangerous, for their previous
ferocity, or for the gravity of the accusations which rest upon them.
Nevertheless, it had been found necessary to add to their number
temporarily, in consequence of the repairs now going on in the prison,
several other prisoners. These, although equally under the jurisdiction of
the Court of Assizes, were almost honest people compared to the habitual
inmates of the Lions' Den. The gloomy, dark, and rainy sky cast a mournful
light on the scene we are going to describe. It took place in the middle of
the court, which was a vast quadrangle, formed by high white walls, pierced
here and there by some grated windows.
At one of the ends of this court was seen a narrow wicket door; at the
other, the entrance to the sitting-room; a large paved hall, in the middle
of which was a cast-iron stove, surrounded by wooden seats, on which were
stretched several prisoners, talking among themselves. Others, preferring
exercise to repose, were walking in the courts, in close ranks, four and
five together, With locked arms.
[Illustration: THE DISCOMFITED MONKEY]
One should possess the energetic and somber pencil of Salvator or of Goya
to sketch these diverse specimens of physical and moral ugliness; to
describe their hideous habiliments, the variety of costume of these
wretches, covered for the most part with miserable clothing; for, only
being attainted, that is to say, supposed innocents, they were not dressed
in the uniform of the penitentiaries; some of them, however, wore it; for,
on their entrance into prison, their rags had appeared so dirty, so
infectious, that, after the customary bath, they had given to them the cap
and coarse gray trowsers of the convict. A phrenologist would have
attentively studied these ghastly and bronzed faces, with their flat
foreheads, their cruel and insidious glances, wicked mouths, and brawny
necks; almost all offered a frightful resemblance to the brute. On the
cunning features of this, one would find the subtle perfidy of the fox; on
another, the sanguinary rapacity of the bird of prey; on a third, the
ferocity of the tiger; and on another, again, the animal stupidity of the
brute. The circular walk of this band of silent beings, with bold and
contemptuous looks, an insolent and cynical laugh, pressing one against the
other, at the bottom of this court, offered something strangely suspicious.
It caused a shudder to think that this ferocious horde would be, in a given
time, again let loose among mankind, against whom they had declared an
implacable warfare. How much sanguinary revenge, how many murderous
projects, lurk under this appearance of brazen and jeering perversity!
Let us sketch some few of the prominent physiognomies of the Lions' Den,
let us leave the others in the background. While one of the warders watched
those who were walking, a kind of meeting was held in the hall, Among those
who were present, we will find Barbillon and Nicholas Martial, of whom we
shall speak only to remind the reader of their presence. He who appeared to
preside and conduct the discussion was a prisoner nicknamed Skeleton. He
was provost-marshal or captain of the hall. This man, of a good height, and
about forty years of age, justified his appropriate nickname by a leanness
impossible to be described, which we should call almost osteological. If
the physiognomies of his companions offered more or less analogy to that of
the tiger, the vulture, or the fox, the form of his retreating forehead,
and his bony, lank, and protruding jaws, supported by a neck of immense
length, resembled entirely the conformation of a serpent's head. Total
baldness increased this resemblance still more, for, under the rough skin
of this reptile-shaped forehead, could be distinguished the slightest
protuberances, the smallest sutures of his skull; as to his visage, let one
imagine some old parchment drawn over the face, and only slightly tightened
from the cheek-bone to the angle of the lower jaw, the ligament of which
was plainly visible. The eyes, small and squinting, were so deeply sunken,
the eyebrows and cheek-bones so prominent, that under the yellowish
forehead could be seen two sockets, literally filled with darkness, and, at
a small distance, the eyes seemed to disappear in the bottom of these
cavities, two black holes, which give such a horrible appearance to a
skull. His long projecting teeth were almost constantly displayed by an
habitual grin. Although the emaciated muscles of this man were almost
reduced to the condition of tendons, he was of extraordinary strength. The
most robust resisted with difficulty the grasp of his long arms and long,
bony fingers. It could be called the grasp of an iron skeleton. He wore a
blue smock-frock, much too short, which disclosed, and he was proud of
them, his sinewy hands, and the lower part of his arms, or rather bones
(the _radius_ and the _cubitus_ the reader will pardon the anatomical
designations), wrapped in a rough, blackened skin, and separated by some
hard and cord-like veins. When he placed his hands on a table, he seemed to
use a just metaphor of Pique-Vinaigre to play a game of cockles.
After having passed fifteen years of his life at the galleys for robbery
and attempt at murder, he had broken his ticket-of leave, and had been
taken in the act of murder and robbery. This last assassination had been
committed under circumstances of such ferocity, that, taking into account
he was a robber, this bandit looked upon himself, with good reason, as
already condemned to death. The influence which the living Skeleton
exercised over the other prisoners by his strength and his perversity, had
caused him to be chosen by the director of the prison provost of the
dormitory; that is to say, he was charged with the government of his ward,
as far as regarded the order, arrangements, and neatness of the room and
beds. He acquitted himself perfectly of these functions; and never had the
prisoners dared to fail in the duties of which he had the superintendence.
Strange and significant. The most intelligent directors of prisons, after
having tried to invest with the functions of which we speak the prisoners
who most recommended themselves by their good conduct, or whose crimes were
less grave, had found themselves obliged to deviate in their choice,
however logical and moral, and seek for provosts among prisoners the most
corrupted, the most feared: these alone could exercise any influence over
their companions.
Thus, let us repeat it again, the more a culprit shows audacity and
impudence, the more he will be regarded, and, thus to speak, respected.
This fact, proved by experience, sanctioned by the forced choice of which
we have spoken, is an irrefragable argument against the evil of an
imprisonment in common, I say.
Does it not show, even to an absolute evidence, the intensity of the
contagion which mortally attacks prisoners in whom there is some hope of
restoration? Yes, for what use of thinking of repentance, amendment, when,
in this pandemonium, where one must pass many years--his life, perhaps--it
is seen that influence is measured by the number and gravity of misdeeds?
The provost of the hall was talking with several prisoners, among whom were
Barbillon and Nicholas Martial, we repeat.
"Are you very sure of what you say?" asked he of Martial.
"Yes, yes, a hundred times, yes; Micou had it from Big Cripple, who already
wanted to kill the muff, because he betrayed some one."
"Then let some one eat his nose, and put a stop to this!" added Barbillon.
"Just now, Skeleton was for giving a stab to this spy Germain."
The provost took his pipe for a moment from his mouth, and said, in a voice
so low, so crapulously hoarse, that he could scarcely be heard, "Germain
holds up his head; he is a spy; he troubles us: for the less one talks, the
more one listens. We must make him clear out of the Lions' Den. Once we
make him bleed, they will take him from here."
"Well, then," said Nicholas, "what change is that?"
"There is this change," replied Skeleton, "that if he has sold us, as Big
Cripple says, he shall not escape with a small bleeding."
"Very good," said Barbillon.
"There must be an example," said Skeleton, becoming more animated. "Now it
is no longer the grabs who find us out: it is the spies. Jacques and
Gauthier guillotined the other day. Roussillon, sent to the galleys for
life, sold!"
"And me, and my mother, and Calabash, and my brother at Toulon!" cried
Nicholas, "have we not been sold by Bras-Rouge? That is certain now, since,
instead of putting him here, they have sent him to La Roquette! They did
not dare leave him with us; he knew his treachery, the sneak!"
"And," said Barbillon, "has not Bras-Rouge also sold me?"
"And me," said a young prisoner, in a shrill and reedy voice, lisping in an
affected manner, "I was betrayed by Jobert, a man who proposed an affair in
the Rue Saint Martin."
This last personage, with the reedy voice, a pale, fat, and effeminate
face, and an insidious and cowardly expression, was dressed in a singular
manner. He had on his head a red handkerchief, which allowed two locks of
white hair to be seen plastered on his temples; the ends of the
handkerchief formed a bow over his forehead; he wore, for a cravat, a
shawl, of white merino with green palms in the corners on his bosom; his
jacket, of maroon colored cloth, disappeared under the tight waistband of
his ample trousers, made of gay Scotch plaid.
"If this is not an indignity! Must a man be a scoundrel?" resumed this
gentleman with the pretty voice. "Nothing in the world would have made me
suspect Jobert."
"I know that he informed against you," answered the Skeleton, who seemed to
patronize this prisoner particularly. "The proof is, that they have done
with him as they did with Bras-Rouge; they did not dare leave Jobert here;
they locked him up at the Conciergerie. Well, this must be put a stop to:
we must have an example. Our traitor brothers carve out work for the
police. They think they are sure of their necks because they are put in a
different prison from those they have betrayed."
"It is the truth."
"To prevent this, every prisoner must look upon all turncoats as deadly
enemies: if they have blown on Tony, Dick, or Harry, it matters not which
pounce on them. When we have done the job for four or five in the court,
the others will wag their tongues twice before they blow the gaff!"
"You are right," said Nicholas; "Germain must die!"
"He shall die," answered the provost; "but let us wait until Big Cripple
comes. When he shall have proved to everybody that" Germain is a spy,
enough said: the sheep will bleat no more; his breath shall be stopped."
"And what shall we do with the warders, who watch us!" asked the prisoner
whom the Skeleton called Ja-votte.
"I have my own idea. Pique-Vinaigre shall serve us."
"He? He is too cowardly."
"And not stronger than a mouse."
"Enough. I understand. Where is he?"
"He returned from the grate, some one came for him to go and patter with
his Newgate lawyer."
"And Germain. Is he still at the grate?"
"Yes; with the little mot who comes to see him."
"As soon as he descends, attention. But we must wait for Pique-Vinaigre; we
can do nothing without him."
"Without Pique-Vinaigre?"
"No."
"And Germain shall be--"
"I will take charge of it."
"But with what? They have taken away our knives."
"And these hooks--will you put your neck between them?" asked Skeleton,
opening his long fingers, hard as iron.
"Choke him?"
"A little."
"But if they know it is you?"
"What's the odds? Am I a calf with two heads, such as is shown in the
fair?"
"That is true. One can only be made a head shorter once; and since you are
sure of being--"
"Doubly sure; the lawyer told me so yesterday. I have been taken with my
hand in the pocket, and my knife in the throat, of the stiff 'un; I am a
second comer; it is all over with me. I will send my head to see, in the
basket, if it is true that they cheat the condemned, and put sawdust in,
instead of bran, which the government allows us."
"It is true; the guillotined has a right to his bran. My father was
cheated, I recollect," said Nicholas Martial, with a ferocious chuckle.
This abominable pleasantry made all the prisoners laugh loudly.
"A thousand thunders!" cried Skeleton. "I wish all the nobs could hear us
talk, who think to make us quake before the guillotine. They have only to
come to the Barrière Saint Jacques the day of my benefit; they will hear me
crack jokes with the crowd, and say to Jack, in a bold voice, 'Open the
door till I go down into the cellar!' Renewed laughter followed this
sally.
"The fact is, that the affair lasts as long as it takes to swallow a
mouthful. Draw the bolt; and he opens the devil's door for you!" said
Skeleton continuing to smoke his pipe.
"Ah, bah! is there a devil?"
"Fool! I said that for a joke. There is a knife; a head is placed under,
and that is all."
"Besides, is that our business?"
"As for me, now that I know my road, and that I must stop at the tree, I
would as soon go today as tomorrow," said Skeleton, with savage energy. "I
wish I was there now. I feel my blood in my mouth when I think of the crowd
who will be there to see me. There will be four or five thousand who will
fight or quarrel for places. They will hire out windows and chairs as for a
procession. I hear them already cry, 'Window to let! Place to let!' And then
there will be the troops, cavalry and infantry. And all this for me--for
old Boulard. It is not for an honest man that they take all this trouble,
hey, Sals! Here is something to make a man proud. Even he should be as
cowardly as Pique-Vinaigre, it would make him resolute. All these eyes
which are looking at you give you courage, and it is but a moment to pass,
you die boldly; that vexes the judges and the duffers, and encourages a
flash cove to die game."
"That is true," replied Barbillon, endeavoring to imitate the frightful
boasting. "They think to make us afraid, and confess all, when they send
Ketch to open shop on our account."
"Bah!" said Nicholas, in his turn. "One is not wrong to laugh at the
scaffold; it is like the prison and the galleys; we laugh at them also; so
long as we are all friends together, 'A short life and a merry one!'"
"For instance," said the prisoner with the lisping voice, "what would be
tough would be to keep us in cells day and night."
"In cells!" cried Skeleton, with a kind of savage alarm. "Do not speak of
it. In cells! All alone! I would rather they would cut off my arms and
legs. All alone! Between four walls! All alone! No old mates to laugh with!
That cannot be! I prefer a hundred times the galleys to the prisons,
because at the galleys, instead of being shut up, one is out of doors, sees
company, moves about. Well! I would rather a hundred times be a head
shorter than be put into a cell only for one year. See here, at this
moment, I am sure of being cut down, am I not? Well, let them say to me,
'Would you prefer a year in a cell?' I would stretch out my neck. A year
all alone! Can this be possible? What would they have one think of when one
is all alone?"
"If they were to put you there by force?"
"I would not remain. I would make such use of my feet and hands that I
would escape," said Skeleton.
"But if you could not--if you were sure that you could not escape?"
"Then I would kill the first one I could, in order to be guillotined."
"But if, instead of condemning the red-handed to death, they condemned them
to a solitary cell for life?"
Skeleton seemed to be staggered by this reflection. After amoment's pause
he replied:
"Then I do not know what I should do. I would break my head against the
walls. I would allow myself to die with hunger rather than be in a cell.
How? All alone--all my life alone with myself? without the hope of escape?
I tell you it is not possible. You know there is no one bolder than I am. I
would bleed a man for a crown, and even for nothing, for honor. They think
that I have only assassinated two persons; but if the dead could speak,
there are five who could tell how I work." The brigand boasted of his
crimes. These sanguinary egotisms are among the most characteristic traits
of hardened criminals. A prison governor told us,"If the pretended murders
of which these wretches boast were real, population would be decimated."
"So I say," replied Barbillon, boasting in his turn; "they think that I
only laid out the milkwoman's husband in the city; but I have served many
others out, with Big Robert, who was shortened last year."
"It was only to tell you," said Skeleton, "that I neither fear fire nor the
devil. But, if I were in a cell, and very sure of not being able to
escape--thunder! I believe I should be afraid."
"Of what?" asked Nicholas.
"Of being all alone," answered the cock of the walk.
"So, if you had to recommence your robberies and murders, and, instead of
prisons and galleys and guillotine, there were only cells, you would
hesitate?"
"Yes--perhaps" (_a fact_), answered the Skeleton.
And he spoke the truth. A noisy burst of laughter, and exclamations of joy
proceeding from the prisoners who were walking in the court, interrupted
the meeting. Nicholas rose precipitately, and advanced toward the door to
ascertain the cause of this unaccustomed noise.
"It is the Big Cripple!" cried Nicholas, returning.
"The Big Cripple?" said the provost; "and Germain, has he descended from
the talking-room?"
"Not yet," said Barbillon.
"Let him hurry, then," said Skeleton, "that I may give him an order for a
new coffin."