In the Dépôt are deposited temporarily all the individuals arrested in
the department of the Seine, for any crime whatever, and held for
justice. This general depository receives on an average a hundred and
fifty prisoners a day. Any one arrested by a police agent and conducted
to the _poste_, if not delivered by some friend before the arrival of
the _panier à salade_, is put into this cheerful vehicle, much like a
closed-up omnibus, and carted off to the Dépôt. There, he is
interrogated, searched, measured by the _service anthropométrique_ of M.
Bertillon, and held for three days. At the end of this period, he is
transferred to some other prison,--to Mazas, before it was demolished,
or to the Santé. The desperate criminals have the privilege of remaining
in the Dépôt under the eye of the agents de la sûreté.
Within the walls of the Palais de Justice is included a third place of
detention, the _Souricière_, in which are confined the accused brought
from the various prisons of the city,--la Santé, Sainte-Pélagie, la
Petite and la Grande-Roquette, Saint-Lazare,--to appear either for their
trial or for their examination before the Juge d'Instruction. The
Souricière [mouse-trap] is a gloomy and ill-smelling basement, almost
without light and air, and frequently crowded to suffocation, situated
under the chambers of the police correctionnelle. The prisoners are very
often confined here from eleven o'clock in the morning to eight o'clock
in the evening, without being given either food or drink. This abuse is
of long standing, notwithstanding the many protestations that have been
raised against it.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE FAÇADE OF THE ÉCOLE POLYTECHNIQUE. Engraved,
from a photograph, by E. Tilly.]
Before 1826, the entrance to the Conciergerie was from the grand
court-yard, the Cour du Mai, to the right and at the foot of the grand
stairway. This entrance, with its iron railings, still exists, it now
gives access to the Tribunal de Simple Police, and through it the
multitude of victims, illustrious and obscure, of the Revolution and the
Terror, issued to take their places in the cart for the guillotine. This
doorway was walled up in 1826, and the entrance to the prison is now
on the Quai de l'Horloge, near the tower of Cæsar. It was at this latter
date that the Conciergerie was transformed into a modern prison, with
the _régime cellulaire_. In the course of this transformation, the
ancient dungeons in which had been confined so many eminent historical
personages disappeared; to-day there can be seen only the cell of
Marie-Antoinette, which now communicates with that of Robespierre, and
the latter with the Salle des Girondins. The apartment of the unhappy
queen was transformed into a chapel in 1816. Of the original furniture
of her cell, there now remains, it is said, the little lamp hanging from
the ceiling, and the ivory crucifix which she kissed before mounting the
scaffold. As to the arm-chair in which she sat, it was prudently removed
some years ago to his office by one of the directors of the
Conciergerie, to protect it from the ravages of the tourists of all
nations who were gradually carrying it away piecemeal. This apartment of
the prison can be visited on Thursdays by securing a permit from the
Préfecture de Police. The grande salle which was the prison of the
priests and royalists during the Terror, and in which the Girondins
passed their last night, is now the chapel of the Conciergerie. Through
the little door at the left the latter passed on their way to the
scaffold, and in this court-yard took place the massacres of September.
Before its demolition in the summer of 1898, the immense Mazas prison
(Maison d'Arrêt et de Correction Cellulaire), on the Boulevard Diderot,
received the prisoners from the Dépôt. This gloomy institution contained
twelve hundred cells, of which eleven hundred and fifteen were occupied,
the others being used for the service of the hospital and of the baths.
Among the more illustrious prisoners who have been within these walls
was Victor Hugo, confined here on the morrow of the _Coup d'État_, and
who has left this description of his cell: "Walls whitened with lime
and soiled here and there by various emanations; in a corner, a round
hole, furnished with iron bars and emitting an infectious odor; in
another corner, a shelf hinged to the wall like the _strapontin_, or
folding-stool, of the city folks, and which might serve for a table; no
bed, a chair stuffed with straw. Under the feet, a brick floor; the
first impression was of darkness, the second, of cold." In addition to
the hammock and the bedding, the furniture consisted of a table with a
drawer, an earthenware vessel, a porringer, a cup in wrought-iron,
tinned over, a wooden spoon, a spittoon, called _génieux_, two brooms,
three shelves in whitewood, a wardrobe set in the wall. The round hole,
to which M. Hugo objected, was used by the prisoners as a means of
speech with each other; by conquering their scruples--if they had
any--and inserting their heads in this hole, they were able to make
their words carry from one cell to another and even the entire length of
the gallery, as through a speaking-tube. The authorities were not
unaware of this arrangement, and by placing an agent in the basement
they could have surprised these confidential communications.
The new arrival from the Dépôt, after being subjected to the usual
formalities, after having lost his civil personality and changed his
name for an official number, was at first disposed to rejoice in the
solitude of his cell after the hideous promiscuousness of the Dépôt, but
this solitary confinement would soon have become unendurable, had it not
been for the daily labor with which they were all occupied. Their
exercise was taken in the _préaux cellulaires_, oblong or converging
cells under low sheds, through the iron grating of one side of which
they could look out into the narrow space of the court-yard. All the
prisons of the department of the Seine are furnished by a contractor,
who supplies the provisions for the prisoners at a fixed price plus a
percentage of their small earnings.
[Illustration: SEARCHING A PRISONER AT SAINT-LAZARE, THE GREAT PRISON
FOR WOMEN.