The black cart brought me here to this hideous Bicêtre Prison.
Seen from afar, the appearance of that edifice is rather majestic. It
spreads to the horizon in front of a hill, and at a distance retains
something of its ancient splendour,--the look of a Royal Palace. But as
you approach it, the Palace changes to a ruin, and the dilapidated
gables shock the sight. There is a mixture of poverty and disgrace
soiling its royal façades; without glass or shutters to the windows, but
massive crossed-bars of iron instead, against which is pressed, here and
there, the ghastly face of a felon or a madman.