LIFE IN THE BASTILLE.
Having sketched rapidly and with bold strokes the outlines of the
history of the Bastille from its foundation to its fall, we intend to
show how the rule to which prisoners in the fortress of the Suburb
Saint-Antoine were submitted underwent its own process of
transformation, parallel with the transformation of the prison itself.
To understand the facts which follow, and which are of a kind to astound
the mind of everyone in these days, it is necessary to remember what we
have already said as to the character of the Bastille. It was the prison
of luxury, the aristocratic prison of the _ancien régime_, the _prison
de luxe_ at a period when it was no dishonour, as we shall see later, to
be confined there. We must remember the phrase of the minister of Paris
writing to D'Argenson, in regard to a personage of but modest rank, that
this individual did not deserve "consideration" enough to be put in the
Bastille. Let us reflect on this observation of Mercier in his excellent
_Pictures of Paris_: "The people fear the Châtelet more than the
Bastille. Of the latter they have no dread, because it is almost unknown
to them."
We have shown how the Bastille, originally a military citadel, had
become a prison of state; then, little by little, had approximated to
the ordinary prisons, until the day when it died a natural death ere it
could be assassinated. The same transformation took place in the
treatment of the prisoners. Midway in the seventeenth century, the
Bastille had none of the characteristics of a prison, but was simply a
château in which the king caused certain of his subjects to sojourn, for
one cause or another. They lived there just as they thought proper,
furnishing their rooms according to their fancy with their own
furniture, indulging their tastes in regard to food at their own
expense, and waited on by their own servants. When a prisoner was rich
he could live at the Bastille in princely style; when he was poor, he
lived there very wretchedly. When the prisoner had no property at all,
the king did not for that reason give him furniture or food; but he gave
him money which he might use as seemed good to him in providing himself
with furniture and food: money of which he could retain a part--a number
of prisoners did not fail to do so--these savings becoming his own
property. This system, the character of which it is important to
recognize, underwent gradual modification during the course of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, approximating, without ever
becoming identical with, the system of our modern prisons. Thus the
king, instead of granting pensions individually to the poorest of the
prisoners, came to endow the Bastille with a certain fixed number of
pensions for the less fortunate prisoners. The recipients of these
pensions continued to enjoy them for long years, and if they did not
wish the whole of the money to be expended on their support, the balance
was handed over to them. So we see certain individuals getting little
fortunes together by the mere fact of their having been prisoners in the
Bastille--a circumstance which has so much surprised historians because
they have not sought its cause. It even happened that prisoners, when
their liberation was announced to them, asked to remain a little longer
in order to swell their savings, a favour which was sometimes granted
them. In the course of the eighteenth century the money destined to the
maintenance of the prisoners at the Bastille could not be diverted from
its purpose; the prisoners were no longer able to appropriate a part;
the whole sum had to be expended.
It was only in the second half of the seventeenth century that the king
had some rooms at the Bastille furnished for such prisoners as were
without means of procuring furniture themselves. And it is very
interesting to note that it was only at the extreme end of the century,
under the administration of Saint-Mars, that certain apartments of the
Bastille were arranged in the prison style with bars and bolts. Until
then they had been simply the rooms of a stronghold.[31]
Let us follow the prisoner from his entrance to his exit.
When the _lettre de cachet_ had been signed, it was usually a sort of
sheriff's officer who effected the arrest. He appeared in company with
five or six men-at-arms, and signified the arrest by touching his quarry
with a white staff. A coach was in waiting. The police officer politely
begged the person he was instructed to secure to step into the coach,
and took his place beside him. And, according to the testimony of
various memoirs, while the vehicle was rolling along with lowered
blinds, there was a pleasant conversational exchange of courtesies up to
the moment of the prisoner's finding himself within the walls of the
Bastille. A certain Lafort was living in furnished apartments with a
young and pretty Englishwoman whom he had abducted, when one evening,
about sunset, a police officer arrived. The coach was at the door.
Preliminaries were settled on both sides with as much politeness as if a
visit or an evening party had been the topic of discussion. They all got
into the vehicle, even the young man's lackey who, beguiled by
appearances, mounted behind. Arrived at the Bastille, the lackey lost no
time in descending to open the door: there was general astonishment,
especially on the part of the poor servant, when he learnt that since he
had entered the Bastille along with his master, he must stay with him.
Most often the officer and his companions surprised their quarry early
in the morning, on rising from bed. Imagine then the coach with the
prisoner and the police officer inside, arriving before the Bastille, in
the first court in front of the castle keep. "Who goes there?" cries the
sentinel. "The king's writ!" replies the officer. At this, the shops we
have seen attached to the flanks of the château are bound at once to be
shut. The soldiers on guard have to turn their faces to the wall, or
perhaps to pull their hats over their eyes. The coach passes the
outpost, a bell sounds. "Advance!" cries the officer on duty. The
drawbridge is lowered and the coach rattles over the stout iron-clamped
boards. For greater secrecy, spies and prisoners of war were taken in by
a private door leading to the gardens of the Arsenal.
Officers and noblemen presented themselves before the Bastille alone,
unless they were accompanied by relatives or friends. "It is my
intention," the king had written to them, "that you betake yourselves to
my château of the Bastille." And no one dreamt of declining the royal
invitation. Further, when the governor desired to transfer one of them
from one prison to another, he contented himself with telling him so. We
find in the Journal of Du Junca, king's lieutenant[32] at the Bastille,
several notes like the following: "Monday, December 26, 1695, about ten
o'clock in the morning, M. de Villars, lieutenant-colonel of the
regiment of Vosges infantry, came and reported himself a prisoner, as
ordered by M. Barbezieux, though he was a prisoner in the citadel of
Grenoble, whence he came direct without being brought by anyone."[33] On
the arrival of the prisoner, the king's lieutenant, accompanied by the
captain of the gates, came to receive him as he got out of his carriage.
The officers of the château at once led the new-comer into the presence
of the governor, who received him civilly, invited him to sit down, and
after having endorsed the _lettre de cachet_ conversed with him for some
time. Under Louis XIV. the governor in most cases even kept his new
guest, as well as the persons who had accompanied him, to lunch or
dinner. Meanwhile his quarters had been got ready. We read in Du Junca's
Journal that on January 26, 1695, a certain De Courlandon, a colonel of
cavalry, presented himself for incarceration at the Bastille. There
being no room ready to receive him, the governor asked him to go and
pass the night in a neighbouring inn, at the sign of the _Crown_, and
to return next day. "Whereupon M. de Courlandon did not fail to return
about eleven o'clock in the morning, having dined with M. de Besmaus
(the governor), and in the afternoon he entered the château."
The reader will not be surprised at learning that the prospect of
incarceration at the Bastille did not always strike the future prisoner
with terror. We read in the _Memoirs_ of the Duke de Lauzun:[34]
"Scolded for two hours on end by everybody who fancied himself entitled
to do so, I thought I could not do better than go to Paris and await
developments. A few hours after my arrival, I received a letter from my
father telling me that it had been decided to put us all in the
Bastille, and that I should probably be arrested during the night. I
determined at least to finish gaily, so I invited some pretty girls from
the Opera to supper, so that I might await the officer without
impatience. Seeing that he did not arrive, I determined on the bold move
of going to Fontainebleau and joining the king's hunt. He did not speak
to me once during the chase, which was such a confirmation of our
disgrace that on our return no one gave us the customary salute. But I
did not lose heart; in the evening I was in attendance, and the king
came to me. 'You are all,' he said, 'hotheaded rips, but funny dogs all
the same; come along and have supper, and bring M. de Guéméné and the
Chevalier de Luxembourg.'"
Before the new arrival was installed in the chamber prepared for him, he
was taken to the great council hall, where he was requested to empty his
pockets. Only notorious rogues were searched. If the prisoner had upon
him money, jewels, or other articles such as knives and scissors, the
use of which was not allowed by the regulations, they were done up in a
parcel which he himself sealed, with his own seal if he had one; if not,
with the seal of the Bastille. Finally, he was conducted to the room
reserved for him.
Each of the eight towers of the Bastille contained four or five stories
of rooms or cells. The worst of these rooms were on the lowest floor,
and these were what were called the "cells,"--octagonal vaults, cold and
damp, partly under ground; the walls, grey with mould, were bare from
floor to ceiling, the latter a groined arch. A bench and a bed of straw
covered with a paltry coverlet, formed the whole appointments. Daylight
feebly flickered through the vent-hole opening on to the moat. When the
Seine was in flood, the water came through the walls and swamped the
cells; and then any prisoners who might happen to be in them were
removed. During the reign of Louis XIV. the cells were sometimes
occupied by prisoners of the lowest class and criminals condemned to
death. Later, under Louis XV., the cells ceased to be used except as a
place of punishment for insubordinate prisoners who assaulted their
guardians or fellow-prisoners, or for turnkeys and sentinels of the
château who had committed breaches of discipline. They stayed in the
cells for a short time in irons. The cells had fallen into disuse by
the time the Revolution broke out; since the first ministry of Necker,
it had been forbidden to confine in them any one whatever, and none of
the warders questioned on July 18 remembered having seen any one placed
in them. The two prisoners, Tavernier and Béchade, whom the conquerors
of the 14th of July found in one of these dungeons, had been placed
there, at the moment of the attack, by the officers of the château, for
fear lest amid the rain of bullets some harm should befall them.
The worst rooms after the cells were the _calottes_, the rooms on the
floor above. In summer the heat was extreme in them, and in winter the
cold, in spite of the stoves. They were octagons whose ceilings, as the
name implies, were shaped like a skull-cap. High enough in the centre,
they gradually diminished in height towards the sides. It was impossible
to stand upright except in the middle of the room.
The prisoners were only placed in the cells and _calottes_ under
exceptional circumstances. Every tower had two or three floors of lofty
and airy chambers, and in these the prisoners lived. They were octagons
from fifteen to sixteen feet in diameter and from fifteen to twenty feet
high. Light entered through large windows approached by three steps. We
have said that it was only towards the end of Louis XIV.'s reign that
these rooms were arranged like prison cells with bars and bolts. They
were warmed with open fireplaces or stoves. The ceiling was whitewashed,
the floor of brick. On the walls the prisoners had chalked verses,
mottoes, and designs.
One artistic prisoner amused himself by decorating the bare walls with
paintings. The governor, delighted at seeing him thus find relaxation,
moved him from room to room; when he had finished filling one with his
designs and arabesques, he was placed in another. Some of these rooms
were decorated with portraits of Louis XIV. placed above the
chimney-piece, a characteristic detail which helps to show what the
Bastille was at this period: the château of the king, where the king
received a certain number of his subjects as his willing or unwilling
guests.
The best rooms in the Bastille were those that were fitted up in the
eighteenth century for the accommodation of the staff. These were what
were called the "suites." In these were placed invalids and prisoners of
distinction.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the furniture of these
apartments was still extremely simple: they were absolutely empty. The
reason of this we have indicated above. "I arrived," says Madame de
Staal, "at a room where there was nothing but four walls, very filthy,
and daubed all over by my predecessors for want of something better to
do. It was so destitute of furniture that someone went and got a little
straw chair for me to sit on, and two stones to support a lighted
faggot, and a little candle-end was neatly stuck on the wall to give me
light."
The prisoners sent to their own homes for a table, bed, and chair, or
they hired these from the upholsterer of the Bastille. When they had
nothing to bless themselves with, the government, as we have already
said, did not provide them with furniture. It gave them money, sometimes
considerable sums, which permitted them to adorn their rooms after their
own fancy. This was the case in regard to all prisoners up to 1684. At
this date the king ordered the administration to supply furniture to
those of the prisoners whose detention was to be kept secret, for, by
getting in bedding from their own houses or the houses of friends, they
made known their arrest. D'Argenson had half a dozen of the rooms
permanently furnished, others were furnished under Louis XV.; under
Louis XVI., almost all were furnished. The appointments were very
modest: a bed of green baize with curtains, one or two tables, several
chairs, fire-dogs, a shovel, and a small pair of tongs. But after having
undergone examination, the prisoner retained the right of getting in
furniture from outside. And in this way the rooms of the prisoners were
sometimes adorned with great elegance. Madame de Staal relates that she
had hers hung with tapestry; the Marquis de Sade covered the bare walls
with long and brilliant hangings: other prisoners ornamented their rooms
with family portraits: they procured chests of drawers, desks, round
tables, dressing-cases, armchairs, cushions in Utrecht velvet; the
inventories of articles belonging to the prisoners show that they
managed to secure everything they thought necessary. The Abbé Brigault,
who was imprisoned at the same time as Madame de Staal and for the same
affair, brought into the Bastille five arm-chairs, two pieces of
tapestry, eleven serge hangings, eight chairs, a bureau, a small table,
three pictures, &c. The list of effects taken out of the Bastille by the
Comte de Belle-Isle when he was set at liberty includes a library
consisting of 333 volumes and ten atlases, a complete service of fine
linen and plate for the table, a bed furnished with gold-bordered red
damask, four pieces of tapestry on antique subjects, two mirrors, a
screen of gold-bordered red damask matching the bed, two folding
screens, two armchairs with cushions, an armchair in leather, three
chairs in tapestry, an overmantel of gilt copper, tables, drawers,
stands, candlestick of plated copper, &c. We might multiply examples,
even from among prisoners of middle station.
It was the rule that prisoners newly arrived at the Bastille should be
examined within twenty-four hours. It sometimes happened, however, that
one or another remained for two or three weeks before appearing before
the magistrate. The Châtelet commissioner, specially delegated to the
Bastille for these examinations, founded his questions on notes supplied
him by the lieutenant of police, who, indeed, often went in person to
see the prisoners. A special commission was appointed for affairs of
importance. Dumouriez says that he was examined after nine hours of
detention by three commissioners: "The president was an old councillor
of state named Marville, a man of intelligence, but coarse and
sarcastic. The second was M. de Sartine, lieutenant of police and
councillor of state, a man of polish and refinement. The third was a
_maître des requêtes_[35] named Villevaux, a very insincere and
disputatious fellow. The clerk, who had more intelligence than any of
them, was an advocate named Beaumont."
We have found many instances of prisoners who spoke in high terms of
their judges. And it cannot be said that prisoners at the Bastille
escaped judgment. A Châtelet commissioner examined them and sent the
official report of his examination, with a statement of his opinion, to
the lieutenant of police. He decided whether the arrest should be
sustained. Moreover, it would be a mistake to compare the lieutenant of
police under the _ancien régime_ with the prefect of police of to-day;
the lieutenants of police, selected from former _maîtres des requêtes_,
had a judicial character: the documents of the period call them
"magistrates"; they issued decrees without appeal and pronounced penal
sentences, even condemning to the galleys; they were at the same time
justices of the peace with an extensive jurisdiction. In addition to the
examination held on the entrance of a prisoner, the lieutenants of
police, in the course of their frequent visits, addressed to the
ministers of Paris reports on the prisoners,--reports in which they
discussed the evidence, and which constituted veritable judgments.
When the prisoner was recognized as innocent, a new _lettre de cachet_
soon set him at liberty. The verdict of "no true bill" often supervened
with a rapidity which the decisions of our police magistrates would do
well to emulate. A certain Barbier, who entered the Bastille on February
15, 1753, was found not guilty and set at liberty the next day. Of the
279 persons imprisoned in the Bastille during the last fifteen years of
the _ancien régime_, thirty-eight benefited by the dropping of the
indictment.
Finally--and here is a point on which the new method might well model
itself on that of the Bastille--when a detention was recognized as
unjust, the victim was indemnified. A great number of examples might be
mentioned. An advocate named Subé left the Bastille on June 18, 1767,
after a detention of eighteen days; he had been falsely accused of the
authorship of a book against the king, and received compensation to the
tune of 3000 livres, more than £240 of our money. A certain Pereyra,
imprisoned in the Bastille from November 7, 1771, to April 12, 1772, and
then from July 1 to September 26, 1774, having been found to be
innocent, was reinstated in all his property, and received from the king
a life pension of 1200 livres, more than £100 to-day. A certain number
of those accused in the Canada case, when the charge was withdrawn,
received a life pension on leaving the Bastille. At other times, the
detention of an individual might throw his family into want. He was kept
in the Bastille, if it was thought he deserved it, but his people were
assisted. Under date September 3, 1763, the Duke de Choiseul writes to
the lieutenant of police: "I have received the letter you did me the
honour of writing to me in favour of the children of the Sieur
Joncaire-Chabert. I have the pleasure to inform you that I have got for
them a second subsidy of 300 livres (nearly £30 to-day) in consideration
of the sad condition you informed me they were in." Louis XIV.
guaranteed to Pellisson, at his liberation, a pension of 2000 crowns.
The Regent granted to Voltaire, when he left the Bastille, a pension of
1200 livres. Louis XVI. awarded to Latude an annuity of 400 livres, and
to La Rocheguérault an annuity of 400 crowns. The minister Breteuil
pensioned all the prisoners whom he set at liberty. Brun de Condamine,
confined from 1779 to 1783, received on leaving a sum of 600 livres.
Renneville speaks of a prisoner to whom Seignelay gave an important
situation in compensation for his detention at the Bastille. We hear of
one, Toussaint Socquart, a commissioner of the Châtelet and of police
whose offices were restored to him when he came out of the Bastille. In
fact, contrary to detention in our modern prisons, incarceration in the
Bastille did not cast the slightest slur on the prisoner's character,
even in the eyes of those to whom his arrest was due, and instances have
been known of men who, on their release from the Bastille, not only
were reinstated in public offices, but reached the highest positions.
Until his examinations were quite completed, the prisoner was kept in
close confinement. None but the officers of the château were allowed to
communicate with him. And during this time he lived in solitude, unless
he had brought a servant with him. The administration readily permitted
the prisoners to avail themselves of the services of their valets, who
were boarded at the king's expense. It even happened that the government
sometimes gave their prisoners valets, paying not only for their board,
but also their wages at the rate of 900 livres a year. One might cite
prisoners of inferior rank who thus had servants to wait on them. Two or
three prisoners were sometimes put together in one room. Prison life has
no greater terror than solitude. In absolute solitude many of the
prisoners became mad. In company, the hours of captivity seemed less
tedious and oppressive. Father and son, mother and daughter, aunt and
niece, lived together. Many might be named. On September 7, 1693, a lady
named De la Fontaine was taken to the Bastille for the second time. The
first time, she had been imprisoned quite alone; but this new detention
evoked the compassion of the lieutenant of police, who, to please the
poor lady, sent her husband to the Bastille, locked him up with her, and
gave them a lackey to wait on them.
The examinations being ended, the prisoners enjoyed a greater liberty.
They could then enter into communication with the people of the town.
They obtained permission to see their relatives and friends. These
sometimes paid them visits in their rooms; but as a rule the interviews
took place in the council-hall, in presence of one of the officers of
the château. They were usually permitted to discuss only family affairs
and business matters. All conversation on the Bastille and the reasons
for their imprisonment was forbidden. The rules of the prison increased
in severity as time went on. Towards the end of Louis XV.'s reign the
lieutenant of police went so far as to prescribe the subjects of
conversation which would alone be permitted in the course of the visits
the prisoners received. "They may talk to the prisoner about the harvest
his vineyards will yield this year, about cancelling a lease, about a
match for his niece, about the health of his parents." But it is
necessary to read the _Memoirs_ of Gourville, Fontaine, Bussy-Rabutin,
Hennequin, Madame de Staal, the Duke de Richelieu, to form a general
idea of life at the Bastille under Louis XIV. and under the Regent.
Several prisoners were free to move about through the château wherever
it seemed good to them; they entered the rooms of their fellow-prisoners
at all hours of the day. The governor contented himself with locking
them in their own rooms at night. The prisoners who had the "liberty of
the court" organized games of bowls or _tonneau_, and hobnobbed with the
officers of the garrison. Fontaine relates that they might have been
seen from the top of the towers, collected fifty at a time in the inner
court Bussy-Rabutin's room was open to all comers: his wife and friends
visited him; he gave dinners to persons from court, plotted love
intrigues there, and corresponded freely with his friends and relatives.
Several prisoners even had permission to take a walk into the town on
condition of their returning to the château in the evening. Two brothers
were placed in the Bastille together. They went out when they pleased,
taking turns; it was sufficient for one or other to be always at the
château. The officers of the staff gossiped with the prisoners and gave
them advice as to the best means of obtaining their liberty.
This animated, courtly, and elegant life is described with infinite
charm by Madame de Staal, whom we have already cited. "We all used to
spend a part of the day with the governor. We dined with him, and after
dinner I enjoyed a rubber of ombre with Messieurs de Pompadour and de
Boisdavis, Ménil advising me. When it was over we returned to our own
apartments. The company met again in my rooms before supper, for which
we returned to the governor's, and after that we all went to bed."
As to the manner in which the prisoners were fed and looked after, that
is surprising indeed, and what we shall say about it, though rigidly
accurate, will perhaps be regarded as an exaggeration. The governor drew
three livres a day for the maintenance of a man of inferior rank; five
livres for the maintenance of a tradesman; ten livres for a banker, a
magistrate, or a man of letters; fifteen livres for a judge of the
Parlement; thirty-six livres for a marshal of France. The Cardinal de
Rohan had 120 francs a day spent on him. The Prince de Courlande, during
a stay of five months at the Bastille, spent 22,000 francs. These
figures must be doubled and trebled to give the value they would
represent to-day.
We read, too, with the greatest astonishment the description of the
meals the prisoners made. Renneville, whose evidence is the more
important in that his book is a pamphlet against the administration of
the Bastille, speaks in these terms of his first meal: "The turnkey put
one of my serviettes on the table and placed my dinner on it, which
consisted of pea soup garnished with lettuce, well simmered and
appetizing to look at, with a quarter of fowl to follow; in one dish
there was a juicy beef-steak, with plenty of gravy and a sprinkling of
parsley, in another a quarter of forcemeat pie well stuffed with
sweetbreads, cock's combs, asparagus, mushrooms, and truffles; and in a
third a ragoût of sheep's tongue, the whole excellently cooked; for
dessert, a biscuit and two pippins. The turnkey insisted on pouring out
my wine. This was good burgundy, and the bread was excellent. I asked
him to drink, but he declared it was not permitted. I asked if I should
pay for my food, or whether I was indebted to the king for it. He told
me that I had only to ask freely for whatever would give me pleasure,
that they would try to satisfy me, and that His Majesty paid for it
all." The "most Christian" king desired that his guests should fast on
Fridays and in Lent, but he did not treat them any the worse on that
account. "I had," says Renneville, "six dishes, and an admirable prawn
soup. Among the fish there was a very fine weever, a large fried sole,
and a perch, all very well seasoned, with three other dishes." At this
period Renneville's board cost ten francs a day; later he was reduced to
the rate of the prisoners of a lower class. "They much reduced my usual
fare," he says; "I had, however, a good soup with fried bread crumbs, a
passable piece of beef, a ragoût of sheep's tongue, and two custards for
dessert. I was treated in pretty much the same manner the whole time I
was in this gloomy place; sometimes they gave me, after my soup, a wing
or leg of fowl, sometimes they put two little patties on the edge of the
dish."
Towards the end of Louis XV.'s reign, Dumouriez eulogizes the cookery of
the Bastille in almost the same terms. On the day of his entrance,
noticing that they were serving a fish dinner, he asked for a fowl to be
got from a neighbouring eating-house. "A fowl!" said the major, "don't
you know that to-day is Friday?" "Your business is to look after me and
not my conscience. I am an invalid, for the Bastille itself is a
disease," replied the prisoner. In an hour's time the fowl was on the
table. Subsequently he asked for his dinner and supper to be served at
the same time, between three and four o'clock. His valet, a good cook,
used to make him stews. "You fared very well at the Bastille; there
were always five dishes at dinner and three at supper, without the
dessert, and the whole being put on the table at once, appeared
magnificent." There is a letter from the major of the Bastille addressed
in 1764 to the lieutenant of police, discussing a prisoner named Vieilh,
who never ate butcher's meat; so they had to feed him exclusively on
game and poultry. Things were much the same under Louis XVI., as
Poultier d'Elmotte testifies: "De Launey, the governor, used to come and
have a friendly chat with me; he got them to consult my taste as regards
food, and to supply me with anything I wished for." The bookseller
Hardy, transferred in 1766 to the Bastille with the members of the
Breton deputation, declares frankly that they were all treated in the
best possible way. Finally, Linguet himself, in spite of his desire to
paint the lot of the victims of the Bastille in the most sombre colours,
is obliged to confess that food was supplied in abundance. Every morning
the cook sent up to him a menu on which he marked the dishes he fancied.
The account books of the Bastille confirm the testimony of former
prisoners. The following, according to these documents, are the meals
that La Bourdonnais enjoyed during July, 1750. Every day the menu
contains soup, beef, veal, beans, French beans, two eggs, bread,
strawberries, cherries, gooseberries, oranges, two bottles of red wine,
and two bottles of beer. In addition to this regular bill of fare we
note on July 2, a fowl and a bottle of Muscat; on the 4th, a bottle of
Muscat; on the 7th, tea; on the 12th, a bottle of brandy; on the 13th,
some flowers; on the 14th, some quails; on the 15th, a turkey; on the
16th, a melon; on the 17th, a fowl; on the 18th, a young rabbit; on the
19th, a bottle of brandy; on the 20th, a chicken and ham sausage and two
melons; and so on.
Tavernier was a prisoner of mean station, son of a doorkeeper of Paris
de Montmartel. He was implicated in a plot against the King's life, and
was one of the seven prisoners set free on the 14th of July. He was
found out of his mind in his cell. After he had been led in triumph
through the streets of Paris, he was shut up at Charenton. He was a
martyr, people exclaimed. He was certainly not so well off in his new
abode as he had been at the Bastille. We have an account of what was
supplied to him at the Bastille in addition to the ordinary meals, in
November, 1788, in March and May, 1789, three of the last months of his
imprisonment. In November we find: tobacco, four bottles of brandy,
sixty bottles of wine, thirty bottles of beer, two pounds of coffee,
three pounds of sugar, a turkey, oysters, chestnuts, apples, and pears;
in March: tobacco, four bottles of brandy, forty-four bottles of wine,
sixty bottles of beer, coffee, sugar, fowls, cheese; in May: tobacco,
four bottles of brandy, sixty-two bottles of wine, thirty-one bottles of
beer, pigeons, coffee, sugar, cheese, &c. We have the menus of the
Marquis de Sade for January, 1789: chocolate cream, a fat chicken
stuffed with chestnuts, pullets with truffles, potted ham, apricot
marmalade, &c.
The facts we are describing were the rule. The prisoners who were
treated with the least consideration fed very well. Only those who were
sent down to the cells were sometimes put on bread and water, but that
was only a temporary punishment.
When a complaint was formulated by any prisoner in regard to his food, a
reprimand to the governor soon followed. Then the lieutenant of police
inquired of the person concerned if he was better treated than formerly.
"His Majesty tells me," writes Pontchartrain to De Launey, "that
complaints have been raised about the bad food of the prisoners; he
instructs me to write to you to give the matter great attention." And
Sartine wrote jokingly to Major de Losmes: "I am quite willing for you
to get the clothes of Sieur Dubois enlarged, and I hope all your
prisoners may enjoy as excellent health."
Further, the king clothed those of the prisoners who were too poor to
buy their own clothes. He did not give them a prison uniform, but
dressing-gowns padded or lined with rabbit skin, breeches of coloured
stuff, vests lined with silk plush and fancy coats.[36] The commissary
at the Bastille appointed to look after the supplies took the prisoners'
measure, and inquired about their tastes, and the colours and styles
that suited them best. A lady prisoner named Sauvé asked to have made
for her a dress of white silk, dotted with green flowers. The wife of
commissary Rochebrune spent several days in going the round of the Paris
shops, and then wrote in despair that no dressmaker had such a material,
the nearest approach to it being a white silk with green stripes: if
Madame Sauvé would be satisfied with that, they would send to take her
measure. "Monsieur le major," writes a prisoner named Hugonnet, "the
shirts they brought me yesterday are not a bit what I asked for, for I
remember having written 'fine, and with embroidered ruffles'; instead of
which these things are coarse, made of wretched linen, and with ruffles
at best only fit for a turnkey; and so I shall be glad if you will send
them back to the commissary; and let him keep them, for I declare I
won't have them."
The governor also saw that the prisoners had some means of diversion.
The poorest he provided with pocket-money and tobacco.
About the beginning of the seventeenth century, a Neapolitan named
Vinache died at the Bastille, after founding a library there for the use
of his fellow-prisoners. This library was gradually augmented by
donations from the governors, by gifts from various prisoners, and even
by the generosity of a citizen of Paris whose compassion had been
excited for the lot of the prisoners. The books consisted of romances,
works of science and philosophy, and religious books, light literature
predominating. The lieutenant of police, Berryer, struck out of the
list of books that were being sent one day to the binder a "poem on the
greatness of God," as being on "too melancholy a subject for prisoners."
The prisoners also procured books from outside. We have mentioned the
Comte de Belle-Isle, who had more than three hundred books and atlases
at the Bastille. La Beaumelle collected a library of more than 600
volumes. The administration, moreover, never refused to get for the
prisoners, out of the royal funds and sometimes at considerable expense,
such works as they said were necessary to their studies. The works of
Voltaire and Puffendorf were readily placed in their hands. Finally,
under Louis XVI., they were allowed to read the gazettes.
After the permission to have books and to write, the most coveted favour
was that of walking exercise. Refusal of this was rare. The prisoners
might walk, either on the towers of the Bastille, or in the inner
courts, or lastly along the bastion, which was transformed into a
garden. To fresh invigorating air the platform of the towers added the
attraction of the finest view. Fontaine relates that Sacy went to the
top of the towers every day after dinner. He there walked about in
company with the officers, who gave him news of the town and the
prisoners.
In their rooms the prisoners amused themselves with feeding cats and
birds and animals of all kinds: they taught dogs tricks. Some were
allowed to have a violin or a clavecin. Pellisson was shut up with a
Basque who used to play to him on the musette. The Duke de Richelieu
boasts of the operatic airs he sang in parts with his neighbours in the
Bastille, Mdlle. de Launay among them, with her head at the bars of her
window; "we got up choruses of a sort, with fine effect."
Other prisoners killed time with embroidery, weaving or knitting; some
made ornaments for the chapel of the château. Some devoted themselves to
carpentry, turned wood, made small articles of furniture. Artists
painted and sketched. "The occupation of M. de Villeroi was somewhat
singular: he had very fine clothes, which he was for ever unpicking and
sewing together again with much cleverness." The prisoners who lived
several in one room played at cards, chess, and backgammon. In 1788, at
the time of the troubles in Brittany, a dozen noblemen of that country
were shut up in the Bastille. They lived together, and asked for a
billiard table to amuse themselves; the table was set up in the
apartments of the major, and there these gentlemen went for their games.
The prisoners who died in the Bastille were interred in the graveyard of
St. Paul's; the funeral service was held in the church of St. Paul, and
the burial certificate, bearing the family name of the deceased, was
drawn up in the vestry. It is not true that the names of the deceased
were wrongly stated in the register in order that their identity might
be concealed from the public. The Man in the Iron Mask was inscribed on
the register of St. Paul's under his real name. Jews, Protestants, and
suicides were buried in the garden of the château, the prejudices of the
period not allowing their remains to be laid in consecrated ground.
Those who were liberated had a happier fate. Their dismissal was ordered
by a _lettre de cachet_, as their incarceration had been. These orders
for their liberation, so anxiously expected, were brought by the court
"distributors of packets" or by the ordinary post; sometimes relatives
and friends themselves brought the sealed envelope, in order to have the
joy of taking away at once those whose deliverance they came to effect.
The governor, or, in his absence, the king's lieutenant, came into the
prisoner's chamber and announced that he was free. The papers and other
effects which had been taken from him on entrance were restored to him,
the major getting a receipt for them; then he signed a promise to reveal
nothing of what he had seen at the château. Many of the prisoners
refused to submit to this formality, and were liberated notwithstanding;
others, after having signed, retailed everywhere all they knew about the
prison, and were not interfered with. When the prisoner only recovered
his freedom under certain conditions, he was required to give an
undertaking to submit to the king's pleasure.
All these formalities having been completed, the governor, with that
feeling for good form which characterized the men of the _ancien
régime_, had the man who had been his guest served for the last time
with an excellent dinner. If the prisoner was a man of good society,
the governor would even go so far as to invite him to his own table, and
then, the meal over and the good-byes said, he placed his own carriage
at the prisoner's disposal, and often entered it himself to accompany
him to his destination.
More than one prisoner thus restored to the world must have felt greatly
embarrassed before a day was past, and have been at a loss what to do or
where to go. The administration of the Bastille sometimes gave money to
one and another to enable them to get along for a time. In December,
1783, a certain Dubu de la Tagnerette, after being set at liberty, was
lodged in the governor's house for a fortnight until he had found
apartments that would suit him. Moreover, many of the prisoners were
actually annoyed at being dismissed: we could cite examples of persons
who sought to get themselves sent to the Bastille; others refused to
accept their liberty, and others did their best to get their detention
prolonged.
"Many come out," says Renneville, "very sad at having to leave." Le
Maistre de Sacy and Fontaine affirm that the years spent at the Bastille
were the best years in their lives. "The innocent life we lived," says
Renneville again, "Messieurs Hamilton, Schrader, and myself, seemed so
pleasant to M. Hamilton that he begged me to write a description of it
in verse." The _Memoirs_ of Madame de Staal represent her years at the
Bastille as the happiest she ever knew. "In my heart of hearts, I was
very far from desiring my liberty." "I stayed at the Bastille for six
weeks," observes the Abbé Morellet, "which sped away--I chuckle still as
I think of them--very pleasantly for me." And later, Dumouriez declares
that at the Bastille he was happy and never felt dull.
Such was the rule of the celebrated state prison. In the last century
there was no place of detention in Europe where the prisoners were
surrounded with so many comforts and attentions: there is no such place
in these days.
But in spite of these very real alleviations, it would be absurd to
pretend that the prisoners were in general reconciled to their
incarceration. Nothing is a consolation for the loss of liberty. How
many poor wretches, in their despair, have dashed their heads against
the thick walls while wife and children and concerns of the utmost
gravity were summoning them from without! The Bastille was the cause of
ruin to many; within its walls were shed tears which were never dried.
An eighteenth-century writer thus defined the state prison: "A bastille
is any house solidly built, hermetically sealed, and diligently guarded,
where any person, of whatever rank, age, or sex, may enter without
knowing why, remain without knowing how long, hoping to leave it, but
not knowing how." These lines, written by an apologist for the old state
prison, contain its condemnation, without appeal, before the modern
mind.