THE PRISON OF ST MARTIN DES CHAMPS
The agreeable ceremony of marrying the prisoners to one another, ere
despatching them to Louisiana as convicts, was going on rapidly in the
yard of the Prison of St. Martin des Champs on a sunny morning of the
May which followed the ruin of Law's system; the paternal government
being under the impression that it was far better for moral
purposes--always matters of great importance in France!--that the new
tillers of the soil should go out as married couples.
Moreover, the Government were a little embarrassed as to what they
should do with all the convicts with which the numerous prisons of
Paris were stuffed, since, at this period, there was no opportunity of
drafting the men off into regiments, nor of utilising the services of
the women. France was ruined--consequently she was not at war just now
with any Power--while she had no money with which to keep her convicts
hard at work. But (the idea having entered Law's fertile brain ere he
prepared to flee) it was thought that Louisiana might still be made of
some service to the Mother Country if her soil could be utilised, and,
since there were no capitalists left of the original order and, if
there had been, none who would embark their capital in that region,
the Government had decided on peopling the place with fresh batches of
convicts. Thus they attained a double object; they emptied their
prisons and they provided a population for New France--a population
which, since it was free and absolved from all further punishment of
its past crimes, might, on reaching the shores of the Gulf of Mexico,
flourish and do well, or, since both the Indians and the neighbouring
English colonists were very troublesome, might be swept off the face
of the earth. But, even in the event of such a lamentable catastrophe
as this, they would, after all, be only ex-convicts whose loss could
be supplied by fresh relays.
Now, on this morning, it had come to the turn of the Prison of St.
Martin des Champs to be relieved of some of its inhabitants, while,
previous to their despatch to La Rochelle, and, in some cases, even
Marseilles, Toulon, and Cette (to which places they would have to walk
in chain-gangs, thereby to reach the convict transports), the marriage
ceremony was taking place between those who were willing to be united
together, and the governor and the chaplain were both in the yard
ready to officiate at the ceremony.
"Listen," said the chaplain, addressing the gaol birds who were
blinking in the rays of the bright morning sun--an unaccustomed sight
to them, since many of their numbers had been for months buried in
dark underground cells, attached each to a block of wood by the humane
process of having a chain passed round their throats which was stapled
on to the beam behind. "Listen, while I expound to you the law by
which you now practically become free men and women once more." While,
as he spoke, he turned his eyes and bobbed his head to the right where
the men were huddled together, and to the left where the women were.
"Free to become wealthy colonists and planters; married men and women
instead of cutpurses and outcasts, or lost women. Listen, I say."
"_Ohé!_" muttered one of the women, while almost all the others
laughed and grimaced, except two or three who scowled at the chaplain
and the governor and ground their teeth savagely together. "_Ohé!_
hark to him. Lost women! Think of that! The rogue! Who knows more of
such unhappy ones than the reverend father? Mon Dieu My sisters! You
remember?"
"Silence," bellowed the chaplain, who seemed a more important man than
the governor at this juncture, "silence, and listen to the law as
expounded by me and passed," the latter part of the sentence being
delivered as though of secondary importance--"by his Highness the
Regent. This is it."
Then, having cleared his throat, he began again:----
"All who leave by the transport ships from La Rochelle, Marseilles,
Cette, Toulon, Dunkirk, or Brest go forth as prisoners already
pardoned and absolved from a shameful yet well-deserved death;
absolved and pardoned from that most meritorious penalty, I say, yet
still prisoners and convicts. Yet, now, see what a noble and forgiving
Government does for you all, fruit of the Abbey of Mount Regret[3] as
you are. As you step upon the shores of New France your chains will
fall away from you; you will be free; you will become honourable
citizens once more of the noblest country in the world, with a vast
continent before you on which Nature has poured out her most bounteous
treasures--all for you."
"But how to obtain them, Roger, my friend?" screamed a bold-faced,
black-eyed young woman, who had evidently known the chaplain under
other circumstances than the present. "Tell us that," and she laughed
a strident laugh.
"Silence, wretch," again bawled the chaplain, whereat the woman
laughed once more derisively. "Silence, creature. It is to tell you
this--and for other things--that I am here after a night of fasting
and prayer. On landing, to each man will be allotted plots of the most
excellent fertile ground, either on the banks of the Mississippi, the
Fiore, the Ste. Susanne, the Trinité, or the Boca-Chica rivers." All
these names he read from a paper in his hand. "To each married
couple--remember this, you abandoned ones, who have hitherto despised
and scoffed at the holy bonds of matrimony, into which I now invite
you who are still unwed to enter--a treble plot. Also tools for
husbandry and the building of houses, barns, and sheds. Also," he went
on with great volubility, still glancing at the paper in his hand, "a
musket to each man, a sufficiency of powder and shot for the slaying
of wild beasts; though not those of your own kind," he added,
remembering, doubtless, their proclivities. Then, his recollection of
their lawless natures prompting him again, he also added. "For if you
slay one another you will undoubtedly be executed. Therefore, take
heed, and if the beasts of the forest offer not sufficient killing to
your murderous and unregenerate natures, why! assist in exterminating
the natives who, being not yet baptised and received into the bosom of
our Holy Mother Church, are not to be accounted human. Then, there are
the English from neighbouring settlements who war with and dispute the
power of France in their insolence. Those, too, you may slay and
despatch--if--if they give you fair cause, which undoubtedly their
fierce and brutal nature will prompt them to do."
"But how to live?" asked one man, an enormous and cruel-looking
ruffian; "how to live, Father Roger, until the land yields the
wherewithal?"
"Listen, and you will learn. On arriving, you will be sent to that
noble town now rising as a monument of France's greatness; the town of
new Orleans, so named after our pious and illustrious Regent. 'Tis but
eighteen miles from where you will land, if the captains of the
transports arrive at the proper spot; a morning's walk. There you may
earn money by assisting in laying out the streets, building the
houses, making yourself useful. Work half the day at this, devote the
other half to attending to your allotted settlements, if they are near
at hand; otherwise, if they are afar off, work one week at New
Orleans, another at your plantations; and, thereby, shall you grow
rich and prosperous. 'Tis not hard to do, and, if it is, why, 'tis
better than a roadside gallows, a prison cell, or the wheel--any of
which you have all deserved."
Whether he knew what he was talking about, or whether he knew how
impracticable were the schemes he propounded, cannot be told. It was
sufficient that, at least, the vagabonds before him knew no better
than he did, and, at any rate, he spoke truly in one particular--to
whatever life they went forth, it must be better than death on the
gallows or the wheel. And as they listened, they told each other that,
at the worst, they would be free and at liberty to commence a new life
of preying on their fellow creatures, if there were any worth preying
on.
"Now," the chaplain continued hastily, for a glance at the prison
clock showed him that the time for his midday meal was approaching--a
meal at which he generally ate heartily, since, from various causes,
he was ever a poor breakfaster; "now for the holy and irrevocable bond
of marriage to which I invite you to enter, so that, thereby, you
shall all lead a life of propriety and decency--which, as yet, none of
you have ever done!--and shall also increase the population of New
France. Therefore, stand forth, first, all you who are agreed on
marriage; after which those who are not yet affianced unto one another
can select spouses according to their tastes. Stand forth, I say, you
who are agreed."
Forth, at his bidding they came, many of them having already decided
on becoming united, since it seemed that those who were married might
derive more advantage from their emigration than those who were
single; and because, also, all in their own minds had decided that,
once in the foreign land to which they were going, the tie might
easily be broken if they got sick of it. Therefore they stood before
him, ready.
They were a strange, vile-looking crowd, such as, perhaps, no other
state of society but that which prevailed in the last days of the
Regency of Philip of Orleans could have produced. All were not of the
lowest orders; some there were who had commenced life in circumstances
which should almost have warranted them against ever coming to such
case as they were now in. The chaplain's list contained their
names--or such names as they chose to be known by--as well as their
prison numbers; it contained, too, information as to where other
particulars could be gathered. And in that list was an account of what
crimes they were condemned for.
Among the men, most had been convicted of robbery, accompanied
generally with violence; one had slain a youth in a gambling hell, or
tripot, after cheating him; another had drugged a friend and robbed
him; a third had broken into a church and stolen the sacred vessels; a
fourth had beaten a priest; a fifth had throttled his wife. While,
also, there were others convicted and sentenced to the gibbet or the
wheel for crimes which, besides these, seemed trifling: a shop boy who
had robbed his master: a master who had starved his shop boy to death;
a vicomte who had embezzled the trust money of a ward and lost it all
in the "System;" a clerk who had stolen money to indulge in loose
pleasures, and a literary man who had written against the doctrines of
Rome and had called her Babylon, he being prosecuted by the Cardinal
Dubois of pious life!
The women were, however, the greater sinners, besides being also
better educated in most cases, and, likewise, more hardened and
defiant. One was beautiful, her golden hair being knotted now behind
her head--wigs in the Prison of St. Martin des Champs were, naturally,
superfluous!--her eyes as blue as the cornflower, large, limpid, and
full of innocence; yet she had murdered her husband and her husband's
mother to marry a man who, from the moment she was arrested, had never
come near her nor sent her word nor message, nor money for her
defence. She was now about to marry the embezzling vicomte. Next to
her there stood, ready to bestow herself on the literary man, a woman
who was her exact opposite, a creature black and swarthy, yet with the
remains of magnificent florid beauty in her dissolute face; a woman
born beneath the warm sun of Hérault. She, too, had committed secret
murder on one who had wronged her; yet now she was to be married. And,
sometimes, as he glanced at her who in a few moments would be his
wife, the literary man who boasted that he had made Pope Clement
tremble trembled himself.
The others were all more or less alike; lost women, as Roger, the
priest had said--one of them was about to espouse the shop boy--young
viragoes, robbers of drunken men, and so forth. And all meant to lead
a new life in a new land, though not perhaps the manner of life which
the priest had so unctuously described.
"Stand forth," he said again now, for the clock had struck twelve and
his onion soup and stewed mutton were ready.
"Stand forth in front of me. Prepare to enter the Holy State."
Whereupon he rapidly ran his eye over the paper in his hand, compared
the numbers by which the convicts were known in the prison with the
names they had been tried under, and then, exhorting them to attend to
the ceremony in a decent and reverent attitude, he proceeded to make
each two into one.
Yet before he did so he gave them one last salutary admonition, one
paternal warning. "Remember," he said, "that this is no idle ceremony
to be gone through carelessly, but an entrance into the honourable
state of matrimony; an espousal of each other as binding on you by the
laws of the land as though it had taken place at the altar of Notre
Dame, and been performed by Monseigneur the Archbishop. Pause,
therefore, ere it is too late; before you pledge yourselves to one
another; ransack your memories; be sure that none of you men have
wives anywhere else; that none of you women--though, in truth, most of
you have taken steps to make yourselves widows without the assistance
of Fate--have husbands. For if any of you have such ties and the fact
is ever discovered, nothing can save you again. Wherever you are, in
France or her colonies, you will most assuredly be executed, for such
is the punishment of bigamy as laid down by his late most sacred
Majesty, urged thereto by the pious Madame de Maintenon. I have warned
you. Turn your eyes inwards," and as he spoke he cast his own eyes
over the convicts before him to see which of them trembled or turned
pale. Doubtless there were some to whom the warning came home--amongst
them there must of a surety have been some dissolute wives who had
deserted their husbands, and selfish husbands who, having grown tired
of supporting wives of whom they had sickened, had long disappeared
from their knowledge--yet all were hardened and gave no sign of
meditated bigamy. The New World was before them; their imaginations
were inflamed with the hopes of, a fresh and more free life in New
France, or elsewhere, if they could escape from the old world. If they
had deserted a dozen wives, or husbands, each was now willing to
accept another.
Therefore they gave no sign, and, after one more glance at their
brazen faces, the chaplain married those who stood before him to each
other.
Then he gave them his blessing and his hopes that their union might be
prosperous and fruitful, and also--this he did not forget--passed in a
sober and righteous manner, after which he dismissed them and
exclaimed--
"Now for the undecided ones. Come, you," and he advanced towards where
three or four men were making proposals to as many women. "Come you,
time runs apace; are you agreed?"
Two men and two women were agreed, the third man was unpropitious in
his suit. The woman to whom he offered himself refused to listen to
him, to even heed his words or to give any sign that she heard him.
"What is her number?" the priest asked, while the governor by his side
bent down and twitched at her coarse prison cloak, which she had drawn
close round her shoulders and the lower part of her face, thereby
probably to conceal the latter. "What is her number? Let us see," and
he looked at his notebook.
"54," the governor said, pointing to the figures sewn on her shoulder.
"54," muttered the chaplain, referring to the paper in his hand and,
after that, to a small memorandum book he drew from beneath his
cassock. "54. Humph! Ha!" Then, after reading from the book for a few
moments, he turned to the rejected suitor and said: "Young man, you do
not lose much. She is almost the worst, if not the worst, of all in
the list--she is----"
"She may reform--and--and--you see? She is beautiful."
"I see," murmured the chaplain, "that is true. Yet a dower you are
best without. What, my son, was your crime?"
"Oh as for that," the fellow stammered, "but little. My uncle was
rich; he would give me nothing--a--miser----"
"Precisely. Wherefore you helped yourself. Yet you were an innocent
beside this woman whom you now seek to wed. An innocent! She was
affianced to a rich man of illustrious family. On the day that was to
witness their wedding, on that very day she jilted him and married an
English vagabond--a swindler--who, report says, shortly deserted her.
But before he did so, they inveigled the one who should have been her
husband to their dwelling at night on some vile pretence, and then
attempted to strangle him, she doing the deed herself with those
hands," and he pointed to the thin white hands of the woman which held
the coarse hood about her face. While he continued: "Her victim was
found almost throttled at her feet--the exempts swore to it--part of
his cravat was in her hand when they rushed in. My man, you are well
free of the creature, even if you could by law have wedded her, which
is doubtful. The brigand, her husband, may be still alive, plundering,
robbing elsewhere."
He finished speaking, and the miserable creature who would have united
himself to the woman, shuddered at the escape he had had. Shuddered,
too, at the look of despair upon the woman's face, which he took for
the fury of a spitfire, as she, lifting her hood, stared up with
large, grief-stricken eyes from where she crouched, and said to the
chaplain:
"It is a lie! A lie! My husband was no adventurer, while, for that
other, would to God he were truly dead. He merited death."