Part 15

I cannot describe what passed within me. I was indeed their “comrade!” The Scaffold is Sister to the Galleys. Nay, I was even lower than they were; the convicts had done me an honour. I shuddered: yes! their “comrade!” I remained at the window, motionless, as if paralyzed; but when I saw the five gangs advance, rushing towards me with phrases of disgusting cordiality; when I heard the horrible din of their chains, their clamours, their steps at the foot of my wall, it seemed to me that this knot of demons were scaling my cell! I uttered a shriek; I threw myself against the door violently, but there was no means of flight. I knocked, I called with mad fury. Then I thought I heard, still nearer, the horrid voices of the convicts. I thought I saw their hideous heads appearing on a level with the window; I uttered another shriek of anguish, and fainted.

* * * * *

FOURTEENTH PAPER.

When my consciousness returned it was night: I was lying on a truckle bed; a lamp which swung from the ceiling enabled me to see a line of beds similar to mine, and I therefore judged that I had been taken to the Infirmary. I remained a few moments awake, but without thought or recollection, totally engrossed by the happiness of being again in a bed. Certainly, in former days, this prison-hospital bed would have made me shrink with disgust; but I am no longer the same individual. The sheets were brown, and coarse to the touch, the blanket thin and ragged, and there was but one straw mattress.

No matter! I could stretch my limbs at their ease between these coarse sheets; and under this blanket, thin as it was, I felt the gradual decrease of that horrible chill in the marrow of my bones, to which I had lately been accustomed.--I slept again.

A loud noise awakened me at daylight. The noise came from without; my bed was beside the window, and I sat up to see from what it arose. The window looked into the large Court of the Bicêtre, which was full of people. Two lines of veterans had difficulty in keeping the crowd away from a narrow passage across the Court. Between this double rank of soldiers, five long wagons, loaded with men, were driven slowly jolting at each stone; it was the departure of the convicts.

These wagons were open, and each gang occupied one. The convicts, in consequence of their iron collars being attached to the centre chain, are obliged to sit back to back, their feet hanging over the sides of the wagon; the centre chain stretched the whole length of the cart, and on its unfastened end the Sergeant stood with his loaded musket. There was a continual clanking of the prisoners’ chains, and at each plunge of the wagon their heads and pendant limbs were jolted violently. A quick penetrating rain chilled the air, and made their wet slight vesture cling to their shivering forms. Their long beards and short hair streamed with wet; their complexions were saturnine; they were shivering, and grinding their teeth with mingled rage and cold. But they had no power of moving: once riveted to that chain, each becomes a mere fraction of that hideous whole which is called the Gang. Intellect must abdicate,--the fetters condemn it to death; and the mere animal must not even hunger but at certain hours. Thus fixed, the greater part half clad, with bare heads, and no rest for their feet, they begin their journey of twenty-five days; the same sort of wagons, the same portion of dress being used in scorching July as in the cold rains of November. One would almost think that man wishes Heaven to take a part in his office of executioner.

Between the crowd and the convicts a horrible dialogue was maintained,--abuse on one side, bravadoes on the other, imprecations from both; but at a sign from the Captain I saw the sticks of the Guard raining indiscriminate blows into the wagon, on heads or shoulders, and all returned to that kind of external calm which is called “order.” But their eyes were full of vengeance, and their powerless hands were clenched on their knees.

The five wagons, escorted by mounted gendarmes and guards on foot, passed slowly under the high arched door of the Bicêtre. The crowd followed them: all vanished like a phantasmagoria, and by degrees the sounds diminished of the heavy wheels, clanking fetters, and the yells of the multitude uttering maledictions on the journey of the convicts. And such was their happy beginning!

What a proposition my counsel made! The Galleys! I was right to prefer death; rather the Scaffold than what I had seen!

FIFTEENTH PAPER.

Unfortunately I was not ill; therefore the next day I was obliged to leave the Infirmary to return to my dungeon.

Not ill? No truly, I am young, healthful, and strong; the blood flows freely in my veins; my limbs obey my will; I am robust in mind and body, constituted for a long life. Yes, all this is true; and yet, nevertheless, I have an illness, a fatal illness,--an illness given by the hand of man!

Since I came out of the Infirmary a vivid idea has occupied me,--a thought which affects me to madness; namely, that I might have escaped, had they left me there! Those Physicians, those Charity Sisters seemed to take an interest in me. “To die so young! and by such a death!” One would have imagined they pitied me by their pressing round my bed. Bah! it was curiosity! I have no chance now! My plea will be rejected, because all was legal; the witnesses gave correct evidence, the counsel pleaded well, the Judges decided carefully. I do not reckon upon it, unless--No! folly; there is no hope. The plea is a cord which holds you suspended over an abyss, and which you feel giving way at each instant until it breaks. It is as if the axe of the Guillotine took six weeks to fall.

If I could obtain my pardon!--my pardon! From whom, for what, and by what means? It is impossible that I should be pardoned. They say _an example is requisite_.

SIXTEENTH PAPER.

During the few hours I passed at the Infirmary, I seated myself at a window in the sunshine (for the afternoon had become fine), and I enjoyed all the sun which the gratings of the window would allow me.

I sat thus, my heavy and fevered head within my hands, my elbows on my knees, my feet on the bar of the chair; for dejection had made me stoop, and sink within myself, as if I had neither bone nor muscular power.

The stifling air of the prison oppressed me more than ever; I still fancied the noise from the convicts’ chains rung in my ears; I was almost overcome. I wished that some guardian spirit would take pity on me, and send even a little bird to sing there, opposite, on the edge of the roof.

I know not if it were a spirit of good or evil which granted my wish; but almost at the moment I uttered it, I heard beneath my window a voice,--not that of a bird, but far better,--the pure, fresh, _velvet_ voice of a young girl of fifteen!

I raised my head with a start; I listened with avidity to the song she sung. It was a slow and plaintive air,--a sad yet beautiful melody. As I gathered the sense of the words, I cannot describe my pain and disappointment, while the following stanzas of prison-dialect marred the sweet music.[6]

I heard no more. I could listen to no more. The meaning, half-hidden, half-evident, of this horrible lament,--the struggle between the felon and the police; the thief he meets and despatches for his wife; his dreadful explanation to her: “I have sweated an oak” (“I have assassinated a man”) the wife who goes to Versailles with a petition, and the King indignantly exclaiming that he “will make the guilty man dance where there is no floor!”--and all this sung to the sweetest air, and by the sweetest voice that ever soothed human ear! I was shocked, disgusted, overcome. It was a repulsive idea that all these monstrous words proceeded from a fresh rosy mouth: it was like the slime of a snail over a rosebud!

I cannot express what I felt; I was at once pained and gratified. The idiom of crime, a language at once sanguinary and grotesque, united to the voice of a young girl, that graceful transition from the voice of childhood to the voice of woman,--all these deformities of words delightfully sung, cadenced, rounded!

Ah, how infamous is a prison! It contains a venom which assails all within its pestilential reach. Everything withers there, even the song of a girl of fifteen!

If you find a bird within its courts, it has mud on its wing. If you gather a beauteous flower there, it exhales poison!

SEVENTEENTH PAPER.

Whilst I was writing, my lamp faded, daylight appeared, and the clock of the chapel struck six.

* * * * *

What can be the meaning of what has since happened? The turnkey on duty came into my cell; he took off his cap, bowed to me, apologized for disturbing me, and making an effort to soften his rough voice, inquired what I wished to have for my breakfast--

A shudder has come over me. _Is it to take place to-day?_

EIGHTEENTH PAPER.

I feel that it _is_ for to-day!

The Governor of the prison himself came to visit me. He asked me how he could serve or accommodate me; he expressed a hope that I had no complaint to make respecting him or his subordinates; and he inquired with interest regarding my health, and how I had passed the night. On leaving me, he called me “Sir!”

Oh, it surely is for to-day!

NINETEENTH PAPER.

The Governor of the prison thinks I have no cause of complaint against him or his jailors. He is right, and it would be wrong of me to complain; they have done their duty, they have kept me safe; and then they have been complaisant at my arrival and departure. Ought I not to be satisfied?

This Governor, with his benign smile, his soft words, his eye which flatters and spies, his coarse heavy hands,--he is the incarnation of a prison!

Ah, hapless creature! what will become of me? What will they do with me?

* * * * *

TWENTIETH PAPER.

Now I am calm. All is finished--quite finished!

I am relieved from the dreadful anxiety into which I was thrown by the Governor’s visit; for I confess I still felt hope. Now, thank Heaven! hope is gone.

Let me record what has happened.

At half-past six the door of my cell was opened; an old man with white hair entered, dressed in a brown great-coat. He unfastened it, and beneath I saw the black cassock and bands of a priest. He was not the usual Chaplain to the prison, and I thought this appeared ominous. He seated himself opposite to me, with a quiet smile; then shook his head, and raised his eyes to heaven. I understood him.

“My son!” said he, “are you prepared?”

I answered, in a low tone, “I am not prepared--but I am ready.”

Then my sight became troubled; a chill damp pervaded my frame. I felt the veins on my temples swelling, and a confused murmur in my ears.

Whilst I vacillated on my chair as though asleep, the old man continued speaking,--at least, so it appeared to me, for I think I remember seeing his lips move, and his hand raised.

The door was opened again; the noise of the lock roused me from my reverie, and the Priest from his discourse. A person dressed in black entered, accompanied by the Governor of the prison, and bowed profoundly to me; he carried a roll of paper.

“Sir,” said he, with a courteous smile, “I have the honour to bring you a message from the Attorney-General.”

The first agitation was over; all my presence of mind returned, and I answered in a firm tone, “Read on, Sir.”

He then read a long, technically-expressed paper, the purport of which was the rejection of my plea. “The execution will be to-day,” added he; “we shall leave this for the Conciergerie Prison at half-past seven. My dear Sir, will you have the extreme goodness to accompany me at that hour?”

For some instants I had no longer listened to him; for while his eyes were fixed on the paper the Governor was occupied talking to the Priest; and I looked at the door which they had left half open!... Ah, hapless me! Four sentinels in the corridor. Again I was asked when I would be ready to go.

“When you please,” I said; “at your own time.”

“I shall have the honour of coming for you, then, in half an hour,” said he, bowing; and all the party withdrew.

Oh, for some means of escaping! Good heavens! any means whatever! I _must_ make my escape! I must! Immediately! By the doors, by the windows, by the roof! Even though in the struggle I should destroy myself!

Oh, rage! demons! malediction! It would take months to pierce this wall with efficient tools. And I have not one nail, nor one hour!

TWENTY-FIRST PAPER.

CONCIERGERIE PRISON.

Here I am transferred, then. Let me record the details.

At half-past seven the messenger again presented himself at the threshold of my dungeon. “Sir,” said he, “I wait for you.”

Alas! and I saw that four others did the same! I rose, and advanced one step. It appeared to me I could not make a second. My head was so heavy, and my limbs so feeble; but I made an effort to conquer my weakness, and assumed an appearance of firmness.

Prior to leaving the cell, I gave it a final look; I had almost become attached to it. Besides, I left it empty and open, which gives so strange an appearance to a dungeon.

It will not be long untenanted. The turnkeys said they expected some one this evening,--a prisoner who was then being tried at the Court of Assizes.

At the turn of the corridor the Chaplain rejoined us; he had just breakfasted.

At the threshold of the gaol, the Governor took me by the hand; he had reinforced my escort by four veterans.

By the door of the Infirmary a dying old man exclaimed, “Good bye, we shall soon meet again!”

We arrived in the courtyard, where I could breathe again freely, and this refreshed me greatly; but we did not walk long in the open air. The carriage was stationed in the first court. It was the same which had brought me there,--a sort of oblong van, divided into two sections by a transverse grating of close wire. Each section had a door; one in the front, one in the back of the cart; the whole so dirty, so black, so dusty, that the hearse for paupers is a state carriage by comparison! Before I buried myself in this moving tomb, I cast a look round the yard,--one of those despairing looks which seem to ask a miracle. The court was already encumbered with spectators. Like the day when the convicts departed, there was a slight, chilling shower of the season; it is raining still, and doubtless there will be rain all the day,--which will last when I am no more! We entered the van. The messenger and a gendarme, in the front compartment, the Priest, myself, and a gendarme in the other, with four mounted gendarmes around the carriage. As I entered it, an old grey-eyed woman who stood near exclaimed, “I like seeing this, even better than seeing the galley convicts!”

I can conceive this. It is a spectacle more easily taken in at one view. Nothing divides the attention; there is but one man, and on this isolated being there is as much misery heaped as on all the other convicts together. The van passed with a dull noise under the gateway, and the heavy doors of the Bicêtre were closed after us. I felt myself moving, but in stupor, like a man fallen into a lethargy, who can neither move nor cry out, and who fancies he feels that he is being buried alive. I listened vaguely to the peal of bells on the collars of the post-horses which drew the van, the iron wheels grating over various substances in the road, the clacking whips of the postillion, the galloping of the gendarmes round the carriage,--all seemed like a whirlwind which bore me away.

My mind was so stupefied with grief that I only conceived ideas as in a dream. I saw the blue towers of Nôtre Dame in the distance. “Those who will be on the tower with the flag will see my execution well,” said I to myself, smiling stupidly.

I think it was at that moment that the Priest addressed me again; I patiently let him speak. I had already in my ears the noise of the wheels, the galloping horses, and the postillion’s whip; therefore it was only one more incomprehensible noise. I listened in silence to that flow of monotonous words, which deadened my thoughts, like the murmur of a brook; and they passed before my torpid mind, always varied yet always the same, like the crooked elms we passed by the road-side. The short and jerking voice of the messenger in the front of the van suddenly aroused me.

“Well, Chaplain,” said he, in almost a gay tone, “what news have you to-day?”

The Chaplain, who spoke to me without ceasing, and who was deafened by the carriage, made no answer.

“Well, well! how the van rattles; one can hardly hear oneself. What was I saying to you, Chaplain! Oh, aye!--do you know the great news of Paris to-day?”

I started as if he were speaking to me.

“No,” said the priest, who had at last heard him, “I have not had time to read the papers this morning: I shall see them this evening. When I am occupied in this way all day, I order my servant to keep the papers, and I read them on my return.”

“Bah!” replied the other, “it is impossible that you have not heard what I mean. The news of Paris--the news of this morning.”

It was now my turn to speak; and I said, “I know what you mean.”

The Messenger looked at me. “You? really! and pray what is your opinion about it?”

“You are inquisitive,” said I.

“How so, sir?” replied he. “Every one should have a political opinion: I esteem you too much to suppose that you are without one. As to myself, I am quite in favour of re-establishing the National Guard. I was a serjeant in my company; and, faith! it was very agreeable to--”

I interrupted him by saying, “I did not think this was the subject in question.”

“What did you suppose, then? You professed to know the news.”

“I spoke of something else with which Paris is also occupied to-day.”

The fool did not understand, and his curiosity was awakened.

“More news! Where the deuce could _you_ learn news? What is it, my dear sir? Do you know what it is, Chaplain? Do let me hear all about it, I beg. I like news, you see, to relate to the President; it amuses him.”

He looked from one to the other, and obtained no answer.

“Well,” said he, “what are you thinking of?”

“I am thinking,” said I, “that I shall be past thinking, this evening.”

“Oh, that’s it,” returned he. “Come, come, you are too sad. Mr. Castaing conversed on the day of his execution.”

Then, after a pause, he continued: “I accompanied Mr. Papavoine on his last day. He wore his otter-skin cap, and smoked his cigar. As for the young men of La Rochelle, they only spoke among themselves, but still they spoke. As for you, I really think you are too pensive, young man.”

“Young man?” I repeated. “I am older than you; every quarter of an hour which passes makes me a year older.”

He turned round, looked at me some minutes with stupid astonishment, and then began to titter.

“Come, you are joking; older than I am? why, I might be your grandfather.”

“I have no wish to jest,” I answered gravely. He opened his snuff-box.

“Here, my good sir, don’t be angry. Take a pinch of snuff, and don’t bear malice.”

“Do not fear,” said I; “I shall not have long to bear it against you.”

At this moment the snuff-box which he extended to me came against the grating which separated us. A jolt caused it to strike rather violently, and it fell, wide open, under the feet of the gendarme.

“Curse the grating!” said the Messenger; then, turning to me, he added, “Now, am I not unlucky? I have lost all my snuff!”

“I lose more than you,” said I.

As he tried to pick up his snuff, he muttered between his teeth, “More than I! that’s very easily said. No more snuff until I reach Paris! It’s terrible.”

The Chaplain then addressed him with some words of consolation; and I know not if I were pre-occupied, but it seemed to me to be part of the exhortation of which the commencement had been addressed to me.

By degrees conversation increased between the Chaplain and the officer; and I became again lost in thought. The van was stopped for a minute before the toll-gate, and the inspector examined it. Had it contained a sheep or an ox which was going to be slaughtered, they would have required some money; but a human head pays no duty!

We passed through the gates, and the carriage trotted quickly through those old and crooked streets of the Faubourg St. Marceau and the city, which twist and cross each other like the many paths of an ant-hill. On the pavement of these narrow streets the rolling of the wheels became so noisy and rapid that I could hear no other sound, though I saw that people exclaimed, as the van passed, and bands of children followed its track. I fancied also I occasionally saw in the cross-streets ragged men displaying in their hands a bundle of printed papers, their mouths open as if vociferating something, while the passers stopped to purchase.

Half-past eight struck by the palace clock as we arrived in the court of the Conciergerie Prison. The sight of its wide staircase, its dark chapel, its sombre gates, made me shudder; and when the carriage stopped, I fancied the beatings of my heart stopped also.

But I collected my strength; the door was opened; with the rapidity of lightning I jumped from the moving prison, and passed between two lines of soldiers: already there was a crowd formed on my path.

TWENTY-SECOND PAPER.

All my resolution abandoned me when I reached the low doors, private stairs, and interior corridors, which are only entered by the condemned. The Officer still accompanied me: the Priest had left me for a couple of hours--perchance to read the papers!

I was then taken to the Governor, into whose charge the Officer gave me. They made an exchange. The Director told him to wait a moment, as he had some “game” for him to take back in the Van to the Bicêtre. No doubt it was the man condemned to-day. He is to sleep to-night on the bundle of straw which I have not had time to wear out.

“Oh, very well,” said the Officer to the Governor, “I will wait with pleasure; we can make out the two papers together, and it will be very convenient.”

They then placed me in a small room adjoining the Governor’s office, and left me, locked in, alone.

I know not of what I was thinking, or how long I had been there, when a sudden and loud burst of laughter in my ear dispersed my reverie.

I raised my eyes with a start. I was no longer alone in the cell; a man was beside me. He was about fifty-five years old, middle-sized, wrinkled, stooping, and bald: with a sinister cast in his grey eyes, and a bitter sneer on his countenance; he was dirty, half-clothed, ragged, disgusting.

We looked at each other steadfastly for some moments; he prolonging his bitter laugh, while I felt half astonished, half alarmed.

“Who are you?” said I to him at last.

“That is a funny question,” said he. “I am a _friauche_.”

“A friauche?” said I; “what does that mean?”

This question redoubled his merriment.

“Why,” cried he, in the midst of a shout of laughter, “it means that they will play the same game with my head in six weeks hence, as they will with thine in six hours! Ha! ha! ha! thou seem’st to understand now!”

And truly I was pale, and my hair stood on end. This, then, was the other condemned prisoner, the one just sentenced, whom they expected at the Bicêtre; the heir of my cell.