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The For-l'?v?que, the Bishop's prison, was situated in the rue St. Germain-l'Auxerrois, and is described in similar terms as the foregoing: "dark, unwholesome and over-crowded." In the court or principal yard, thirty feet long by eighteen feet wide, some four or five hundred prisoners were constantly confined. The outer walls were of such a height as to forbid the circulation of fresh air and there was not enough to breathe. The cells were more dog-holes than human habitations. In some only six feet square, five prisoners were often lodged at one and the same time. Others were too low in the ceiling for a man to stand upright and few had anything but borrowed light from the yard. Many cells were below the ground level and that of the river bed, so that water filtered in through the arches all the year round, and even in the height of summer the only ventilation was by a slight slit in the door three inches wide. "To pass by an open cell door one felt as if smitten by fire from within," says a contemporary writer. Access to these cells was by dark, narrow galleries. For long years the whole prison was in such a state of dilapidation that ruin and collapse were imminent.

"In wet weather or when it thawed in winter, water streamed from all parts of our cell. I was crippled with rheumatism and the pains were such that I was sometimes whole weeks without getting up. The window-sill guarded by an iron grating gave on to a corridor, the wall of which was placed exactly opposite at a height of ten feet. A glimmer of light came through this aperture and was accompanied by snow and rain. I had neither fire nor artificial light and prison rags were my only clothing. To quench my thirst I sucked morsels of ice broken off with the heel of my wooden shoe. If I stopped up the window I was nearly choked by the effluvium from the cellars. Insects stung me in the eyes. I had always a bad taste in my mouth and my lungs were horribly oppressed. I was detained in that cell for thirty-eight months enduring the pangs of hunger, cold and damp. I was attacked by scurvy and was presently unable to sit or rise. In ten days my legs and thighs were swollen to twice their ordinary size. My body turned black. My teeth loosened in their sockets and I could no longer masticate. I could not speak and was thought to be dead. Then the surgeon came, and seeing my state ordered me to be removed to the infirmary."

Bic?tre was subsequently associated with the galleys and was starting point of the chain of convicts directed upon the arsenals of Toulon, Rochefort, Lorient and Brest. A full account of these modern prisons is reserved for a later chapter.

STRUGGLE WITH THE SOVEREIGN

The early history of France is made up of the continuous struggle between the sovereign and the people. The power of the king, though constantly opposed by the great vassals and feudal lords, steadily grew and gained strength. The state was meanwhile torn with dissensions and passed through many succeeding periods of anarchy and great disorders. The king's power was repeatedly challenged by rivals and pretenders. It was weakened, and at times eclipsed, but in the long run it always triumphed. The king always vindicated his right to the supreme authority and, when he could, ruled arbitrarily and imperiously, backed and supported by attributes of autocracy which gradually overcame all opposition and finally established a despotic absolutism.

The principal prisons of France were royal institutions. Two in particular, the chief and most celebrated, Vincennes and the Bastile, were seated in the capital. With these I shall deal presently at considerable length. Many others, provincial strongholds and castles, were little less conspicuous and mostly of evil reputation. I shall deal with those first.

"The King," says Comines, "had ordered several cruel prisons to be made; some were cages of iron and some of wood, but all were covered with iron plates both within and without, with terrible locks, about eight feet wide and seven feet high; the first contriver of them was the Bishop of Verdun who was immediately put into the first of them, where he continued fourteen years. Many bitter curses he has had since his invention, and some from me as I lay in one of them eight months together during the minority of our present King. He also ordered heavy and terrible fetters to be made in Germany and particularly a certain ring for the feet which was extremely hard to be opened and fitted like an iron collar, with a thick weighty chain and a great globe of iron at the end of it, most unreasonably heavy, which engine was called the King's Nets. However, I have seen many eminent men, deserving persons in these prisons with these nets about their legs, who afterwards came out with great joy and honor and received great rewards from the king."

A few more words about Loches. Descending more than a hundred steps we reach the dungeon occupied by Ludovico Sforza, called "Il Moro," Duke of Milan, who had long been in conflict with France. The epithet applied to him was derived from the mulberry tree, which from the seasons of its flowers and its fruit was taken as an emblem of "prudence." The name was wrongly supposed to be due to his dark Moorish complexion. After many successes the fortune of war went against Sforza and he was beaten by Trionlzio, commanding the French army, who cast him into the prison of Novara. Il Moro was carried into France, his destination being the underground dungeon at Loches.

Much pathos surrounds the memory of this illustrious prisoner, who for nine years languished in a cell so dark that light entered it only through a slit in fourteen feet of rock. The only spot ever touched by daylight is still indicated by a small square scratched on the stone floor. Ludovico Sforza strove to pass the weary hours by decorating his room with rough attempts at fresco. The red stars rendered in patterns upon the wall may still be seen, and among them, twice repeated, a prodigious helmet giving a glimpse through the casque of the stern, hard looking face inside. A portrait of Il Moro is extant at the Certosa, near Pavia, and has been described as that of a man "with the fat face and fine chin of the elderly Napoleon, the beak-like nose of Wellington, a small, querulous, neat-lipped mouth and immense eyebrows stretched like the talons of an eagle across the low forehead."

The wretched inmates of Loches succeeded each other, reign after reign in an interminable procession. One of the most ill-used was de Rochechouart, nephew of the Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld, who was mixed up in a court intrigue in 1633 and detained in Loches with no proof against him in the hopes of extorting a confession.

The smiling verdant valley of the Loire, which flows through the historic province of Touraine, is rich in ancient strongholds that preserve the memories of mediaeval France. It was the home of those powerful feudal lords, the turbulent vassals who so long contended for independence with their titular masters, weak sovereigns too often unable to keep them in subjection. They raised the round towers and square impregnable donjons, resisting capture in the days before siege artillery, all of which have their gruesome history, their painful records showing the base uses which they served, giving effect to the wicked will of heartless, unprincipled tyrants.

Two other remarkable prison castles must be mentioned here, Amboise and Angers. The first named is still a conspicuous object in a now peaceful neighborhood, but it offers few traces of antiquity, although it is full of bloody traditions. Its most terrible memory is that of the Amboise conspiracy organised by the Huguenots in 1560, and intended to remove the young king, Francis II, from the close guardianship of the Guises. The real leader was the Prince de Cond?, known as "the silent captain." The ostensible chief was a Protestant gentleman of Perigord, named Renaudie, a resolute, intelligent man, stained with an evil record, having been once sentenced and imprisoned for the crime of forgery. He was to appear suddenly at the castle at the head of fifteen hundred devoted followers, surprise the Guises and seize the person of the young king. One of their accomplices, a lawyer, or according to another account, a certain Captain Ligni?res, was alarmed and betrayed the conspirators. Preparations were secretly made for defence, Renaudie was met with an armed force and killed on the spot, and his party made prisoners by lots, as they appeared. All were forthwith executed, innocent and guilty, even the peasants on their way to market. They were hanged, decapitated or drowned. The court of the castle and the streets of the town ran with blood until the executioners, sated with the slaughter, took to sewing up the survivors in sacks and throwing them into the river from the bridge garnished with gibbets, and ghastly heads impaled on pikes. A balcony to this day known as the "Grille aux Huguenots" still exists, on which Catherine de Medicis and her three sons, Francis II, the reigning monarch, Charles, afterwards the ninth king of that name, and Henry II, witnessed the massacre in full court dress. Mary, Queen of Scots, the youthful bride of her still younger husband, was also present. The Prince de Cond? had been denounced, but there was no positive evidence against him and he stoutly denied his guilt, and in the presence of the whole court challenged any accuser to single combat. No one took up the glove and he remained free until a fresh conspiracy, stimulated by detestation of the atrocities committed by the Guises, seriously compromised the prince. Cond? was arrested at Orleans, found guilty of treason and sentenced to death. He was saved by the death of Francis. Mary Stuart afterward returned to Scotland to pass through many stormy adventures and end her life on the scaffold.

In quite recent years Amboise was occupied by a very different prisoner, the intrepid Arab leader Abd-el-Kader, who after his capture by the Duc d'Aumale in 1847, in the last Algerian war, was interred in the heart of France in full view of the so-called "Arab camp" where his Saracen ancestors had gone so near to enslaving Christian Europe.

Three famous prisons in their way were Pignerol, Exiles and the island fortress of St. Marguerite. Pignerol was a fortified frontier town of Piedmont, which was for some time French property, half bought and half stolen from Italy. It stands on the lower slopes of the southern Alps, twenty miles from Turin, fifty from Nice and ninety east of Grenoble. It was a stronghold of the princes of Savoy, capable of effective defence, with a small red-roofed tower and many tall campaniles gathering round an inner citadel, raised on a commanding height. This central keep is a mass of rambling buildings with solid buttressed walls, essentially a place of arms. Pignerol has three principal gateways. One served for the road coming from the westward and was called the gate of France; another from the eastward, was that of Turin; and the third was a "safety" or "secret" gate, avoiding the town and giving upon the citadel. This last gate was opened rarely and only to admit a prisoner brought privately by special escort. It was a French garrison town inhabited largely by Italians. There was a French governor in supreme command, also a king's lieutenant who was commandant of the citadel, and the head gaoler, who held the prison proper; and these three officials constituted a sovereign council of war.

Exiles was an unimportant stronghold, a fort shaped like a five pointed star, surrounding a small ch?teau with two tall towers which served as prisons. St. Marguerite is one of the Iles de Lerins, a couple of rocky pine clad islets facing the now prosperous southern resort of Cannes and only fifteen hundred yards from the shore. The two islands called respectively St. Honorat and St. Marguerite have each an ancient history. The first was named after a holy man who early in the fifth century established a monastery of great renown, while upon the neighboring island he struck a well which yielded a miraculous flow of sweet water. Francis I of France began his captivity here after his crushing defeat at the battle of Pavia. The royal fort at the eastern end of St. Marguerite was for some time the abode of the so-called "Man with the Iron Mask," and many scenes of the apocryphal stories of that exploded mystery are laid here.

The island fortress became to some extent famous in our own day by being chosen as the place of confinement for Marshal Bazaine, after his conviction by court martial for the alleged treacherous surrender of Metz to the Germans. As we know, he did not remain long a prisoner, his escape having been compassed by an American friend.

VINCENNES AND THE BASTILE

We come now to the two great metropolitan prisons that played so large a part in the vexed and stormy annals of France. Vincennes and Bastile may be said to epitomise Parisian history. They were ever closely associated with startling episodes and notable personages, the best and worst Frenchmen in all ages, and were incessantly the centres of rebellions, dissensions, contentions and strife. They were both State prisons, differing but little in character and quality. Vincennes was essentially a place of durance for people of rank and consequence. The Bastile took the nobility also, but with them the whole crowd of ordinary criminals great and small. These prisons were the two weapons forged by autocratic authority and freely used by it alike for the oppression of the weak and down trodden, and the openly turbulent but vainly recalcitrant. The royal relatives that dared oppose the king, the stalwart nobles that conspired or raised the standard of revolt, the great soldiers who dabbled in civil war, found themselves committed to Vincennes. The same classes of offenders, but generally of lesser degree, were thrown into the Bastile. The courtier who forgot his manners or dared to be independent in thought or action, the bitter poetaster and too fluent penman of scurrilous pamphlets, were certain of a lodging at the gloomy citadel of Saint Antoine.

The prison fortress of Vincennes in its palmiest days consisted of nine great towers; and a tenth, loftier and more solid, was the Donjon, or central keep, commonly called the Royal Domain. Two drawbridges must be passed before entrance was gained by a steep ascent. This was barred by three heavy doors. The last of these communicated directly with the Donjon, being so ponderous that it could only be moved by the combined efforts of the warder within and the sergeant of the guard without. A steep staircase led to the cells above. The four towers had each four stories and each story a hall forty feet long, with a cell at each corner having three doors apiece. These doors acted one on the other. The second barred the first and the third barred the second, and none could be opened without knowledge of secret machinery.

In the chief French prisons the "question" was generally limited to the two best known tortures: swallowing great quantities of water and the insertion of the legs within a casing or "boot" of wood or iron. For the first, the accused was chained to the floor and filled with water poured down his throat by means of a funnel. In the "ordinary question" four "cans"--pints, presumably--of water were administered, and for the "extraordinary" eight cans. From a report of the proceedings in the case of a priest accused of sacrilege, who had been already sentenced to death but whose punishment was accentuated by torture, it is possible to realise the sufferings endured. After the first can the victim cried "May God have mercy on me;" at the second he declared, "I know nothing and I am ready to die;" at the third he was silent, but at the fourth he declared he could support it no longer and that if they would release him he would tell the truth. Then he changed his mind and refused to speak, declaring that he had told all he knew and was forthwith subjected to the "extraordinary question." At the fifth can he called upon God twice. At the sixth he said, "I am dying, I can hold out no longer, I have told all." At the seventh he said nothing. At the eighth he screamed out that he was dying and lapsed into complete silence. Now the surgeon interfered, saying that further treatment would endanger his life, and he was unbound and placed on a mattress near the fire. He appears to have made no revelations and was in due course borne off to the place of execution.

It was sometimes shown that the torture had been applied to perfectly innocent people. The operation was performed with a certain amount of care. One of the master surgeons of the prison was always present to watch the effect upon the patient and to offer him advice. The "questioner" was a sworn official who was paid a regular salary, about one hundred francs a year.

Flagellation was a cruel and humiliating punishment, largely used under degrading conditions and with various kinds of instruments. Mutilation was employed in every variety; not a single part of the body has escaped some penalties. There were many forms of wounding the eyes and the mouth; tongue, ears, teeth, arms, hands and feet have been attacked with fire and weapons of every kind. To slice off the nose, crop the ears, amputate the wrist, draw the teeth, cut off the lower limbs, were acts constantly decreed. Branding with red hot irons on the brow, cheeks, lips and shoulders, kept the executioner busy with such offenses as blasphemy, petty thefts and even duelling. The effects served to inhibit like offenses, but the punishment was in no sense a preventive or corrective.

Prisoners were generally received at Vincennes in the dead of night, a natural sequel to secret unexplained arrests, too often the result of jealousy or caprice or savage ill-will. The ceremony on arrival was much the same as that which still obtains. A close search from head to foot, the deprivation of all papers, cash and valuables, executed under the eyes of the governor himself. The new arrival was then conducted to his lodging, generally a foul den barely furnished with bedstead, wooden table and a couple of rush-bottomed chairs. The first mandate issued was that strict silence was the invariable rule. Arbitrary and irksome rules governed the whole course of procedure and daily conduct. The smallest privileges depended entirely upon the order of superior authority. Books or writing materials were issued or forbidden as the gaoler, the king's minister, or the king himself might decide. Dietary was fixed by regulation and each prisoner's maintenance paid out of the king's bounty on a regular scale according to the rank and quality of the captive. The allowance for princes of the blood was per diem, for marshals of France .50, for judges, priests and captains in the army or officials of good standing about , and for lesser persons fifty cents. These amounts were ample, but pilfering and peculation were the general rule. The money was diverted from the use intended, articles were issued in kind and food and fuel were shamelessly stolen. Prisoners who were not allowed to supply themselves, were often half starved and half frozen in their cells. So inferior was the quality of the prison rations, that those who purloined food could not sell it in the neighborhood and the peasants said that all that came from the Donjon was rotten. In sharp contrast was the revelry and rioting in which prisoners of high station were permitted to indulge. These were attended by their own servants and constantly visited by their personal friends of both sexes. An amusing sidelight on the r?gime of Vincennes may be read in the account of the arrest of the great Prince de Cond?, during the Fronde, and his two confederate princes, the Prince de Conti, his brother, and the Duc de Longueville, his brother-in-law. No preparations had been made for their reception, but Cond?, a soldier and an old campaigner, supped on some new-laid eggs and slept on a bundle of straw. Next morning he played tennis and shuttle-cock with the turnkeys, sang songs and began seriously to learn music. A strip of garden ground, part of the great court, surrounding the prison, where the prisoners exercised, was given to Cond? to cultivate and he raised pinks which were the admiration of all Paris. He poked fun at the Governor and when the latter threatened him for breach of rule, proposed to strangle him. This is clearly the same Cond? who nicknamed Cardinal Mazarin, "Mars," when his eminence aspired to lead an army, and when he wrote him a letter addressed it to "His Excellency, the Great Scoundrel."

Prison discipline must have been slack in Vincennes, nor could innumerable locks and ponderous chains make up for the careless guard kept by its gaolers. Many escapes were effected from Vincennes, more creditable to the ingenuity and determination of the fugitives than to the vigilance and integrity of those charged with their safe custody.

Antiquarian researches connect the Bastile in its beginning with the fortifications hastily thrown up by the Parisians in the middle of the fourteenth century to defend the outskirts of the city upon the right bank of the river. The walls built by Philip Augustus one hundred and fifty years earlier were by this time in a ruinous condition. The English invasion had prospered, and after the battle of Poitiers the chief authority in the capital, ?tienne Marcel, the provost of the merchants, felt bound to protect Paris. An important work was added at the eastern entrance of the city, and the gateway was flanked by a tower on either side. Marcel was in secret correspondence with the then King of Navarre, who aspired to the throne of France, and would have admitted him to Paris through this gateway, but was not permitted to open it. The infuriated populace attacked him as he stood with the keys in his hand, and although he sought asylum in one of the towers he was struck down with an axe and slain.

This first fortified gate was known as the Bastile of St. Antoine. The first use of the word "Bastile," which is said to have been of Roman origin, was applied to the temporary forts raised to cover siege works and isolate and cut off a beleaguered city from relief or revictualment. The construction of a second and third fortress was undertaken some years later, in 1370, when the first stone of the real Bastile was laid. Another provost, Hugues Aubriot by name, had authority from Charles V to rebuild and strengthen the defences, and was supplied by the king with moneys for the purpose. Aubriot appears to have added two towers to the gateway, and this made the Bastile into a square fort with a tower at each angle. This provost was high-handed and ruled Paris with a rod of iron, making many enemies, who turned on him. He offended the ever turbulent students of the University and was heavily fined for interfering with their rights. To raise money for the king, he imposed fresh taxes, and was accused of unlawful commerce with the Jews, for which he was handed over to the ecclesiastical tribunal and condemned to be burnt to death. This sentence was, however, commuted to perpetual imprisonment, and tradition has it that he was confined in one of the towers he had himself erected. The historian compares his sad fate with that of other designers of punishment, such as the Greek who invented the brazen bull and was the first to be burnt inside it, or Enguerrand de Marigny, who was hung on his own gibbet of Montfau?on, and the Bishop Haraucourt of Verdun, who was confined in his own iron cage.

Hugues Aubriot was presently transferred from the Bastile to For-l'?v?que prison where he was languishing at the time of the insurrection of the Maillotins. These men rose against the imposition of fresh taxes and armed themselves with leaden mallets which they seized in the arsenal. A leader failing them, they forcibly released Hugues Aubriot and begged him to be their captain, escorting him in triumph to his house. But the ex-provost pined for peace and quiet and slipped away at the first chance. He was a native of Dijon in Burgundy and he escaped thither to die in obscurity the following year.

Charles VI enlarged and extended the Bastile by adding four more towers and giving it the plan of a parallelogram, and it remained with but few modifications practically the same when captured by the revolutionists in 1789. The fortress now consisted of eight towers, each a hundred feet high and with a wall connecting them, nine feet thick. Four of these towers looked inwards facing the city, four outwards over the suburb of St. Antoine. A great ditch, twenty-five feet deep and one hundred and twenty feet wide, was dug to surround it. The road which had hitherto passed through it was diverted, the gateway blocked up and a new passage constructed to the left of the fortress. The Bastile proper ceased to be one of the entrances of Paris and that of the Porte St. Antoine was substituted. Admission to the fortress was gained at the end opposite the rue St. Antoine between the two towers named the Bazini?re and Comt? overlooking the Seine. On the ground floor of the former was the reception ward, as we should call it, a detailed account of which is preserved in the old archives. The first room was the porter's lodge with a guard bed and other pieces of furniture of significant purpose; two ponderous iron bars fixed in the wall, with iron chains affixed ending in fetters for hands and feet, and an iron collar for the neck; the avowed object of all being to put a man in "Gehenna," the ancient prison euphemism for hell. A four-wheeled iron chariot is also mentioned, no doubt for the red hot coals to be used in inflicting torture, the other implements for which were kept in this chamber. The tower of the Comt? was like the rest, of four stories, and became chiefly interesting for the escapes effected from it by Latude and D'All?gre in later years.

All the towers of the Bastile received distinctive names derived from the chance associations of some well-known personage or from the purpose to which they were applied. These names became the official designation of their occupants, who were entered in the books as "No. so and so" of "such and such a tower." Personal identity was soon lost in the Bastile. If we made the circuit of the walls, starting from the Bazini?re Tower first described, we should come to that of La Bertaudi?re in the fa?ade above the rue St. Antoine and overlooking the city, the third floor of which was the last resting place of that mysterious prisoner, the Man with the Iron Mask. Next came the tower of Liberty, a name supposed by some to have originated in some saturnine jest, by others to have been the scene of successful escape, although attempts were usually made on the other side of the Bastile which overlooked the open country. The tower of the Well had an obvious derivation.

At the north-east angle was the Corner Tower, so called, no doubt, because it was situated at the corner of the street and the Boulevard St. Antoine. Next came the Chapel Tower, from its neighborhood to the old Chapel of the Bastile. This at one time took rank as the noble quarter of the fortress and was called the "Donjon"--for in the time of the English domination the king's chamber and that of the "captain" were situated in this tower. In later days the Chapel Tower had accommodation for only three occupants, two on the second and one on the third floor, the first floor being used as a store house. Next came the Treasure Tower, a title which referred back to a very early date, as witness receipts in existence for moneys paid over to the king's controller-general of finances. In the reign of Henry IV, a prudent monarch with a thrifty minister, the ever faithful and famous Duke de Sully, large sums were deposited in this tower as a reserve for the enterprises he contemplated. The money was soon expended after Henry's assassination, in wasteful extravagances and civil wars. It is of record that after payment of all current expenses of State, the surplus collected by Sully in the Bastile amounted to 41,345,000 livres or upwards of 120,000,000 francs, or ,000,000. On reaching the eighth, or last tower, that of the Comt?, we return to the northernmost side of the great gate already spoken of.

Speaking generally, all these towers were of four stories, with an underground basement each containing a number of dens and dungeons of the most gloomy and horrible character. The stone walls were constantly dripping water upon the slimy floor which swarmed with vermin, rats, toads and newts. Scanty light entered through narrow slits in the wall on the side of the ditch, and a small allowance of air, always foul with unwholesome exhalations. Iron bedsteads with a thin layer of dirty straw were the sole resting places of the miserable inmates. The fourth or topmost floors were even more dark than the basement. These, the Calottes, or "skull caps," were cagelike in form with low, vaulted roofs, so that no one might stand upright within save in the very centre of the room. They were barely lighted by narrow windows that gave no prospect, from the thickness of the walls and the plentiful provision of iron gratings having bars as thick as a man's arms.

The Bastile was for the first two centuries of its history essentially a military stronghold serving, principally, as a defensive work, and of great value to its possessors for the time being. Whoever held the Bastile over-awed Paris and was in a sense the master of France. In the unceasing strife of parties it passed perpetually from hand to hand and it would be wearisome to follow the many changes in its ownership. In the long wars between the Armagnacs and the Burgundians, the latter seized Paris in the reign of the half-witted Charles V, but the Armagnacs held the Bastile and the person of the king's eldest son, whose life was eventually saved by this seclusion. This dauphin came afterwards to the throne through the help of the English king, Henry V, who married his daughter Catherine and was appointed Regent of France. Under this r?gime Paris was occupied for a time by an English garrison. When at length the rival factions in France made common cause against the intrusive strangers the French re-entered Paris and the English were forced to retire into the Bastile, where they were so closely besieged that they presently offered to capitulate. The fortress was greatly over-crowded, supplies ran short and there was no hope of relief. The Constable of France, Richemont, was master of the situation outside, and at first refused terms, hoping to extort a large ransom, but the people of Paris, eager to be rid of the foreigners, advised him to accept their surrender and to allow the English garrison to march out with colors flying. It was feared that the people of Paris would massacre them as they passed through the streets and they were led by a circuitous route to the river where, amidst the hoots and hisses of a large crowd, they embarked in boats and dropped down the river to Rouen.

It is interesting to note here that one of the English governors of the Bastile was a certain Sir John Falstaff, not Shakespeare's Sir John but a very different person, a stalwart knight of unblemished character, great judgment and approved prowess. He was a soldier utterly unlike the drunken, and disreputable "Jack Falstaff," with his unconquerable weakness for sack, who only fought men in buckram. The real Sir John Falstaff was careful to maintain his charge safely, strengthening the fortress at all points, arming and victualling it and handing it over in good order to his successor, Lord Willoughby d'Eresby. History has to record other good things of Sir John Falstaff, who is remembered as a patron of letters, who paid a price for the translation of Cicero's "De Senectute," who endowed Magdalen College, Oxford, with much valuable property and whose name is still commemorated among the founders of the College in the anniversary speech. He was a Knight of the Garter, held many superior commands and died full of honors at the advanced age of eighty. Lord Willoughby was governor at the time of the surrender. He withdrew in safety and evidently in good heart for he won a victory over the French at Amiens after his retreat.

Henry II, who followed his father Francis on the throne, redoubled the persecution which was stained with incessant and abominable cruelties. The ordinary process of law was set aside in dealing with the Huguenots who were brought under ecclesiastical jurisdiction. An edict published in 1555, enjoined all governors and officers of justice to punish without delay, without examination and without appeal, all heretics condemned by the judges. The civil judge was no longer anything but the passive executant of the sentences of the Church. The Parliament of Paris protested, but the King turned a deaf ear to these remonstrances and summoned a general meeting of all the Parliaments, which he attended in person and where he heard some home truths. One of the most outspoken was a great nobleman, one Anne Du Bourg, who defended the Protestants, declaring that they were condemned to cruel punishment while heinous criminals altogether escaped retribution. Du Bourg and another, Dufaure, were arrested and were conveyed to the Bastile where they were soon joined by other members of the Parliament. After many delays Du Bourg was brought to trial, convicted and sentenced to be burnt to death. "It is the intention of the Court," so ran the judgment, "that the said Du Bourg shall in no wise feel the fire, and that before it be lighted and he is cast therein he shall be strangled, yet if he should wish to dogmatise and indulge in any remarks he shall be gagged so as to avoid scandal." He was executed on the Place de la Gr?ve on the top of a high gallows under which a fire was lighted to receive the dead body when it fell.

Henry II had been a weak and self-indulgent king. Ostentatious and extravagant, he wasted large sums in the expenses of his court and lavished rich gifts on his creatures, a course which emptied the treasury and entailed burdensome taxation. He was entirely under the thumb of his mistress, Diane de Poitiers, a cold-blooded, selfish creature, who ruled him and the country with unquestioned supremacy, before whom even the lawful queen, Catherine de Medicis, humiliated herself and paid abject court. The King's ministers, the Constable Montmorency and the Duc de Guise, were at first rivals in power with Diane, but soon joined with her in riding roughshod over the country, and in bestowing all good things, places, governments and profitable charges on their friends and creatures. Foreign adventure, external wars, famine and pestilence constantly impoverished France. The people rose frequently in insurrection and were always suppressed with sanguinary cruelty. Constable Montmorency, above mentioned, dealt so severely with Bordeaux, that in a short space of time no fewer than four hundred persons were beheaded, burned, torn asunder by wild horses or broken on the wheel.

A prominent figure of those days was Mary Stuart, better known as Mary, Queen of Scots, that fascinating woman who was "a politician at ten years old and at fifteen governed the court." She was the child-wife of Francis II, who unexpectedly came to the throne on the sudden death by mischance of Henry II at a tournament held in front of the Bastile. He had challenged Montgomery, an officer of the Scottish Guard, to break a lance with him and in the encounter a splinter entered Henry's eye and penetrated to the brain.

Some time previously Henri d'Anjou had been elected King of Poland and on his departure, efforts were made to secure the succession for his younger brother, the Duc d'Alen?on, who was to own himself the protector of the Huguenots. The plot failed and served only to fill the prisons of Vincennes and Bastile. Montgomery, the Huguenot leader, was implicated. He had surrendered on a vague promise of safe conduct which ended in his torture to compel confession of complicity in the plot. He was on the point of being secretly strangled when Catherine de Medicis, who had gone to the Bastile to be present at his execution, suddenly changed her mind and set the surprised prisoner free.

Another class was committed to the Bastile by Catherine de Medicis. She waged war constantly against coiners and issuers of false money; their chief ringleader was sent to the Bastile with special instructions for his "treatment." He was transferred secretly to Paris from Rouen and shut up alone in an especially private place where no news could be had of him. This order was signed by Catherine herself. Next year a defaulting finance officer was committed and the lieutenant of the Bastile was ordered to forbid him to speak to a soul or write or give any hint where he was. Again, a Gascon gentleman, named Du Mesnil, was taken in the act of robbing and murdering a courier on his way to Italy, the bearer of 30,000 crowns worth of pearls. Du Mesnil's accomplices, two simple soldiers, were hanged at the Halles but he himself was sent to the Bastile and recommended to its governor for "good discipline." This prisoner seems to have preferred liberty to the favor shown him, such as it was, for in November, 1583, he made a desperate attempt to escape. The account given by L'Estoile in his memoirs, is that Du Mesnil, weary of his close confinement, burned down the door of his cell, got out, became possessed of a rope from the well in the court, climbed to the top of the terrace , fastened his rope through an artillery wheel and lowered himself into the ditch. The rope had been lengthened by another made from his sheets and bedding, but it was still too short to reach the bottom, and letting himself fall he was caught on a window below and making outcry was recaptured and re-imprisoned. A more distinguished prisoner was Bernard Palissy, the famous potter who was committed to gaol as a Protestant and died in the Bastile in 1590 when eighty years of age. L'Estoile tells us that Palissy at his death bequeathed him two stones, one of them, part of a petrified skull which he accounted a philosopher's stone, the other, a stone he had himself manufactured. "I have them still," says L'Estoile, "carefully preserved in my cabinet for the sake of the good old man whom I loved and relieved in his necessity,--not as much as I could have wished, but to the full extent of my power."

THE RISE OF RICHELIEU

Early governors of the Bastile--Frequent changes--Day of Barricades--Conspiracy of Biron--Assassination of Henry IV--Ravaillac--Barbarous sentence--Marie de Medicis left Regent--Story of the Concinis--Rise of Richelieu--Gifts and character--His large employment of the State prisons--Duelling prohibited--The Day of Dupes--Triumph over his enemies--Fall of Marie de Medicis--Mar?chal Bassompierre--His prolonged imprisonment.

Henry's reign was abruptly terminated by his assassination in 1610. He was murdered by Fran?ois Ravaillac, a native of Angoul?me who was no doubt a victim of religious dementia. Having been much perturbed with visions inciting him to exhort the king to take action against the followers of the pretended reformed religion and convert them to the Roman Catholic Church, Ravaillac determined to do so. On reaching Paris he went to the Jesuits' house near the Porte St.-Antoine and sought advice from one of the priests, Father Daubigny, who told him to put these disturbed thoughts out of his head, to say his prayers and tell his beads. He still maintained his intention of speaking to the King and addressed to him on one occasion as he drove by in his coach, but "the King put him back with a little stick and would not hear him." Then Ravaillac changed his mind and set out for home; but on reaching Estampes, was again impelled to return to Paris--this time with homicidal intent. The would-be regicide watched for the King constantly, but thought it better to wait until after the new queen was crowned. He hung about the Louvre, burning to do the deed, and at last found his opportunity on the 14th of May, 1610, near the churchyard of St. Innocent. The King left the Louvre that morning in his coach unattended. One of his gentlemen had protested. "Take me, Sire, I implore you," he said, "to guard your Majesty." "No," replied the King, "I will have neither you nor the guard. I want no one." The coach was driven to the Hotel de Longueville and then to the Croix du Tiroir and so to the churchyard of St. Bartholomew. It had turned from the rue St. Honore into the rue Feronni?re, a very narrow way made more so by the small shops built against the wall of the churchyard. The passage was further blocked by the approach of two carts, one laden with wine and the other with hay, and the coach was brought to a stop at the corner of the street.

Ravaillac had followed the coach from the Louvre, had seen it stop and noted that there was now no one near it and no one to interfere with him as he came close to the side of the carriage where the King was seated. Ravaillac had his cloak wrapped round his left arm to conceal a knife and creeping in between the shops and the coach as if he desired to pass by, paused there, and resting one foot upon a spoke of the wheel, the other upon a stone, leaned forward and stabbed the King. The knife entered a little above the heart between the third and fourth ribs. The King, who was reading a letter, fell over towards the Duc d'?pernon on his other side, murmuring, "I am wounded." At this moment Ravaillac, fearing that the point of his weapon had been turned aside, quickly struck a second blow at the fainting monarch, who had raised his arm slightly, thus giving the knife better chance to reach his heart. This second stroke was instantly fatal. The blood gushed from his mouth and he expired breathing a deep sigh. His Majesty's attendants, now running up, would have killed Ravaillac on the spot, but the Duc d'?pernon called out to them to secure his person, whereupon one seized the dagger, another his throat, and he was promptly handed over to the guards. The news spread that the King was dead and caused a panic. People rushed from the shops into the streets and a tumult arose which was stayed only by the prompt assurance of d'?pernon that the King had merely fainted and was being carried to the Louvre for medical attention.

Ravaillac was no doubt the tool of others. The King's life had been threatened by courtiers near his person. Not the least active of his enemies was Madame de Verneuil, born D'Entragues, who had been at one time his mistress, but who had joined his enemies, notably the Duc d'?pernon, in cordial detestation of his policy. Henry was at this time planning a great coalition against the overweening power of Spain and favored the concession of religious toleration throughout Europe. Madame de Verneuil had welcomed Ravaillac to Paris and commended him to the hospitality of one of her creatures, and it was proved that the murderer had been once in the service of the Duc d'?pernon.

Richelieu soon showed his quality and rose step by step to the highest honors, becoming in due course, First Minister of State. His success was due throughout to his prudent, far-seeing conduct and his incomparable adroitness in managing affairs. "He was so keen and watchful," said a contemporary, "that he was never taken unawares. He slept little, worked hard, thought of everything and knew everything either by intuition or through his painstaking indefatigable spirit." He was long viewed with suspicion and dislike by the young King, but presently won his esteem by his brilliant talents. He dazzled and compelled the admiration of all, even those opposed to him. His extraordinary genius was immediately made manifest; it was enough for him to show himself. His penetrating eye, the magnetism of his presence, his dexterity in untying knots and in solving promptly the most difficult problems, enabled him to dominate all tempers and overcome all resistance. His was a singularly persuasive tongue; he had the faculty of easily and effectually proving that he was always in the right. In a word, he exercised a great personal ascendency and was as universally feared as he was implicitly obeyed by all upon whom he imposed his authority. When he was nominated First Minister, the Venetian minister in Paris wrote to his government, "Here, humanly speaking, is a new power of a solid and permanent kind; one that is little likely to be shaken or quickly crumbled away."

Richelieu's steady and consistent aim was to consolidate an absolute monarchy. Determined to conquer and crush the Huguenots he made his first attack upon La Rochelle, the great Protestant stronghold, but was compelled to make terms with the Rochelais temporarily while he devoted himself to the abasement of the great nobles forever in opposition to and intriguing against the reigning sovereign. Headed by the princes of the blood, they continually resisted Marie de Medicis and engaged in secret conspiracy, making treasonable overtures to Spain or openly raising the standard of revolt at home. With indomitable courage and an extraordinary combination of daring and diplomacy, Richelieu conquered them completely. The secret of his success has been preserved in his own words, "I undertake nothing that I have not thoroughly thought out in advance; when I have once made up my mind I stick to it with unchangeable firmness, sweeping away all obstacles before me and treading them down under foot till they lie paralysed under my red robe."

Richelieu used the Bastile for all manner of offenders. One was the man Farican, of whom he speaks in his "Memoirs" as "a visionary consumed with vague dreams of a coming republic. All his ends were bad, all his means wicked and detestable.... His favorite occupation was the inditing of libellous pamphlets against the government, rendering the King odious, exciting sedition and aiming at subverting the tranquillity of the State. Outwardly a priest, he held all good Catholics in detestation and acted as a secret spy of the Huguenots." An Englishman found himself in the Bastile for being at cross purposes with the Cardinal. This was a so-called Chevalier Montagu, son of the English Lord Montagu and better known as "Wat" Montagu, who was much employed as a secret political agent between England and France. Great people importuned the Cardinal to release Montagu. "The Duke of Lorraine," says Richelieu, "has never ceased to beg this favor. He began with vain threats and then, with words more suitable to his position, sent the Prince of Phalsbourg to Paris for the third time to me to grant this request." The Duke having been gratified with this favor came in person to Paris to thank the King. An entry in an English sheet dated April 20th, 1628, runs, "The Earl of Carlisle will not leave suddenly because Walter Montagu is set free from France and has arrived at our court. The King says he has done him exceeding good service." It was Montagu who brought good news from Rochelle to the Duke of Buckingham on the very day he was assassinated. Later in October, Montagu had a conference with Richelieu as to the exchange of prisoners at Rochelle.

There was no love lost between the Cardinal and the Mar?chal Bassompierre, who paid the penalty for being on the wrong side in the famous "Day of Dupes" and found himself committed for a long imprisonment in the Bastile. The Marshal had offended Richelieu by penetrating his designs against the nobility. When asked what he thought of the prospect of taking La Rochelle, he had answered, "It would be a mad act for us, for we shall enable the Cardinal, when he has overcome the Calvinists, to turn all his strength against our order." It was early in 1631 that danger to his person began to threaten him. He was warned by the Duc d'?pernon that the Queen Mother, of whose party Bassompierre was, had been arrested and that others, including himself, were likely to get into trouble. The Marshal asked the Duc d'?pernon for his advice, who strongly urged him to get away, offering him at the same time a loan of fifty thousand crowns as a provision until better days came. The Marshal refused this kind offer but resolved to present himself before the King and stand his ground. He would not compromise himself by a flight which would draw suspicion down on him and call his loyalty in question. He had served France faithfully for thirty years and was little inclined now that he was fifty to seek his fortune elsewhere. "I had given my King the best years of my life and was willing to sacrifice my liberty to him, feeling sure that it would be restored on better appreciation of my loyal services."

Bassompierre prepared for the worst like a man of the world. "I rose early next day and proceeded to burn more than six thousand love-letters received from ladies to whom I had paid my addresses. I was afraid that if arrested my papers would be seized and examined and some of these letters might compromise my old friends." He entered his carriage and drove to Senlis where the King was in residence. Here he met the Duc de Gramont and others who told him he would certainly be arrested. Bassompierre again protested that he had nothing on his conscience. The King received him civilly enough and talked to him at length about the disagreement of the Queen Mother with Cardinal Richelieu, and then Bassompierre asked point blank whether the King owed him any grudge. "How can you think such a thing," replied the treacherous monarch. "You know I am your friend," and left him. That evening the Marshal supped with the Duc de Longueville and the King came in afterwards. "Then I saw plainly enough," says Bassompierre, "that the King had something against me, for he kept his head down, and touching the strings of his guitar, never looked at me nor spoke a single word. Next morning I rose at six o'clock and as I was standing before the fire in my dressing-room, M. de Launay, Lieutenant of the Body-Guard, entered my room and said, 'Sir, it is with tears in my eyes and with a bleeding heart that I, who, for twenty years have served under you, am obliged to tell you that the King has ordered me to arrest you.'

"I experienced very little emotion and replied: 'Sir, you will have no trouble, as I came here on purpose, having been warned. I have all my life submitted to the wishes of the King, who can dispose of me or my liberty as he thinks fit.'... Shortly afterwards one of the King's carriages arrived in front of my lodging with an escort of mounted musketeers and thirty light horsemen. I entered the carriage alone with De Launay. Then we drove off, keeping two hundred paces in front of the escort, as far as the Porte St.-Martin, where we turned off to the left, and I was taken to the Bastile. I dined with the Governor, M. du Tremblay, whom I afterwards accompanied to the chamber which had been occupied by the Prince de Cond?, and in this I was shut up with one servant.

"On the 26th, M. du Tremblay came to see me on the part of the King, saying that his Majesty had not caused me to be arrested for any fault that I had committed, holding me to be a good servant, but for fear I should be led into mischief, and he assured me that I should not remain long in prison, which was a great consolation. He also told me that the King had ordered him to allow me every liberty but that of leaving the Bastile. He added another chamber to my lodging for the accommodation of my domestics. I retained only two valets and a cook, and passed two months without leaving my room, and I should not have gone out at all had I not been ill.... The King, it seems, had gone on a voyage as far as Dijon, and on his return to Paris I implored my liberty, but all in vain. I fell ill in the Bastile of a very dangerous swelling, due to the want of fresh air and exercise and I began therefore to walk regularly on the terrace of the Bastion."

Bassompierre was destined to see a good deal of that terrace, for the years slowly dragged themselves along with hope constantly deferred and no fulfilment of the promises of freedom so glibly extended to him. He was arrested in 1631 and in the following year heard he would in all probability be released at once; but, as he says, he was told this merely to redouble his sufferings. Next year he had great hope of regaining his liberty and Marshal Schomberg sent him word that on the return of the King to Paris he should leave the Bastile. This year they deprived him of a portion of his salary and he was greatly disheartened, feeling "that he was to be eternally detained and from that time forth he lost all hope except in God." Two years later the Governor, Monsieur du Tremblay, congratulated him on his approaching release and the rumor was so strong that a number of friends came every day to the Bastile to see if he was still there. These encouraging stories were repeated from month to month without any good result, and at length P?re Joseph, "his gray eminence," Richelieu's most confidential friend and brother of Monsieur du Tremblay, being at the Bastile, promised the Marshal to speak to the Cardinal on his behalf. "I put no faith in him," writes Bassompierre, and indeed nothing more was heard for a couple of years, but we find in the Marshal's journal an entry to the effect that the King had told the Cardinal it weighed on his conscience for having kept him in prison so long, seeing that there was nothing against him. "To which," says Bassompierre, "the Cardinal replied that he had so many things on his mind he could not remember the reason for the imprisonment or why he had advised it, but he would consult his papers and show them to the King." The poor Marshal's dejection increased, having been detained so long in the Bastile, "where he had nothing to do but pray God to speedily put an end to his long misery by liberty or death."

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