THE LAST DAY OF A CONDEMNED.
FIRST PAPER.
Bicêtre Prison.
CONDEMNED to death!
These five weeks have I dwelt with this idea,—always alone with it, always frozen by its presence, always bent under its weight.
Formerly (for it seems to me rather years than weeks since I was free) I was a being like any other; every day, every hour, every minute had its idea. My mind, youthful and rich, was full of fancies, which it developed successively, without order or aim, but weaving inexhaustible arabesques on the poor and coarse web of life. Sometimes it was of youthful beauties, sometimes of unbounded possessions, then of battles gained, next of theatres full of sound and light, and then again the young beauties, and shadowy walks at night beneath spreading chestnut-trees. There was a perpetual revel in my imagination: I might think on what I chose,—I was free.
But now,—I am a Captive! Bodily in irons in a dungeon, and mentally imprisoned in one idea,—one horrible, one hideous, one unconquerable idea! I have only one thought, one conviction, one certitude,—
Condemned to death!
Whatever I do, that frightful thought is always here, like a spectre, beside me,—solitary and jealous, banishing all else, haunting me for ever, and shaking me with its two icy hands whenever I wish to turn my head away or to close my eyes. It glides into all forms in which my mind seeks to shun it; mixes itself, like a horrible chant, with all the words which are addressed to me; presses against me even to the odious gratings of my prison. It haunts me while awake, spies on my convulsive slumbers, and re-appears, a vivid incubus, in my dreams!
I have just started from a troubled sleep in which I was pursued by this thought, and I made an effort to say to myself, “Oh, it was but a dream!”
Well, even before my heavy eyes could read the fatal truth in the dreadful reality which surrounds me,—on the damp and reeking dungeon-walls, in the pale rays of my night-lamp, in the rough material of my prison-garb, on the sombre visage of the sentry, whose cap gleams through the grating of the door,—it seems to me that already a voice has murmured in my ear,—
SECOND PAPER.
FIVE weeks have now elapsed since I was tried,—found guilty,—sentenced.
Let me endeavour to recall the circumstances which attended that fatal day.
It was a beautiful morning at the close of August. My trial had already lasted three days; my name and accusation had collected each morning a knot of spectators, who crowded the benches of the Court, as ravens surrounded a corpse. During three days all the assembly of judges, witnesses, lawyers, and officers had passed and repassed as a phantasmagoria before my troubled vision.
The two first nights, through uneasiness and terror, I had been unable to sleep; on the third I had slept, from fatigue and exhaustion. I had left the jury deliberating at midnight, and was taken back to the heap of straw in my prison, where I instantly fell into a profound sleep,—the sleep of forgetfulness. These were the first hours of repose I had obtained after long watchfulness.
I was buried in this oblivion when they sent to have me awakened, and my sound slumber was not broken by the heavy step and iron shoes of the jailor, by the clanking of his keys, or the rusty grating of the lock; to rouse me from my lethargy it required his harsh voice in my ear, his rough hand on my arm.
“Come,” shouted he, “rise directly!”
I opened my eyes, and started up from my straw bed: it was already daylight.
At this moment, through the high and narrow window of my cell, I saw on the ceiling of the next corridor (the only firmament I was allowed to see) that yellow reflection by which eyes accustomed to the darkness of a prison recognize sunshine. And oh, how I love sunshine!
“It is a fine day!” said I to the jailor.
He remained a moment without answering me, as if uncertain whether it was worth while to expend a word; then, as if with an effort, he coolly murmured, “Very likely.”
I remained motionless, my senses half sleeping, with smiling lips, and my eyes fixed on that soft golden reflection which reverberated on the ceiling.
“What a lovely day!” I repeated.
“Yes,” answered the jailor; “they are waiting for you.”
These few words, like a web which stops the flight of an insect, flung me back into the reality of my position. I pictured to myself instantly, as in a flash of lightning, that sombre Court of Justice, the Bench of Judges, in their robes of sanguine hue, the three rows of stupid-looking witnesses, two gendarmes at the extremity of my bench; black robes waving, and the heads of the crowd clustering in the depth of the shadow, while I fancied that I felt upon me the fixed look of the twelve jurymen, who had sat up while I slept.
I rose: my teeth chattered, my hands trembled, my limbs were so weak that at the first step I had nearly fallen; however, I followed the jailor slowly.
Two gendarmes waited for me at the door-way of the cell; they replaced my fetters, to which I yielded mechanically, as in a dream.
We traversed an interior court, and the balmy air of morning reanimated me. I raised my head: the sky was cloudless, and the warm rays of the sun (partially intercepted by the tall chimneys) traced brilliant angles of light on the high and sombre walls of the prison. It was indeed a delicious day.
We ascended a winding staircase; we passed a corridor, then another, then a third, and then a low door was opened. A current of hot air, laden with noise, rushed from it; it was the breath of the crowd in the Court of Justice which I then entered.
On my appearance the hall resounded with the clank of arms and the hum of voices; benches were moved noisily; and while I crossed that long chamber between two masses of people who were walled in by soldiers, I painfully felt myself the centre of attraction to all those fixed and gaping looks.
At this moment I perceived that I was without fetters, but I could not recall where or when they had been removed.
At length I reached my place at the bar, and there was a deep silence. The instant that the tumult ceased in the crowd, it ceased also in my ideas: a sudden clearness of perception came to me, and I at once understood plainly, what until then I could not discover in my confused state of mind, that the decisive moment was come! I was brought there to hear my sentence!
Explain it who can: from the manner in which this idea came to my mind, it caused me no terror! The windows were open; the air, and the sounds of the City came freely through them; the room was as light as for a wedding; the cheerful rays of the sun traced here and there the luminous forms of the windows, sometimes lengthened on the flooring, sometimes spreading on a table, sometimes broken by the angles of the walls; and from the brilliant square of each window the rays fell through the air in dancing golden beams.
The Judges at the extreme of the hall bore a satisfied appearance, probably from the anticipation of their labours being soon completed. The face of the President, softly lighted by a reflected sunbeam, had a calm and amiable expression; and a young counsel conversed almost gaily with a handsome woman who was placed near him.
The Jury alone looked wan and exhausted, but this was apparently from the fatigue of having sat up all night. Nothing in their countenances indicated men who would pass sentence of death.
Opposite to me a window stood wide open. I heard laughter in the Market for Flowers beneath; and on the sill of the window a graceful plant, illumined by sunshine, played in the breeze.
How could any sinister idea be formed amongst so many soothing sensations? Surrounded by air and sunshine, I could think of nought save freedom. Hope shone within me, as the day shone around me; and I awaited my sentence with confidence, as one daily calculates on liberty and life.
In the meantime my counsel arrived; after taking his place he leaned towards me with a smile.
“I have hopes!” said he.
“Oh, surely!” I replied in the same light tone.
“Yes,” returned he; “I know nothing as yet of the verdict, but they have doubtless acquitted you of premeditation, and then it will be only hard labour for life!”
“What do you mean, sir?” replied I, indignantly; “I would prefer death!”
Then the President, who had only waited for my counsel, desired me to rise. The soldiers carried arms; and, like an electric movement, all the assembly rose at the same instant. The Recorder, placed at a table below the Tribunal, read the verdict, which the Jury pronounced during my absence.
. . . . . . . . . .
A sickly chill passed over my frame; I leaned against the wall to avoid falling.
“Counsel, have you anything to say why this sentence should not be passed?” demanded the President.
I felt that I had much to urge, but I had not the power,—my tongue was cleaving to my mouth.
My counsel then rose. His endeavour appeared to be, to mitigate the verdict of the Jury, and to substitute the punishment of hard labour for life,—by naming which he had rendered me so indignant! This indignation must again have been powerful within me to conquer the thousand emotions which distracted my thoughts. I wished to repeat aloud what I had already said to him, but my breath failed, and I could only grasp him by the arm, crying with convulsive strength, “No!”
The Attorney-General replied against my counsel’s arguments, and I listened to him with a stupid satisfaction. The Judges then left the Court; soon returned, and the President read my sentence.
“Condemned to death!” cried the crowd; and as I was led away the assembly pressed on my steps with avidity, while I walked on, confused, and nearly in unconsciousness. A revolution had taken place within me. Until that sentence of Death I had felt myself breathe, palpitate, exist, like other beings. Now I felt clearly that a barrier existed between me and the world. Nothing appeared to me under the same aspect as hitherto. Those large and luminous windows, that fair sunshine, that pure sky,—all was pale and ghastly, the colour of a winding sheet. Those men, women, and children who pressed on my path seemed to me like phantoms.
At the foot of the stairs a black and dirty prison-cart was waiting; as I entered it, I looked by chance around.
“The Condemned Prisoner!” shouted the people, running towards the cart.
Through the cloud which seemed to me to interpose between me and all things, I distinguished two young girls who gazed at me with eager eyes.
“Well,” said the youngest, clapping her hands, “it will take place in six weeks.”
THIRD PAPER.
CONDEMNED to death!
Well, why not? I remember once reading, “All mankind are condemned to death, with indefinite respites.” How then is my position altered?
Since my sentence was pronounced, how many are dead who calculated upon a long life! How many are gone before me, who, young, free, and in good health, had fully intended to be present at my execution! How many, between this and then, perhaps, who now walk and breathe in the fresh air any where they please, will die before me!
And then, what has life for me, that I should regret? In truth, only the dull twilight and black bread of a prison, a portion of meagre soup from the trough of the convicts; to be treated rudely,—I, who have been refined by education; to be brutalized by turnkeys without feeling; not to see a human being who thinks me worthy of a word, or whom I could address; incessantly to shudder at what I have done, and what may be done to me,—these are nearly the only advantages of which the executioner can deprive me!
FOURTH PAPER.
THE black cart brought me here to this hideous Bicêtre Prison.
Seen from afar, the appearance of that edifice is rather majestic. It spreads to the horizon in front of a hill, and at a distance retains something of its ancient splendour,—the look of a Royal Palace. But as you approach it, the Palace changes to a ruin, and the dilapidated gables shock the sight. There is a mixture of poverty and disgrace soiling its royal façades; without glass or shutters to the windows, but massive crossed-bars of iron instead, against which is pressed, here and there, the ghastly face of a felon or a madman.
FIFTH PAPER.
WHEN I arrived here the hand of force was laid on me, and numerous precautions were taken: neither knife nor fork was allowed for my repasts; and a strait-waistcoat—a species of sack made of sail-cloth—imprisoned my arms. I had sued to annul my sentence, so the jailors might have for six or seven weeks their responsibility; and it was requisite to keep me safe and healthful for the Guillotine!
For the first few days I was treated with a degree of attention which was horrible to me,—the civilities of a turnkey breathe of a scaffold. Luckily, at the end of some days, habit resumed its influence; they mixed me with the other prisoners in a general brutality, and made no more of those unusual distinctions of politeness which continually kept the executioner in my memory.
This was not the only amelioration. My youth, my docility, the cares of the Chaplain of the prison, and above all some words in Latin which I addressed to the keeper, who did not understand them, procured for me a walk once a week with the other prisoners, and removed the strait-waistcoat with which I was paralyzed. After considerable hesitation they have also given me pens, paper, ink, and a night-lamp. Every Sunday after Mass I am allowed to walk in the Prison-court at the hour of recreation; there I talk with the prisoners, which is inevitable. They make boon companions, these wretches. They tell me their adventures,—enough to horrify one; but I know they are proud of them. They also try to teach me their mystic idioms,—an odious phraseology grafted on the general language, like a hideous excrescence; yet sometimes it has a singular energy, a frightful picturesqueness. To be hung is called “marrying the widow,” as though the rope of the gallows were the widow of all who had been executed! At every instant mysterious, fantastic words occur, base and hideous, derived one knows not whence; they resemble crawling reptiles. On hearing this language spoken, the effect is like the shaking of dusty rags before you.
These men at least pity me, and they alone do so. The jailors, the turnkeys,—and I am not angry with them,—gossip and laugh, and speak of me in my presence as of a mere animal.
SIXTH PAPER.
I SAID to myself, “As I have the means of writing, why should I not do it? But of what shall I write? Placed between four walls of cold and bare stone, without freedom for my steps, without horizon for my eyes, my sole occupation mechanically to watch the progress of that square of light which the grating of my door marks on the sombre wall opposite, and, as I said before, ever alone with one idea,—an idea of crime, punishment, death,—can I have anything to say, I who have no more to do in this world; and what shall I find in this dry and empty brain which is worthy the trouble of being written?
“Why not? If all around me is monotonous and hueless, is there not within me a tempest, a struggle, a tragedy? This fixed idea which possesses me, does it not take every hour, every instant a new form, becoming more hideous as the time approaches? Why should I not try to describe for myself all the violent and unknown feelings I experience in my outcast situation? Certainly the material is plentiful; and, however shortened my life may be, there will still be sufficient in the anguish, the terrors, the tortures, which will fill it from this hour until my last, to exhaust my pen and ink! Besides, the only means to decrease my suffering in this anguish will be to observe it closely; and to describe it will give me an occupation. And then, what I write may not be without its use. This journal of my sufferings, hour by hour, minute by minute, torment after torment, if I have strength to carry it on to the moment when it will be physically impossible for me to continue,—this history necessarily unfinished, yet as complete as possible, of my sensations, may it not give a grand and deep lesson? Will not there be in this process of agonizing thought, in this ever increasing progress of pain, in this intellectual dissection of a condemned man, more than one lesson for those who condemned? Perhaps the perusal may render them less heedless, when throwing a human life into what they call ‘the scale of justice.’ Perhaps they have never reflected on the slow succession of tortures conveyed in the expeditious formula of a sentence of death. Have they ever paused on the important idea, that in the man whose days they shorten there is an immortal spirit which had calculated on life, a soul which is not prepared for death? No! they see nothing but the execution, and doubtless think that for the condemned there is nothing anterior or subsequent!”
These sheets shall undeceive them. Published, perchance, some day, they will call their attention a few moments to the suffering of the mind; for it is this which they do not consider. They triumph in the power of being able to destroy the body, almost without making it suffer. What an inferior consideration is this! What is mere physical pain compared to that of the mind? A day will come,—and perhaps these memoirs, the last revelations of a solitary wretch, will have contributed—
That is, unless after my death the wind carries away these sheets of paper into the muddy court, or unless they melt with rain when pasted to the broken windows of a turnkey.
SEVENTH PAPER.
SUPPOSE that what I write might one day be useful to others,—might make the Judge pause in his decision, and might save the wretched (innocent or guilty) from the agony to which I am condemned,—why should I do it? What matters it? When my life has been taken, what will it be to me if they take the lives of others? Have I really thought of such folly?—to throw down the scaffold which I had fatally mounted!
. . . . . . . . . .
What! sunshine, spring, fields full of flowers and birds, the clouds, trees, nature, liberty, life,—these are to be mine no more!
Ah, it is myself I must try to save! Is it really true that this cannot be, that I must die soon,—to-morrow, to-day perhaps; is it all thus? Oh, heavens! what a dreadful idea,—of destroying myself against the prison wall!
EIGHTH PAPER.
LET me consider what time generally elapses between the condemnation and the execution of a prisoner.
Three days of delay, after sentence is pronounced, for the prisoner’s final plea to annul it.
The plea forgotten for a week in a Court of Assize, before it is sent to the Minister; a fortnight forgotten at the Minister’s, who does not even know that there are such papers, although he is supposed to transmit them, after examination, to the “Cour de Cassation.”
Then classification, numbering, registering; the guillotine-list is loaded, and none must go before their turn! A fortnight more waiting; then the Court assembles, rejects twenty pleas together, and sends all back to the Minister, who sends them back to the Attorney-General, who sends them back to the executioner: this would take three more days.
On the morning of the fourth day the Deputies of the Attorney-General and Recorder prepare the order of execution; and the following morning, from day-break, is heard the noise of erecting the scaffold, and in the cross-streets a commotion of hoarse voices.
Altogether six weeks. The young girl’s calculation was right! I have now been at least five weeks (perhaps six, for I dare not reckon) in this fatal prison; nay, I think I have been even three days more.
NINTH PAPER.
I HAVE just made my will; what was the use of this?
I have to pay my expenses, and all I possess will scarcely suffice. A forced death is expensive.
I leave a mother, I leave a wife, I leave a child,—a little girl of three years old, gentle, delicate, with large black eyes and chesnut hair. She was two years and one month old when I saw her the last time.
Thus after my death there will be three women without son, without husband, without father,—three orphans in different degrees; three widows by act of law.
I admit that I am justly punished; but these innocent creatures, what have they done? No matter; they will be dishonoured, they will be ruined; and this is justice!
It is not so much on account of my poor old mother that I feel thus wretched; she is so advanced in years, she will not survive the blow; or if she still linger a short time, her feelings are so blunted that she will suffer but little.
Nor is it for my wife that I feel the most. She is already in miserable health, and weak in intellects; her reason will give way, in which case her spirit will not suffer while the mind slumbers as in death.
But my daughter, my child, my poor little Mary, who is laughing, playing, singing at this moment, and who dreams of no evil! Ah, it is the thought of her which unmans me!
TENTH PAPER.
HERE is the description of my prison: eight feet square; four walls of granite, with a flagged pavement; on one side a kind of nook by way of alcove, in which is thrown a bundle of straw, where the prisoner is supposed to rest and sleep, dressed, winter, as in summer, in slight linen clothing. Over my head, instead of curtains, a thick canopy of cobwebs, hanging like tattered pennons. For the rest, no windows, not even a ventilator; and only one door, where iron hides the wood. I mistake; towards the top of the door there is a sort of window, or rather an opening of nine inches square, crossed by a grating, and which the turnkey can close at night. Outside, there is a long corridor lighted and aired by means of narrow ventilators high in the wall. It is divided into compartments of masonry, which communicate by a series of doors; each of these compartments serves as an antichamber to a dungeon, like mine. In these dungeons are confined felons condemned by the Governor of the Prison to hard labour. The three first cells are kept for prisoners under sentence of death, as being nearest to the goal, therefore most convenient for the jailor. These dungeons are the only remains of the ancient Bicêtre Castle, such as it was built in the fifteenth century by the Cardinal of Winchester, he who caused Jeanne of Arc to be burned. I overheard this description from some persons who came to my den yesterday, to gratify their curiosity, and who stared at me from a distance as at a wild beast in a menagerie. The turnkey received five francs for the exhibition.
I have omitted to say that night and day there is a sentry on guard outside the door of my cell; and I never raise my eyes towards the square grating without encountering his eyes, open, and fixed on me.
ELEVENTH PAPER.
AS there is no appearance of daylight, what is to be done during the night? It occurred to me that I would arise and examine, by my lamp, the walls of my cell. They are covered with writings, with drawings, fantastic figures, and names which mix with and efface each other. It would appear that each prisoner had wished to leave behind him some trace here at least. Pencil, chalk, charcoal,—black, white, grey letters; sometimes deep carvings upon the stone. If my mind were at ease, I could take an interest in this strange book, which is developed page by page, to my eyes, on each stone of this dungeon. I should like to recompose these fragments of thought; to trace a character for each name; to give sense and life to these mutilated inscriptions,—these dismembered phrases.
Above where I sleep there are two flaming hearts, pierced with an arrow; and beneath is written “Amour pour la vie.” Poor wretch! it was not a long engagement.
Beyond this, a three-sided cocked hat, with a small figure coarsely done beneath, and the words, “Vive l’Empereur!”
On the opposite wall is the name of “Papavoine.” The capital P is worked in arabesques and embellished with care.
A verse of a popular drinking-song.
A Cap of Liberty, cut rather deeply into the stone, with the words beneath of “Bories, La Republique!”
Poor young man! he was one of the four subaltern officers of La Rochelle. How horrible is the idea of their (fancied) political necessity, to give the frightful reality of the guillotine for an opinion, a reverie, an abstraction!—And I! I have complained of its severity!—I who have really committed crime—
Ah, what have I seen! I can go no farther in my research! I have just discovered, drawn with chalk in the corner of the wall, that dreadful image, the representation of that scaffold, which even at this moment is perhaps being put up for my execution! The lamp had nearly fallen out of my trembling hands!
TWELFTH PAPER.
I RETURNED precipitately to sit on my straw bed; my head sunk on my knees. After a time, my childish fear was dissipated, and a wild curiosity forced me to continue the examination of my walls.
Beside the name of Papavoine, I tore away an enormous cobweb, thick with dust, and filling the angle of the wall. Under this web there were four or five names perfectly legible, among others of which nothing remained but a smear on the wall,—Dautan, 1815. Poulain, 1818. Jean Martin, 1821. Castaing, 1823.
As I read these names, frightful recollections crowded on me. Dautan was the man who cut his brother in quarters, and who went at night to Paris and threw the head into a fountain, and the body into a sewer. Poulain assassinated his wife. Jean Martin shot his father with a pistol as the old man opened a window. And Castaing was the physician who poisoned his friend; and while attending the illness he had caused, instead of an antidote, gave him more poison. Then, next to these names, was Papavoine, the horrible madman who stabbed children to death in his phrenzy.
“These,” I exclaimed, as a shudder passed over me, “these, then, have been my predecessors in this cell. Here, on the same pavement where I am, they conceived their last thoughts,—these fearful homicides! Within these walls, in this narrow square, their last steps turned and re-turned, like those of a caged wild-beast. They succeeded each other at short intervals; it seems that this dungeon does not remain empty. They have left the place warm,—and it is to me they have left it. In my turn I shall join them in the felons’ cemetery of Clamart, where the grass grows so well!”
. . . . . . . . . .
I am neither visionary nor superstitious, but it is probable these ideas caused in my brain a feverish excitement; for, whilst I thus wandered, all at once these five fatal names appeared as though written in flames on the dark wall; noises, louder and louder, burst on my ears; a dull red light filled my eyes, and it seemed to me that my cell became full of men,—strangers to me. Each bore his severed head in his left hand, and carried it by the mouth, for the hair had been removed; each raised his right hand at me, except the parricide.[5]
I shut my eyes in horror, and then I saw all even more distinctly than before!
Dream, vision, or reality, I should have gone mad if a sudden impression had not recalled me in time. I was near fainting, when I felt something cold crawling over my naked foot. It was the bloated spider, whom I had disturbed. This recalled my wandering senses. Those dreadful spectres, then, were only the fumes of an empty and convulsed brain. The sepulchre is a prison from whence none escape. The door of the tomb opens not inwards!
. . . . . . . . . .
THIRTEENTH PAPER.
I HAVE lately witnessed a hideous sight. As soon as it was day, the prison was full of noise, I heard heavy doors open and shut; the grating of locks and bolts; the clanking of bunches of keys; the stairs creaking from top to bottom with quick steps; and voices calling and answering from the opposite extremes of the long corridors. My neighbours in the dungeons, the felons at hard labour, were more gay than usual. All in the prison seemed laughing, singing, running, or dancing; I—alone silent in this uproar, alone motionless in this tumult—listened in astonishment.
A jailor passed; I ventured to call and ask him “if there were a Fête in the Prison.”
“A Fête, if you choose to call it so,” answered he; “this is the day that they fetter the galley-slaves who are to set off to-morrow for Toulon. Would you like to see them? It would amuse you.”
For a solitary recluse, indeed, a spectacle of any kind was an event of interest, however odious it might be; and I accepted the “amusement.”
The jailor, after taking the usual precautions to secure me, conducted me into a little empty cell, without a vestige of furniture, and only a grated window,—but still a real window, against which one could lean, and through which one could actually perceive the sky! “Here,” said he, “you will see and hear all that happens. You will be ‘alone in your box,’ like the King!”
He then went out, closing on me locks, bolts, and bars.
The window looked into a square and rather wide court, on every side of which was a large six-storied stone edifice. Nothing could seem more wretched, naked, and miserable to the eye than this quadruple façade, pierced by a multitude of grated windows, against which were pressed a crowd of thin and wan faces, placed one above the other, like the stones of a wall; and all, as it were, framed in the intercrossings of iron bars. They were prisoners, spectators of the ceremony, until their turn came to be the actors.
All looked in silence into the still empty court; among these faded and dull countenances there shone, here and there, some eyes which gleamed like sparks of fire.
At twelve o’clock, a large gateway in the court was opened. A cart, escorted by soldiers, rolled heavily into the court, with a rattling of irons. It was the Convict-guard with the chains.
At the same instant, as if this sound awaked all the noise of the prison, the spectators of the windows, who had hitherto been silent and motionless, burst forth into cries of joy, songs, menaces, and imprecations, mixed with hoarse laughter. It was like witnessing a masque of Demons; each visage bore a grimace, every hand was thrust through the bars, their voices yelled, their eyes flashed, and I was startled to see so many gleams amidst these ashes. Meanwhile the galley-sergeants quietly began their work. One mounted on the cart, and threw to his comrades the fetters, the iron collars, and the linen clothing; while others stretched long chains to the end of the court and the Captain tried each link by striking it on the pavement,—all of which took place under the mocking raillery of the prisoners, and the loud laughter of the convicts for whom they were being prepared.
When all was ready, two or three low doors poured forth into the court a collection of hideous, yelling, ragged men; these were the galley-convicts.
Their entry caused increased pleasure at the windows. Some of them, being ‘great names’ among their comrades, were saluted with applause and acclamation, which they received with a sort of proud modesty. Several wore a kind of hat of prison straw, plaited by themselves, and formed into some fantastic shape; these men were always the most applauded.
One in particular excited transports of enthusiasm,—a youth of seventeen, with quite a girlish face. In his prison he had made himself a straw-dress, which enveloped him from head to foot; and he entered the court, jumping a summerset with the agility of a serpent. He was a mountebank condemned for theft, and there was a furious clapping of hands, and a volley of cheers, for him.
At length the names were called in alphabetical order, and they went to stand two and two, companions by similar initials; so that even if a convict had a friend, most likely their chains would divide them from suffering together.
Whilst they were exchanging their worn-out prison-garments for the thin and coarse clothing of the galleys, the weather, which had been hitherto uncertain, became suddenly cold and cloudy, and a heavy shower chilled their thin forms, and saturated their vesture.
A dull silence succeeded to their noisy bravadoes; they shivered, their teeth chattered, and their limbs shook in the wet clothes.
One convict only, an old man, retained a sort of gaiety. He exclaimed laughing, while wiping away the rain, and shaking his fist at the skies, “This was not in the playbill!”
When they had put on their miserable vestments, they were taken in bands of twenty or thirty to the corner of the court where the long chains were extended. At every interval of two feet in these long chains were fastened short transverse chains, and at the extremity of each of the latter was attached a square iron collar, which opened by means of a hinge in the centre and closed by an iron bolt, which is riveted, for the whole journey, on the convict’s neck. The convicts were ordered to sit down in the mud on the inundated pavement; the iron collars were fitted on them, and two prison-blacksmiths, with portable anvils, riveted the hard, unheated metal with heavy iron hammers.
This was a frightful operation, and even the most hardy turned pale! Each stroke of the hammer, aimed on the anvil resting on their backs, makes the whole form yield; the failure of its aim, or the least movement of the head, might launch them into eternity.
When this operation was finished, the convicts rose simultaneously. The five gangs joined hands, so as to form an immense circle, and thus ran round and round in the court, with a rapidity that the eye could hardly follow. They sung some couplets, in their own idiom, to a melody which was sometimes plaintive, sometimes furious, often interrupted by hoarse cries and broken laughter, like delirious ravings, while the chains, clanking together in cadence, formed an accompaniment to a song more harsh than their own noise. A large trough was now brought in; the guards, striking the convicts to make them discontinue their dance, took them to the trough, in which was swimming I know not what sort of herbs in some smoking and dirty-looking liquid. Having partaken of it, they threw the remainder on the pavement, with their black bread, and began again to dance and sing. This is a liberty which is allowed them on the day they are fettered and the succeeding night.
I gazed on this strange spectacle with such eager and breathless attention, that I totally forgot my own misery. The deepest pity filled my heart, and their laughter made me weep.
Suddenly, in the midst of a profound reverie into which I had fallen, I observed the yelling circle had stopped, and was silent. Then every eye was turned to the window which I occupied. “The Condemned! the Condemned!” shouted they, pointing their fingers at me; and their bursts of laughter were redoubled.
I was thunderstruck. I know not where they knew me, or how I was recognized.
“Good day! good night!” cried they, with their mocking sneer. One of the youngest, condemned to the Galleys for life, turned his shining, leaden face on me, with a look of envy, saying, “He is lucky! he is to be clipped! Good bye, Comrade!”
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.