The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Mysteries of Paris, by Eugene Sue. (In Six Volumes, Volume V.)

"Well," replied Rigolette, with calmness and firmness, "they shall see that I am an honest girl, and they will not refuse to marry us in the prison chapel."

"Once your wife, I will follow you and settle in the city where you may be. I shall find work there, and can see you every day."

"Then of what consequence is it? So far from considering you as disgraced in my eyes, I shall consider you as the victim of your own kind heart."

"Well, quitting prison at length, my life will be precarious—miserable. Repulsed on all sides, I may, perhaps, find no employment, and then it is appalling to think! But if this corruption which besets me should seize on me in spite of myself, what a future for you!"

"You will never grow corrupted. No; for now you know that I love you, this thought will give you the power of resisting bad examples. You will reflect that if all repulse you when you quit your prison, your wife will receive you with love and gratitude, assured, as she will be, that you will still be an honest man. This language astonishes you, does it not? It astonishes even myself. I do not know whence I derive all I say to you; from the bottom of my soul, assuredly—and that must convince you! That is, if you do not reject an offer made you most unreservedly, if you do not desire to reject the love of a poor girl who has only—"

"Yes, indeed—I do accept—I do accept! Yes, I feel it. I am assured it is sometimes cowardly to refuse certain sacrifices; it is to avow oneself unworthy of them. I accept them, noble, brave girl!"

"I swear to you; and you have, too, said something which greatly struck me, and gives me the courage I want."

"That, for your sake, I should in future continue an honest man. Yes, in this thought I shall find strength to resist the detestable influences which surround me. I shall brave contagion, and know how to keep worthy of your love the heart which belongs to you."

"Oh, Germain, how happy I am! If I have ever done anything for you, how you recompense me now!"

"And then, observe, although you excuse my fault I shall never forget it. My future task will be double: to expiate the past and deserve the happiness I owe to you. For that I will do my best, and, as poor as I may be, the opportunity will not fail me, I am sure."

"Alas! that is true; for we always find persons more unfortunate than ourselves."

"And that is holy alms. 'Charity of the soul is quite equal to that which bestows bread.'"

"Never, never, my love—my wife! My courage returns to me, and I seem as though awaking from a dream, and no longer doubt myself. My heart would not beat as it does if it had lost its noblest energies."

"Oh, Germain, how you delight me in speaking so! How you assure me, not for yourself but for myself. So you will promise me, now you have my love to urge you on, that you will no longer be afraid to speak to these wicked men, so that you may not excite their anger against you?"

"Take courage! When they saw me sad and sorrowful, they accused me, no doubt, of being a prey to my remorse; but when they see me proud and joyous, they will believe their pernicious example has gained on me."

"That's true; they will no longer suspect you, and my mind will be easy. So mind, no rashness, no imprudence, now you belong to me,—for I am your little wife."

"Quick," said Rigolette, in a low voice, and with a smile full of grace and modest tenderness, "quick, my dear husband, and give me a loving kiss on my forehead through the grating; that will be our betrothing." And the young girl, blushing, bowed her forehead against the iron trellis.

Germain, deeply affected, touched with his lips through the grating her pure and white forehead.

"Oh, oh! What, three o'clock already?" said the turnkey; "and visitors ought to leave at two! Come, my dear little girl," he added, addressing the grisette, "it's a pity, but you must go."

"Oh, thanks, thanks, sir, for having allowed us thus to converse alone! I have given Germain courage, and now he will look livelier, and need not fear his wicked companions."

"Make yourself easy," said Germain, with a smile; "I shall in future be the gayest in the prison."

"That's all right, and then they will no longer pay any attention to you," said the guardian.

"Here is a cravat I have brought for Germain, sir," said Rigolette. "Must I leave it at the entrance?"

"Why, perhaps you should; but still it is such a very small matter! So, to make the day complete, give him your present yourself." And the turnkey opened the door of the corridor.

"This good man is right, and the day will be complete," said Germain, receiving the cravat from Rigolette's hands, which he pressed tenderly.

"Adieu; and to our speedy meeting! Now I am no longer afraid to ask you to come and see me as soon as possible."

"What a pretty cravat! And when I reflect that you knitted it for me! Oh, I will never let it leave me!" said Germain, pressing it to his lips.

"Now, then, your spirits will revive, I hope! And so good-bye, once more. Thank you, sir. And now I go away, much happier and more assured. Good-bye, Germain!"

A few minutes afterwards, Rigolette, having put on her goloshes and taken her umbrella, left the prison more joyfully than she had entered it. During the conversation of Germain and the grisette, other scenes were passing in one of the prison yards, to which we will now conduct the reader.

CHAPTER IX.

THE LIONS' DEN.

If the appearance of a house of confinement, constructed with every attention to salubrity and humanity, has nothing repulsive in its aspect, the sight of the prisoners causes a very different feeling. At the sight of the criminals who fill the gaols, we are at first seized with a shudder of fear and horror. It is only after some reflection that this is overcome, and feelings of pity mixed with bitterness overcome us.

To understand the feeling of horror and fear, our reader must follow us to the Fosse aux Lions (the Lions' Den), one of the yards in La Force so called. In this are usually placed the most dangerous criminals, whose ferocity, or the charges against whom, are most serious. At this time they had been compelled to place there, in consequence of the alterations making in the prison, many other prisoners. These, although equally under accusations and awaiting the assizes, were almost all respectable persons in comparison with the usual occupants of the Lions' Den. The sky, gloomy, gray, and rainy, cast a dull light over the scene we are about to depict, and which took place in the centre of the yard of considerable extent, square, and enclosed by high white walls, having here and there several grated windows.

At one end of this yard was a narrow door with a wicket; at the other end, at the entrance to the day-room, a large apartment with a stove in the centre, surrounded by wooden benches, on which were sitting and lying several prisoners conversing together. Others, preferring exercise, were walking up and down the walks, four or five in a row, arm in arm. It requires the pencil of Salvator or Goya, in order to sketch the different specimens of physical and moral ugliness, to render in its hideous fantasy the variety of costumes worn by these men, for the most part covered with squalid rags,—for being only accused, i. e. supposed innocent, they were not clad in the usual uniform of the central houses. Some, however, wore it; for on their entrance into gaol, their rags appeared so filthy and infected that, after the usual washing and bath, they had the frock and trousers of coarse gray cloth, as worn by the criminals, assigned to them.

A phrenologist would have observed attentively those embrowned and weather-beaten countenances, those flat or narrow foreheads, those cruel or crafty looks, the wicked or stupid mouth, the enormous neck,—they nearly all presented frightful resemblances to brutes. In the cunning looks of one was seen the perfidious subtlety of the fox, in another was the sanguinary rapacity of the bird of prey, in a third, the ferocity of a tiger; and, in all, the animal stupidity of the brute. We will sketch one or two of the most striking physiognomies in the Fosse aux Lions.

Whilst the turnkey was watching his charge, a sort of council was being held in the day-room. Amongst the prisoners there assembled were Barbillon and Nicholas Martial. The prisoner who appeared to preside and lead in this debate was a scoundrel called the Skeleton, whose name has been often mentioned by the Martial family in the Isle du Ravageur. The Skeleton was prévôt, or captain, of the day-room. This fellow was tall and about forty years of age, fully justifying his sinister nickname by a meagreness impossible to describe, but which might almost be termed osteologic.

If the countenance of the Skeleton presented more or less analogy with that of the tiger, the vulture, or the fox, the shape of his forehead, receding as it did, his bony, flat, and lengthened jaws, supported by a neck of disproportioned length, instantly reminded you of the conformation of a serpent. Complete baldness increased still more this hideous resemblance, for beneath the corded skin of his forehead, nearly as flat as a reptile's, might be distinguished the smallest protuberances, the smallest sutures of his skull. His beardless face was exactly like old parchment tightly distended over the bones of his face, and only somewhat stretched from the projection of the cheek-bone to the angle of the lower jaw, the working of which was distinctly visible. His eyes, small and lowering, were so deeply imbedded, and the rim of his brow so prominent, that under his yellow brow, when the light fell, were seen two orbits literally filled with shadows; and, a little further on, the eyes seemed to disappear in the depths of these two dark cavities, these two black holes, which gave so sinister an aspect to the skeleton head. His long teeth, whose alveolar projections were to be accurately traced beneath the tanned skin of his bony and flat jaws, were almost continually developed by a habitual sneer.

Although the stiffened muscles of this man were almost reduced to tendons, he possessed extraordinary strength, and the strongest resisted with difficulty the grasp of his long arms, his long and lean fingers. He had the formidable clutch of a skeleton of iron. He wore a blue smock-frock, very short, and which exposed (and he was vain of it) his knotted hands and half his forearm, or rather two bones, the radius and the ulna (this anatomy will be excused us), two bones enveloped in a coarse and black skin, separated by a deep groove, in which were some veins hard and dry as cords. When he placed his hands on a table he seemed, as Pique-Vinaigre justly remarked, as if he were spreading out a game of knuckle-bones.

The Skeleton, after having passed fifteen years of his life at the galleys for an attempt at robbery and murder, had broken his ban and been taken in the very act of theft and murder. The last assassination had been committed with circumstances of such ferocity that the ruffian made up his mind, and with reason, that he should be condemned to death. The influence which the Skeleton exercised over the other prisoners, from his strength, energy, and wickedness, had caused him to be chosen by the director of the prison as prévôt of the dormitory,—that is to say, the Skeleton was charged with the police of the chamber as far as concerned its order, arrangement, and the cleanliness of the room and the beds, a duty which he discharged perfectly; and no prisoner dared to fail in the cares and duties which he superintended. The Skeleton was discoursing with several prisoners, amongst whom were Barbillon and Nicholas Martial.

"Yes, yes,—a hundred times, yes! Father Micou heard it from the Gros-Boiteux, who has already tried to knock this hound on the head because he peached about some one."

"Then let's do for him,—brush him up!" said Barbillon. The Skeleton was already inclined to give that skulking Germain a turn of his hand.

The prévôt took his pipe from his mouth for a moment, and then said, in a tone so low and husky as to be scarcely audible:

"Germain kept aloof from us, gave himself airs, watched us,—for the less one talks the more one listens. We meant to get rid of him out of the Fosse aux Lions, and if we had given him a quiet squeeze, they'd have taken him away."

"This alteration," replied the Skeleton; "that if he has turned informer, as the Gros-Boiteux declares, he mustn't get off with a quiet squeeze."

"We must make an example of him," continued the Skeleton, warming as he went on. "It is not now the nabs who look out for us, but the noses. Jacques and Gauthier, who were guillotined the other day, were informed against,—nosed; Rousillon, sent to the galleys for life,—nosed."

"And me, and my mother, and Calabash, and my brother at Toulon," cried Nicholas; "have we not all been nosed by Bras-Rouge? To be sure we have; because, instead of shutting him up here with us, he has been sent to La Roquette. They daren't put him with us; he knew he had done us wrong, the old—"

"And I, too," said a young prisoner, in a thin voice, and lisping affectedly. "I was split upon by Jobert, who had proposed to me a little affair in the Rue St. Martin."

The latter personage, with a fluty voice, pale, fat, and effeminate face, and with a sly and treacherous glance, was singularly attired. He wore as a head-dress a red pocket-handkerchief, which exposed two locks of light brown hair close to his temples; the two ends of his handkerchief formed a projecting rosette over his forehead; his cravat was a merino shawl, with a large pattern, which crossed over his chest; his mulberry-coloured waistcoat almost disappeared beneath the tight waistband of a very large pair of trousers of plaid, with very large and different-coloured checks.

"And was not that shameful? Such a man to turn against me!" he added, in his shrill voice. "Yet, really, nothing in the world would have made me distrust Jobert."

"I know very well that he sold you, Javatte," replied the Skeleton, who seemed to protect the prisoner peculiarly; "and as a proof that they have done for thy nose the same as they have done for Bras-Rouge, they have not dared to leave Jobert here, but sent him to the stone jug of the Conciergerie. Well, there must be an end put to this! There must be an example; for traitors are doing the work of the police, and believe themselves safe in their skins because they are put in a different prison from those on whom they have nosed."

"To prevent this, every prisoner should consider every nose as his deadly enemy. Whether he informs against Peter or James, here or there, that's nothing; fall on him tooth and nail. When we have made cold meat of four or five in the prisons, the others will think twice before they turn 'snitch.'"

"And no mistake," replied the prévôt; "but let us wait until the Gros-Boiteux arrives. When, for instance, he has proved to all the world that Germain is a nose the thing shall be settled out of hand; the calf shall bleat no more, we'll stop his wind."

"And what shall we do with the turnkeys who watch us?" inquired the prisoner whom the Skeleton called Javatte.

"When he returns be on your guard. But we must wait for Pique-Vinaigre, without him we can do nothing."

"What do you think of these nippers, would you like to have your neck in their clutch?" asked the Skeleton, opening his long bony fingers, hard as iron.

"Well, what if they do? Am I a calf with two heads, such as they show at the fair?"

"Is sentenced; my lawyer told me so yesterday. I was taken with my hand in the bag, and my knife in the weasand of the stiff'un. I'm a 'return horse,' too; so nothing can be more certain. I'll drop my head into Charlot's (the headsman's) basket, and I shall see if it's true that he does his customers, and puts sawdust into his basket instead of the bran which government allows us."

"True, the guillotine has a right to its bran. Now, I remember my father was robbed in the same way," said Nicholas Martial, with a ferocious grin.

This horrid jest created immense laughter amongst the prisoners. This is fearful, but far from exaggeration; we give but a faint idea of these conversations, so common in prisons. The prisoners were all laughing joyously.

"Thousand thunders!" cried the Skeleton. "I wish they who punish us would come and see how we bear it. If they will come to the Barrière St. Jacques the day of my benefit they will hear me address the audience in a neat and appropriate speech, and say to Charlot, in a gentlemanly tone, 'Père Sampson, the cord if you please.'"[1]

[1] To understand this horrid jest the English reader must know that the doors in France are usually opened by the porter, who sits in his room and pulls a cord to allow the person going out to have free egress; and the blade of the guillotine glides down the grooves of the machine, after a spring has been set in motion, by touching a cord that acts upon it.

"And then Charlot opens the baker's (the devil's) door," continued the Skeleton, still smoking his pipe.

"You fool, I was only joking. There's a sharp blade, and they put a head under it, and that's all. And now that I know my road, and must stay at the abbey of Mont-à-Regret (guillotine), I would rather go there to-day than to-morrow," said the Skeleton, with savage excitement. "I wish I was there now,—my blood comes into my mouth when I think what a crowd there'll be to see me; there'll be, at least, I should say, from four to five thousand who will push and squeeze to get good places, and they'll hire seats and windows, as if for a grand procession. I hear 'em now crying, 'Seats to let! Seats to let!' And then there'll be troops of soldiers, cavalry and infantry, and all for me,—for the Skeleton! That's enough to rouse a man if he was as big a coward as Pique-Vinaigre, that would make you walk like a hero. All eyes on you, and that makes a fellow pluck up; then—'tis but a moment—a fellow dies game, and that annoys the big-wigs and curs, and gives the knowing ones pluck to face the chopper."

"That's true, on Gospel!" added Barbillon, trying to imitate the fearful audacity of the Skeleton; "they think to make us funky when they set Charlot to work to get his shop open at our expense."

"Ah, bah!" said Nicholas, in his turn; "we laugh at Charlot and his shop; it is like the prison or the galleys,—we laugh at them, too; and so, that we may be all friends together, let's be jolly as long as we can."

"The thing that would do us," said the shrill-voiced prisoner, "would be to put us in solitary cells day and night. They do say they mean to do so at last."

"In solitary cells!" exclaimed the Skeleton, with repressed rage; "don't talk of it! Solitary cell—alone! Hold your tongue! I would rather have my arms and legs cut off! Alone within four walls! Quite alone—without having our pals to laugh with! Oh, that will never be! I like the galleys a hundred times better than the central prison, because at the galleys, instead of being shut up, one is out-of-doors, sees the world, people going and coming, and has his jokes and fun. Well, I'd rather be done for at once than be put in a solitary cell, if only for a year. Yes, for at this moment I am sure to be guillotined—ain't I? Well, if they said to me, 'Would you rather have a year of solitary confinement?' I should hold out my neck. A year all alone! Why, is it possible? What do they suppose a man thinks of when he is alone?"

"Well, I wouldn't stay; I would make such use of my hands and feet that I should escape," replied the Skeleton.

"Then I'd kill the first person who came near me, in order to have my head chopped off."

"But if, instead of sentencing such as us to death, they condemned us to be in solitary confinement for life?"

The Skeleton appeared struck at this remark, and, after a moment's silence, replied:

"Why, then, I'll tell you what I should do,—I should dash out my brains against the walls. I would starve rather than be in a solitary cell. What, all alone! all my life alone with myself,—and no chance of escape! I tell you it is impossible. Well, you know, there's no man more reckless than I am—I'd kill a man for a dollar, and for nothing if my honour was concerned; they believe I have only killed two persons, but if the dead could tell tales there are five tongues could say what I have done."

The ruffian was boasting. The sanguinary declarations are still another trait of the hardened criminals. A governor of a prison said to us, "If the assassinations boasted of by these scoundrels were really committed, the population would be decimated."

"And I, too," said Barbillon, desirous of bragging in his turn; "they think I only silenced the husband of the milk-woman in the Cité, but I did many others with tall Robert, who suffered last year."

"I was going to say," continued the Skeleton, "that I fear neither fire nor devil. Well, if I were in a solitary cell, and certain I could not escape,—thunder! I believe I should be frightened!"

"And so, if you had to begin your time over again as prig and throttler, and if, instead of central houses, galleys, and guillotine, there were only solitary cells, you would hesitate before such a chance?"

And he said truly. It is impossible to describe the vast terror which such ruffians experience at the very idea of being in solitary confinement. And is not this very terror an eloquent plea in favour of this punishment?

An uproarious noise made by the prisoners in the yard interrupted the Skeleton's council. Nicholas rose hastily, and went to the door of the room to discover the cause of this unusual tumult.

"The Gros-Boiteux!" exclaimed the prévôt. "And has Germain come down from the visiting-room?"

"Then let him make haste," said the Skeleton, "and I'll give him an order for a new coffin."

The Gros-Boiteux, whose arrival was so warmly hailed by the prisoners in the lions' den, and whose information might be so fatal to Germain, was a man of middle stature; but, in spite of being fat and crippled, he was nimble and vigorous. His countenance, brutal like that of most of his companions, was of the bulldog character; his low forehead, his small yellow eyes, his flaccid cheeks, his heavy jaws, the lower being very projecting, and armed with long teeth, or, rather, broken fangs, which in places projected beyond his lips, made his resemblance to that animal the more striking. He wore a felt cap, and over his clothes a blue cloak with a fur collar.

The Gros-Boiteux was accompanied into the prison by a man about thirty years of age, whose tanned and freckled face appeared less dissolute than that of the other prisoners, although he affected to appear as dogged as his companion. From time to time his features became overcast, and he smiled bitterly. The Gros-Boiteux soon found himself amongst his boon companions and acquaintances, and he could scarcely reply to the congratulations and kind words which came to him from all sides.

"Still I have done all I could to see my friends again as soon as possible, and it was no fault of mine if the stone jug didn't claim me sooner."

"Don't doubt you, old boy! And a man doesn't pick out a gaol as his favourite residence; but once trapped he does his best to be jolly."

"Is he? What, one of the old customers of Melun? Why, that's capital! For he'll help us to pass the time with his stories, and his customers will not fail him, for there are more recruits coming in."

"Why, just now at the entrance, whilst I came in, I saw two fresh chaps brought in; one I didn't know, but the other, who wore a blue cotton cap and a gray blouse, I have seen before somewhere. He is a powerful-looking man, and I think I have met him at the Ogress's of the White Rabbit."

"I say, Gros-Boiteux, don't you remember at Melun I bet you a wager that in less than a year you would be nabbed again?"

"Yes, I continue in my usual small way. The rig is common, but there are always 'culls'; and but for the stupidity of a pal I should not be here. However, once caught twice warned; and when I begin again I will be more careful,—I have my plan."

"Ah, here's Cardillac!" said the Boiteux, going to a little man wretchedly dressed, with ill-looking aspect, full of craft and malignity, and with features partaking of the wolf and fox. "Ah, old chap, how are you?"

"Ah, old limper," replied the prisoner nicknamed Cardillac to the Gros-Boiteux; "they said every day, 'He's coming—he's not coming!' But you are like the pretty girls, you do as you like."

"Yes, my dear fellow, I had done one or two good things, but the last was a failure; it was an out-and-out-go, and may still be done. Unfortunately, Frank and I overshot the mark."

And the Gros-Boiteux pointed to his companion, towards whom all eyes now turned.

"Ah, so it is—it's Frank!" said Cardillac; "I didn't know him again because of his beard. What, Franky! Why, I thought you'd turned honest, and was, at least, mayor of your village."

"I was an ass, and I've suffered for it," said Frank, quickly; "but every sin has its repentance. I was good once, and now I'm a prig for the rest of my days. Let 'em look out when I get out."

"What happens to every free convict who is donkey enough to think he can turn honest. Fate is just! When I left Melun I'd saved nine hundred and odd francs."

"Yes, that's true," said the Gros-Boiteux, "all his misfortunes have come from his keeping his savings, instead of spending 'em jolly when he left the 'jug.' You see what repentance leads to!"

"They sent me, en surveillance, to Etampes," replied Frank; "being a locksmith by trade, I went to a master in my line and said to him, 'I am a freed convict, I know no one likes to employ such, but here are nine hundred francs of my savings, give me work, my money will be your guarantee, for I want to work and be honest.'"

"Well, you'll see how it answered. I offered my savings as a guarantee to the master locksmith that he might give me work. 'I'm not a banker to take money on interest,' says he to me, 'and I don't want any freed convicts in my shop. I go to work in houses to open doors where keys are lost, I have a confidential business, and if it were known that I employed a freed convict amongst my workmen I should lose my customers. Good day, my man.'"

"You simpleton!" said the Gros-Boiteux to Frank, with a paternal air; "instead of breaking your ban at once, and coming to Paris to melt your mopusses, so that you might not have a sou left, but be compelled to return to robbing. You see the end of your fine ideas."

"That's what you are always saying," said Frank, with impatience; "it is true I was wrong not to spend my 'tin,' for I have not even enjoyed it. Well, as there were only four locksmiths in Etampes, he whom I had first addressed had soon told all the others, and they said to me as had said their fellow tradesman, 'No, thank ye.' All sung the same song."

"Only see, now, what it all comes to! You must see that we are all marked for life."

"Well, then, I was on the idle of Etampes, and my money melted and melted," continued Frank, "but no work came. I left Etampes, in spite of my surveillance, and came to Paris, where I found work immediately, for my employer did not know who or what I was, and it's no boast to say I am a first-rate workman. Well, I put my seven hundred francs which I had remaining into an agent's hands, who gave me a note for it; when that was due he did not pay me, so I took my note to a huissier, who brought an action against him, and recovered the money, which I left in his hands, saying to myself there's something for a rainy day. Well, just then I met the Gros-Boiteux."

"True. Well, Frank was a locksmith and made keys, I had a job in which he could be of service, and I proposed it to him. I had the prints, and he had only to go to work, when, only imagine, he refused,—he meant to turn honest. So, says I, I'll arrange about that, I'll make him work, for his own interest. So I wrote a letter, without any signature, to his master, and another to his fellow workmen, to inform them that Frank was a liberated convict,—so the master turned him away. He went to another employer and worked there for a week,—same game again; and if he had gone to a dozen I'd have served him in the same way."

"And if I had suspected that it was you who had informed against me," answered Frank, "I'd have given you a pleasant quarter of an hour to pass. Well, I was at length driven away from my last employer as a scamp only fit to be hanged. Work, then,—be respectable,—so that people may say, not 'What are you doing?' but 'What have you done?' Once on the pavé I said, 'Fortunately I have my savings to fall back upon.' So I went to the huissier, but he had cut his stick, and spent my 'tin'; and here was I without a feather to fly with, not even enough to pay for a week's lodging. What a precious rage I was in! Well, at this moment comes the Gros-Boiteux, and he took advantage of my situation. I saw it was useless trying to be honest, and that once on the prig there's no leaving it. But, old Gros, I owe you a turn."

"Come, Frank, no malice!" replied the Gros-Boiteux. "Well, he did his part like a man, and we entered upon the business, which promised royally; but, unfortunately, at the moment when we opened our mouths to swallow the dainty bit, the 'traps' were down upon us. Couldn't be helped, you know, lad! If it wasn't for that, why, our profession would be too good."

"Yet if that vagabond of a huissier had not robbed me I should not have been here," said Frank, with concentrated rage.

"Well, well," continued the Gros-Boiteux, "do you mean to say that you were better off when you were breaking your back with work?"

"Yes, on Sundays and when you were out of work, but the rest of the week you were tied up like a dog, and never sure of employ. Why, you don't know when you are well off."

"Well, you've a right to be vexed, for it was shameful to miss such a good stroke; but it is still to be done in a month or two. The people will become reassured, and it is a rich, very rich house. I shall be sentenced for breaking my ban, and so cannot resume the job, but if I find an amateur I will hand it over to him a bargain. My woman has the prints, and there is nothing to do but make new keys, and with the information I can give it must succeed. Why, there must be, at least, 400l. to lay hands on, and that ought to console you, Frank."

Cardillac took the Gros-Boiteux by the arms, led him into a corner of the yard, and said to him, after a moment's silence:

"A hundred francs as earnest; and I will give you the word arranged with my woman, on which she will hand you the prints, from which you can make the false keys. And, moreover, if the thing comes off, I shall expect a fifth share of the swag to be handed over to my woman."

"As I shall know to whom she has given the prints, if I am done out of my share I shall know whom to inform against."

"And very right, too, if you were choused; but amongst prigs and cracksmen there's honour,—we must rely on each other, or all business would be impossible."

Another anomaly in this horrid existence. This villain spoke the truth. It is very seldom that thieves fail in their faith in such arrangements as these, but they usually act with a kind of good faith,—or, rather, that we may not prostitute the word, we will say that necessity compels these ruffians to keep their words; for if they failed, as the companion of the Gros-Boiteux said, "All business would be impossible." A great number of robberies are arranged, bought, and plotted in this way in gaol,—another pernicious result of confinement in common.

"If what you say is sure," continued Cardillac, "I can agree for the job. There are no proofs against me, I am sure to be acquitted, and in a fortnight I shall be out; let us add three weeks in order to turn oneself about, to get the false keys, and lay our plans, and then in six weeks from this—"

"Here is my last button, and when I have no more,—yet there are others left," said Cardillac, tearing off a button covered with cloth from his ragged blue coat, and then tearing off the covering with his nails, he showed the Gros-Boiteux that, instead of a button-mould, it contained a piece of forty francs. "You see I can pay deposit," he added, "when the affair is arranged."

"That's the ticket, old fellow!" said the Gros-Boiteux. "And as you are soon going out, and have got rhino to work with, I can put you up to another thing,—a real good go,—the cheese,—a regular affair which my woman and myself have been cooking up, and which only wants the finishing stroke. Only imagine a lone street in a deserted quarter, a ground floor, looking on one side into an obscure alley, and on the other a garden, and here two old people, who go to roost with the cocks and hens since the riots, and, for fear of being robbed, they have concealed behind a panel, in a pot of preserves, a quantity of gold; my woman found it out by gossiping with the servant. But I tell you this will be a dearer job than t'other, for it is in hard cash, and all cooked ready to eat and drink."

"We'll arrange it, be assured. But you haven't worked over well since you left the central."

"Yes, I have had a pretty fair chance. I got together some trifles which brought me nearly sixty pounds. One of my best bites was a pull at two women who lodged in the same house with me in the Passage de la Brasserie."

"Just the same; a real ferret as ever. She cooks with the old couple I have mentioned to you, and so smelt out the pot with the golden honey in it."

"Perhaps from losing his sight through some accident. But I say, old fellow, it's quite understood that you will buy my two bargains, and so I shall not speak to any one else."

"He's not to be joked with. I have seen him at Martial's, in the Isle du Ravageur. We had a flare-up with Josephine and La Boulotte."

"So Micou told me when he made a lament that Nicholas was putting the screw on—an old hunks! Why, what else were receivers made for?"

"Here is the Skeleton," said Cardillac, as the prévôt appeared at the door of the room.

"Here I am," he replied, going into the apartment, accompanied by Frank, whose arm he held.

During the conversation between the Gros-Boiteux, Frank, and Cardillac, Barbillon had been, by order of the prévôt, to select twelve or fifteen of the choicest prisoners, who (in order to avoid the suspicions of the turnkey) had come separately into the day-room. The other détenus had remained in the yard, and some of them, by Barbillon's advice, had appeared to be disputing, in order to take off the attention of the turnkey from the room in which were now assembled the Skeleton, Barbillon, Nicholas, Frank, Cardillac, the Gros-Boiteux, and some fifteen other prisoners, all awaiting with impatient curiosity until the prévôt should open the business.

Barbillon, charged with the look-out, placed himself near the door. The Skeleton, taking his pipe from his mouth, said to the Gros-Boiteux:

"Do you know a slim young man named Germain, with blue eyes, brown hair, and the look of a noodle?"

"What! Is Germain here?" inquired the Gros-Boiteux, with surprise, hate, and anger in his looks.

"Know him?" replied the Gros-Boiteux. "Why, my lads, I denounce him as a nose, and he must be punished!"

"Are you sure it was he who informed against you?" asked Frank; "suppose it was a mistake,—we mustn't ill-use a man who's innocent."

This remark was displeasing to the Skeleton, who leaned over to the Gros-Boiteux, and said in his ear:

"Yes, let us know all about it, Gros-Boiteux," continued the Skeleton, who did not take his eyes off Frank.

"Well, then," said Gros-Boiteux, "a man of Nantes, named Velu, a freed convict, brought up the young fellow, whose birth no one is acquainted with. When he had reached the proper age they put him into a banking-house at Nantes, thinking they had put a wolf to watch the money-box, and make use of Germain to do a bold and great stroke which had been meditated for a very long time. There were to be two coups, a forgery and a dip into the strong chest at the bank, something like a hundred and fifty thousand francs. All was arranged, and Velu relied on the young fellow as on himself, for the chap slept in the room in which the iron safe was. Velu told him his plans; Germain neither says yes or no, but reveals all to his employer, and the very same evening cuts his stick and mizzles to Paris."

"Believing that Germain had consented, and relying on his assistance, Velu and two of his friends attempted the job that same night. The banker was on the watch; one of Velu's friends was taken as he was entering a window, he himself escaping with difficulty. He reached Paris enraged at having been sold by Germain, and foiled in a splendid affair. One fine day he met the young fellow; it was in the open daylight, and he didn't dare do anything, but he followed him, found out where he lived, and one night we two, Velu and little Ledru, fell on Germain. Unfortunately he escaped, and then changed his residence in the Rue du Temple, where he lived; we were unable to find him afterwards. But if he is here, I demand—"

"I take the bargain off your hands; you will concede to me Germain's skin, and I'll flay him alive. I am not called the Skeleton for nothing. I am dead-alive, my grave is dug, and I run no risk in working for the stone jug. The informers destroy us faster than the police; they put noses of La Force into La Roquette, and the noses of La Roquette in the Conciergerie, and they think themselves safe. Now, mind you, when each prison shall have killed its informer, no matter when he may have informed, that will take away the others' appetite. I will set the example, and let others follow it."

All the prisoners, admiring the Skeleton's resolution, closed around him. Barbillon himself, instead of remaining near the door, joined the group, and did not perceive another prisoner, who had entered the room. This individual, clothed in a gray blouse, and wearing a blue cotton cap with a red worsted border, pulled down over his eyes, started as he heard the name of Germain mentioned, and then, mingling with the Skeleton's admirers, gave out loud tones of approbation at the deadly determination of the prévôt.

"He'll do a real service to the stone jug, and when they see this, the noses will look blue."

"And since the Skeleton is safe to suffer, why, it'll cost him nothing to put a nose out of joint!"

"Why? Why?" exclaimed the Skeleton, in a savage tone; "no one has a right to protect a traitor."

"Yes, to be sure, he is a traitor,—so much the worse for him," said Frank, after a moment's reflection.

These latter words, and Gros-Boiteux's assurance, put the doubts which the other prisoners had entertained against Frank to rest.

"And what are we to do with the turnkey? Tell us, Dead-Alive, for that is your name as well as the Skeleton," said Nicholas, with a grin.

"Listen to me!" said the prévôt, in his hoarse voice. "There is no means of doing the thing so long as the turnkey remains in the day-room or the walking-yard. I have no knife, and there must be a few groans, for the sneak will struggle."

"Why, this. Pique-Vinaigre has promised to tell us to-day after dinner his story of 'Gringalet and Cut-in-Half.' It rains, and we shall all come here, and the sneak will come and sit down there in the corner, as he always does. We'll give Pique-Vinaigre some sous that he may begin his tale. It will be dinner-time in the gaol; the turnkey will see us quietly employed in listening to the miraculous mystery of 'Gringalet and Cut-in-Half,' and will, suspecting no harm, make off to the tap. As soon as he has left the yard we shall have a quarter of an hour to ourselves, and the nose will be cold meat before the turnkey can return. I will undertake it,—I who have done for stouter fellows in my day; and mind, I'll have no assistance!"

"Mind your eye!" cried Cardillac; "and what about the huissier who will always come for a gossip amongst us at dinner-time? If he comes into the room to listen to Pique-Vinaigre, and sees Germain done for, he will cry out for help. He's not one of us, the huissier,—he's in a private cell, and we should mistrust him."

"Is there a huissier here?" said Frank, the victim as we know of a breach of trust, by Maître Boulard. "Is there a huissier here?" he repeated, with astonishment, "and what is his name?"

"The very man! The identical villain!" cried Frank, clenching his fists. "It is he who has stolen my savings!"

These regrets sounded ill in the Skeleton's ears, and he fixed his malignant eyes steadfastly on Frank, who replied to several of his comrade's questions. Then stooping towards the Gros-Boiteux, he said, in a low voice:

"No, I'll answer for his not informing against any one; yet still he has his scruples about going the whole hog, and he might aid Germain in defending himself. It would be best to get him out of the yard."

"I'll do it," said the Skeleton; and then aloud he said, "I say, Frank, won't you pitch into this thief of a lawyer?"

"We shall have a row, and they will send the huissier to his room and Frank to the black-hole," said the Skeleton, in an undertone, to the Gros-Boiteux; "we shall thus get rid of both."

"What a lucky pitch! Why, this Skeleton is a prime minister!" said the Boiteux, admiringly; and then he added, in a loud tone, "I say, shall we tell Pique-Vinaigre that we shall avail ourselves of his history to come over the turnkey and throttle the sneak?"

"By no means; Pique-Vinaigre is too soft and too cowardly. If he was up to the thing he wouldn't tell the story, but when the job is done and over he'll bear his share."

"To your puddings, dogs!" said the Skeleton; "Pique-Vinaigre and Germain will soon be in the yard. Now mind your eyes, my boys! They call me Dead-Alive, but the sneak is also dead-alive!"

CHAPTER X.

THE STORY-TELLER.

The new prisoner of whom we have spoken, and who was dressed in a gray blouse, with a cotton cap on his head, had attentively listened to and energetically applauded the scheme for punishing the reserve of Germain, even at the expense of his life. This individual, whose form betokened strength and power of no ordinary description, quitted the day-room with the rest of the prisoners without being noticed, and soon mingled with the different groups assembled in the courtyard to receive their rations, crowding around the persons employed in the distribution like so many hungry cormorants.

Each prisoner received a piece of the meat employed in making the day's soup, with about half a loaf of tolerably good bread. Such of the détenus as possessed the means were allowed to purchase drink at the wineshop belonging to the prison, and even to go thither to regale themselves with their lush; while persons who, like Nicholas, had received provisions from their friends, generally made a sort of feast, to which they invited their most intimate acquaintances. The guests selected by the son of the executed felon upon the present occasion were the Skeleton, Barbillon, and, at the suggestion of the latter, Pique-Vinaigre, in order that good eating and drinking might quicken his talent for "storytelling."

The ham, hard boiled eggs, cheese, and delicate white bread, wrung from the forced generosity of Micou the receiver, were arranged most temptingly on a bench in the day-room, and the Skeleton prepared himself to do ample justice to the repast, without in the slightest degree disturbing his appetite by the thoughts of the cold-blooded murder that was to follow it.

"Just go and see whether Pique-Vinaigre is coming, will you, my fine fellow?" cried he, addressing an individual who stood near him. "I tell you what it is, while I'm waiting to choke that stuck-up young fool they call Germain, I'm blowed if hunger and thirst won't choke me, if I have to dawdle about much longer. And here; don't forget to work old Frank up to do for the bum-bailiff, so that we may kill two birds with one stone, as the saying is."

"Don't you be afraid, old Dead-Alive! If Frank don't make a stiff'un of the bailey, it won't be our fault, that you may take your oath of!" And, while uttering these words, Nicholas went forth from the day-room.

At this moment Maître Boulard entered the yard, smoking a cigar, his hands buried in the pockets of his gray duffle dressing-gown, his peaked cap pulled down well over his ears, and a look of chuckling satisfaction upon his fat, full-blown countenance. He quickly espied Nicholas, who was busily occupied gazing around in search of Frank. That person was at that precise period of time busily occupied, in company with his friend Gros-Boiteux, in eating his dinner, and, from the position in which they sat on one of the benches, they perceived not the presence of the bailiff. Acting in implicit obedience to the directions given him by the Skeleton, directly Nicholas, from the corner of his eye, descried the approach of Maître Boulard, he feigned entire ignorance of his vicinity, but made for the place where Frank and his companions were seated.

"Bless me!" answered he; "I declare I didn't see you. I suppose you're like me, come out to take a sniff of fresh air and have your daily walk?"

"Why, that's about it. But I happen to have more reasons than one to-day; and I tell you how it is. But, first of all, catch hold of one of these cigars; they're deuced good ones. Come, don't be so missy and shy about it; take as many as you like. Hang it all, when men are shut up together in a place like this, they oughtn't to be stingy."

"You are very good, and so are your cigars. But you were saying you had several reasons for walking out to-day?"

"Well, and so I have. First and foremost, I don't feel as hungry as usual; so, thinks I, I'll go and look on while those chaps eat their dinner. Who knows but the sight of their jaws all working away together may screw me up a bit, and give me a relish against feeding-time?"

"A famous idea!" said Nicholas. "But if you really do want to see a couple of feeders, just draw this way. There!" added he, pointing to the bench on which Frank was sitting; "what do you think of a pair of grubbers like those? I should say we were better behind than before them, or they might even swallow us instead of those huge lumps of bread and cheese and onions so rapidly stowed away in their capacious jaws."

"Well, to be sure!" cried Nicholas, with feigned surprise; "I declare one of them is Gros-Boiteux!"

Gros-Boiteux and Frank both turned around at these words. Stupefied and speechless, the bailiff continued to gaze in utter amazement at the man he had so wronged, while, starting up with a sudden spring, Frank threw down the morsel he had been eating, and darting on Maître Boulard, he seized him by the throat, exclaiming, "My money—my money; give me my money!"

"No, not till you give me back my money. What, aren't you satisfied with having brought me here? Can you not restore me what you stole from me?"

"I tell you again, if I get sent to the galleys 'tis all along of you; for had you not taken my little all from me, I should not have been driven to the necessity of robbing others; I might have lived and died an honest man. You may be acquitted, you may escape the punishment you deserve, but, at least, you shall carry my marks away with you. Ha, ha! You can come it grand, and swagger about here dressed up with your gold chains and trinkets, bought, no doubt, with the money of other poor devils who have been cheated by you as I have been. Take that for your pains—and that—that—and that! Now, have you had enough? No! Then here's for you again!"

"Help, help!" screamed the bailiff, as he rolled on the ground at Frank's feet, while his infuriated antagonist continued to belabour him with all his force.

The rest of the prisoners took little or no interest in this affray, but contented themselves with forming a circle around the two combatants, or rather the assailant and the assailed; for Maître Boulard, frightened and out of breath, made not the slightest resistance, but contented himself with warding off his adversary's blows as well as he could. Fortunately, the repeated cries of the poor maltreated bailiff reached the ears of one of the superintending officers, by whose intervention he was rescued from the rough hands of Frank. Pale, terrified, and almost speechless with terror, Maître Boulard arose. One eye was wholly closed by the severe beating he had received, and without giving himself time to pick up his cap, he wildly cried, as he rushed towards the officer:

"Open the door! Let me out—let me out! I can't and I won't stay here another minute. Help, here! Help, help!"

"As for you," exclaimed the officer, grasping Frank by the collar, "do you come along with me before the governor. I know you'll catch it, too, for fighting; two days in the black-hole is the very least you'll get, I promise you."

"I've paid him off, at any rate," returned Frank; "and I don't care for the rest."

"I say," whispered Gros-Boiteux, while affecting to be merely helping to arrange his dress, "I say, you won't breathe a word of what's going to happen to the sneak, of course?"

"Oh, don't be afraid; 'tis just likely, had I been by, I might have stood up in his defence, because to kill a man in that manner is—hard—at least—and for such a trifle! But as for telling of it, or betraying you all—oh, no!"

"That's all right!" said Nicholas. "We've got well rid of Frank and the bailiff, now let's go to work without further loss of time upon the sneak!"

As Frank was being led from the prison yard, Germain and Pique-Vinaigre entered it. It was scarcely possible to recognise Germain, for his hitherto melancholy and dejected countenance was radiant with joy and exulting happiness. He walked proudly erect, casting around him a look of certain and assured content; he knew himself to be beloved, and with that consciousness all the horrors of his prison seemed to disappear. Pique-Vinaigre followed him with a timid, confused air, and, after much hesitation, at length plucked up sufficient courage to venture to address Germain, whose arm he gently touched, ere the intended victim had reached the group of prisoners, who, from a distance, were examining him with looks of deadly hatred. Spite of himself, Germain shuddered at thus being brought into contact with a person of Pique-Vinaigre's appearance, whose wretched person and ragged attire were ill-calculated to impress any one with a favourable opinion of him; but recollecting the earnest advice of Rigolette, and feeling altogether too happy himself to act with any want of benevolence, Germain stopped, and said to Pique-Vinaigre, in a gentle tone of voice:

"For the kindness shown to my sister by the pretty young woman who visited you to-day."

"Well, then, I'll try and make you. Just now, when I was in the lodge of the prison, I saw the man who was on duty in the visitors' room a little while ago."

"It is not often you can apply that term to the gaolers of a prison, but the man I mean (Rousel is his name) is really deserving of being styled a kind, good-hearted man. So, all of a sudden, he whispers in my ear, 'I say, Pique-Vinaigre, my lad,' he says, 'do you know M. Germain?' 'Yes,' says I, 'I do,' says I; 'he's the bête noire of the prison yard.'" Then suddenly interrupting himself, Pique-Vinaigre said to Germain, "I beg your pardon for calling you a bête noire. Don't, think anything of that, but listen to the end of my story."

"'Yes,' says I, 'I know who you mean very well,' says I. 'You mean M. Germain, the bête noire of the prison yard.' 'And of you, too, I suppose?' said the officer, in a severe and serious manner. 'Oh, bless you,' says I, 'I am too good-natured, as well as too much of a coward, to venture to call any one disagreeable; and less M. Germain than any one else,' says I, 'for I don't see any harm in him, and other folks appear to me very cruel and unjust towards him.' 'That's all right, then,' answers the officer; 'and I can tell you that you are bound to side with M. Germain, for he has been very kind to you,' he says. 'To me?' says I; 'how do you mean?' 'Well,' he answers, 'I don't mean M. Germain exactly, and it ain't to you altogether he's been kind; but still, for all that,' says Rousel, 'you are bound to show him your gratitude.'"

"Try," said Germain, smilingly, "and make me understand what it is you do mean."

"That's precisely what I said to the officer. 'Speak more clearly,' I says. So then he makes answer, 'Why, it was not M. Germain, but the very pretty young person that was here just now to see him, who loaded your sister with all sorts of kindnesses. She overheard the poor thing telling you all her troubles; and directly as the creature went out, the charming young woman as come visiting to M. Germain went and offered to serve her in every way she could.'"

"Dear, good Rigolette!" murmured Germain, deeply affected by this little incident; "she said not one word to me of all this."

"'Well, to be sure!' I says to the officer; 'what a poor stupid goose I am!' 'You are quite right—you are!' M. Germain—leastways, his friend—has been good to me,—that is to say to my sister Jeanne, which is the same thing, only much more than if the favour had been done to myself."

"Poor, dear Rigolette!" said Germain; "ever the same tender, compassionate, generous-hearted creature!"

"So then the officer goes on to say how he heard all that passed between your nice young woman and my poor sister Jeanne. 'And now,' he says, 'Pique-Vinaigre, that you are aware of the fact, if you don't try to show kindness by every means in your power to M. Germain, and more especially, if you should know of any plot got up against him and not warn him of it, why,' he says, 'Pique-Vinaigre, you would be a regular scamp and a blackguard.' 'I tell you what,' I makes answer and says, 'I'm an unfinished scamp as yet, but I'm no blackguard, and, what's more, I never will be worse than I am, for the sake of my poor dear Jeanne and her children; and so because M. Germain's friend has taken notice of my Jeanne, who is one of the best and worthiest creatures that ever lived,—I may venture to boast of my sister, though I am ashamed of myself, but for that reason I will do all in my power to save or serve M. Germain; unfortunately, I can do but little, after all!' 'Never mind! Do your best; that is all I ask of you. But I will give you the pleasure of being the pleasing bearer of news to M. Germain, which, indeed, I have only just learned myself.'"

"That to-morrow morning there will be a vacant chamber you can have for paying for, then you will be all to yourself. The officer desired me to tell you so."

"Indeed!" exclaimed Germain; "how truly glad I am to hear it! That worthy man was right in saying you would be the bearer of pleasant news."

"Well, I do think so myself; for it is quite easy to perceive that you do not feel comfortable among such poor wretches as we are." Then suddenly breaking off, Pique-Vinaigre hastily added, in a low whisper, while feigning to stoop, as though searching for something he had dropped, "Hark ye, M. Germain, the prisoners are all looking at us, wondering what we are talking about. I must go. But be on your guard; and if any one tries to quarrel with you, don't make any answer; they want a pretext for all attacking you at once. Barbillon is the one chosen to provoke you, so take especial care of him. I will try and turn the attention of the others from being directed towards you in a spiteful manner." And, with these words, Pique-Vinaigre rose up from his stooping position, with the air of one who had found the object of his search.