CHAPTER XXXII.

THE PRISON OF THE LUXEMBOURG.

THE pris had been consigned, was appropriated

HE prison of the Luxembourg, to which our

principally to members of the French nobility, and to English subjects arrested in France since the declaration of the war then raging. On their entering the precincts of the prison, a guichetier or turnkey received them (the concierge was no doubt sleeping the sleep of the callous and the unjust), and admitted them to a low-roofed salle provided with a a few wooden benches. Here he left them. In the course of half an hour he returned, this time accompanied by a sleepy-looking and surly virago, who ordered the Countess and Catherine to follow her to the women's quarters.

The turnkey was about to retire, when Mr. Wayte requested to be furnished with linen and some other requisites to dress his own and his friend's wounds.

"You

"As-tu les sonnettes ?" (Have you the "chink "?), asked the turnkey, with a sardonic grimace. had better make use of them while you can. They will strip you as bare as a worm in the morning."

Mr. Wayte handed him a couple of pistoles, and after a considerable interval he returned bringing with him what was required. When he had departed,

Mr. Wayte and Andrew proceeded to dress each other's wounds, as well as their somewhat elementary knowledge of surgery and the means at their disposal permitted. They then sat down on one of the benches, and despite the pain from which they were suffering, sank ere long into a troubled slumber.

Early in the morning the Concierge Guyard entered the salle. He looked the truculent ruffian that he was. He was armed with a sabre, and had a couple of pistols stuck in his belt. He was appropriately attended by a huge mastiff, called by his master Ravage, whose heavy jowl and formidable teeth justified his ominous name.

Guyard was followed by two other sansculottes, who, without offering any explanation, formal or otherwise, proceeded to rifle the pockets and search the persons of the two prisoners. This custom was called rapiotage, and ladies as well as men were subjected to it at the hands of brutalised ruffians who performed their task with licentious gusto.

When every coin and every article of value had been removed from the persons of Mr. Wayte and Andrew, they were conducted to the préau or prison courtyard, where they found a large number of détenus moving up and down.

A number of these prisoners came round the newcomers and had begun to converse with them, when one of the gaolers, advancing to the group thus formed, cried in a growling and imperious tone, "Au large!

it is forbidden to assemble."

A tall and handsome gentleman, who, as Andrew subsequently learned, was the Duc de Champfleury,

took hold of the gaoler by the cravat and pushed him aside, saying contemptuously, "Go to the devil!"

The fellow did not resent the rebuff, but only muttered in reply

"The devil has been suppressed by the Decree which acknowledges the Supreme Being."

イ

"Naturally," rejoined the haughty nobleman, in a tone of biting irony. "The devil is obviously de trop when he can get so many vicars to do his work. Robespierre has pensioned him."

Andrew almost trembled to hear language so defiant; but the gaoler only withdrew, growling like his mastiff.

During the course of the day Andrew perceived that liberty of speech, banished from the streets, had taken refuge in the prisons. The aristocrats had nothing to look for except the guillotine, and had therefore no motive for bridling their tongue. Their condition otherwise was so bad that it could not be made worse, and they comported themselves with a gay good-humour or philosophic composure which excited Andrew's admiring wonderment. The Faubourg St. Germain had transplanted itself here, with all its grace, courage, urbanity, and wit.

In one corner of the courtyard a gentleman recited some verses of his own composition, satirising the Revolutionary Government. Here a couple of savants were vehemently discussing the question whether consciousness remained for a few moments after decapitation. There an actor was singing some verses of a vaudeville. There was even a group amusing themselves by dancing a minuet. As at this time the

sexes were separated-their former association in the prison having offended the austere virtue of the Government-half of the gentlemen affected the mincing gait and languishing airs of ladies, amidst the laughter of the onlookers; and as these gentlemen bowed to their improvised partners, they struck the back of their necks sharply with the side of their palms, in mimicry of the fatal blow which so surely awaited many of them. To an Englishman this gay courage, reckless defiance, and grotesque mockery of death would have appeared to savour of affectation and bravado, and perhaps the French tendency to pose entered as an element into these manifestations; but far more truly and deeply, these French gentlemen, however much their hearts were wrung, were determined to show no weakness in the presence of their tyrants. Moreover, being denuded now of all the exterior symbols and circumstances of rank and station, they were impelled to prove their innate superiority by the loftiness of their courage and the elevation of their sentiments. Still further, their contempt of death belittled the only punishment which their foes had in reserve. They made the guillotine despicable by ridiculing it, mimicking it, giving it facetious nicknames. Too proud to touch their gaolers unless under intolerable outrage, they treated them with a galling and withering disdain, against which even their brutalised natures were not proof. Every look was an insult, every word more stinging than a lash. They systematically used vous in addressing each other, though this was forbidden as a relic of the "slavish style"; but they never

forgot to bestow the tu upon all the prison functionaries, as they formerly would have done in ordering their lackeys or reproving their domestics.

The day passed slowly and dismally for our friends, and they hailed the signal for dinner at three o'clock with a sense of relief, though they were well aware that nothing could be less appetising than the fare provided. The Duc had informed Mr. Wayte that the meat was generally peuplée, as he whimsically expressed it, and that the smell of the viands would turn a sailor's stomach.

The prisoners assembled in a large hall used as a refectory, or as the Duc preferred to call it, an infectory. Here they were seated by thirties at each table. The dinner consisted of unsavoury soup, a plate of cod or herring which had been half-rotten before being cooked, a few damaged artichokes and other vegetables, and for each person a chopine of wine, which was, however, mainly Seine water coloured with drugs, to give it probability.

It chanced that the Duc de Champfleury sat opposite to Mr. Wayte, and raising his glass to his lips, he bowed, and said in a sonorous voice, and with an air of winning courtesy, “À votre santé, monsieur !"

Mr. Wayte thanked him and returned the compliment.

The Duc, having sipped the wine, continued—

"There is a proverb, monsieur, in vino veritas, of which I have discovered the falsity since I came here. There is no truth in this wine."

Andrew was so much tickled by this humorous application of the proverb that he burst into a laugh,