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 goal, 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 morel 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 peals of bells on the collars of the post-horses which drew the van, the iron wheels grating over various substances in the road, the cracking 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 roadside. 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 today?”
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 be 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 vas 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.