All my resolution abandoned me when I reached the low doors, private stairs, and interior corridors, which are only entered by the condemned. The Officer still accompanied me: the Priest had left me for a couple of hours-perchance to read the papers!
I was then taken to the Governor, into whose charge the Officer gave me. They made an exchange. The Director told him to wait a moment, as he had some “game” for him to take back in the Van to the Bicêtre. No doubt it was the man condemned to-day. He is to sleep to-night on the bundle of straw which I have not had time to wear out.
“Oh, very well,” said the Officer to the Governor, “I will wait with pleasure; we can make out the two papers together, and it will be very convenient.”
They then placed me in a small room adjoining the Governor’s office, and left me, locked in, alone.
I know not of what I was thinking, or how long I had been there, when a sudden and loud burst of laughter in my ear dispersed my reverie.
I raised my eyes with a start. I was no longer alone in the cell; a man was beside me. He was about fifty-five years old, middle-sized, wrinkled; stooping, and bald: with a sinister cast in his grey eyes, and a bitter sneer on his countenance; he was dirty, half clothed, ragged, disgusting.
We looked at each other steadfastly for some moments; he prolonging his bitter laugh, while I felt half astonished, half alarmed.
“Who are you?” said I to him at last. “That is a funny question,” said he. “I am a friauche.”
“A friauche?” said I; “what does that mean?”
This question redoubled his merriment.
“Why,” cried he, in the midst of a shout of laughter, “it means that they will play the same game with my head in six weeks hence, as they will with thine in six hours! Ha! ha! ha! thou seem’st to understand now!”
And truly I was pale, and my hair stood on end. This, then, was the other condemned prisoner, the one just sentenced, whom they expected at the Bicêtre; the heir of my cell.
He continued: “Never mind! Here’s my history. I am son of a famous thief; it is a pity that they gave him one day a hempen cravat; it was during the ‘reign of the Gallows by the grace of Heaven.’ At six years of age I had neither father nor mother; in summer I turned somersets in the dust on the high-road, that carriage-travellers might throw me money; in winter I walked with naked feet in the mud, in ragged clothes, and blowing on my purple hands to excite pity. At nine years old I began to use my fingers; at times I emptied a pocket or a reticule; at ten years old I was a pilferer: then I made acquaintances, and at seventeen I became a thief. I broke into a shop, I robbed the till; I was taken and sent to the Galleys. What a hard life that was! Sleeping on bare boards, drinking plain water, eating black bread, dragging a stupid fetter which was of no use; sun-strokes and whip-strokes: and then all the heads are kept shaved, and I had such fine chestnut hair! Never mind! I served my time; fifteen years. That wears one famously!
“I was two-and-thirty years old; one fine morning they gave me a map of the road, a passport, and sixty-six francs, which I had amassed in my fifteen years at the Galleys, working sixteen hours a-day, thirty days a-month, twelve months a-year. Never mind! I wished to be an honest man with my sixty-six francs; and I had finer sentiments under my rags than you might find beneath the cassock of a priest. But deuce take the passport! It was yellow, and they had written upon it ‘Freed convict.’ I was obliged to show this at every village, and to present it every week to the mayors of the towns through which I was ordered to pass. A fine recommendation! a galley-convict! I frightened all the folk, and little children ran away, and people locked their doors. No one would give me work; I expended the last of my sixty-six francs, — and then-one must live. I showed my arms, fit for labour; the people shut their doors.
I offered my day’s work for fifteen sous, for ten sous, for five sous! and no one would have me. What could be done? One day being hungry, I knocked my elbow through a baker’s window; I seized on a loaf, and the baker seized on me. I did not eat the loaf, yet I was condemned to the Galleys for life, with three letters branded on my shoulder; I’ll show them to you if you like. They call that sort of justice the relapse. So here I was, a returned horse. I was brought back to Toulon, — this time among the Green-caps (galley-slaves for life); so now I decided to escape. I had only three walls to pierce, two chains to break, and I had one nail! I escaped. They fired the signal gun; for we convicts are, like the Cardinals of Rome, dressed in red, and they fire cannons when we depart! Their powder went to the sparrows! This time, no yellow passport, but then no money either. I met some comrades in the neighbourhood who had also served their time or broken their chains. Their captain proposed to me to join the band. They killed on the highways. I acceded, and I began to kill to live. Sometimes we attacked a Diligence, sometimes it was a post-chaise, sometimes a grazier on horseback. We took the money, we let the horses go, and buried the bodies under a tree, taking care that their feet did not appear; and then we danced on the graves, so that the ground might not seem fresh broken.
I grew old this way, hiding in the ,bushes, sleeping in the air, hunted from wood to wood, but at least free and my own master. Everything has an end, and this like the rest; the gendarmes one night caught us at our tricks; my comrades escaped; but I, the oldest, remained under the claw of these cats in cocked hats. They brought me here. I had already mounted all the steps of the justice-ladder, except one. Whether I had now taken a handkerchief or a life was all the same for me. There was but one ‘relapse’ to give me, — the executioner. My business has been short: faith, I began to grow old and good for nothing. My father married the widow (was hanged); I am going to retire to the Abbey of Mont-à-Regret (the Guillotine); that’s all, comrade!”
I remained stupefied during the recital. He laughed louder than at the beginning, and tried to take my hand. I drew back in horror.
“Friend,” cried he, “you don’t seem game. Don’t be foolish on the scaffold: d’ ye see? There is one bad moment to pass on the board, but that’s so soon done. I should like to be there to show you the step! Faith, I’ve a great mind not to plead, if they will finish me with you to-day. The same Priest will serve us both. You see I’m a good fellow, eh? I say, shall we be friends?”
Again he advanced a step nearer to me.
“Sir,” I answered, repulsing him, “I decline it.”
Fresh bursts of laughter at my answer.
“Ha, ha, ha! Sir, you must be a Marquis.”
I interrupted him, “My friend, I require reflection: leave me in peace.”
The gravity of my tone rendered him instantly thoughtful. He shook his grey and nearly bald head, while he murmured between his teeth, “I understand now, — the Priest!”
After a few minutes’ silence, he said to me, almost timidly, —
“Sir, you are a Marquis; that is all very well; but you have on such a nice great-coat, which will not be of much use to you. The Executioner will take it. Give it to me, and I will sell it for tobacco.”
I took off my great-coat, and gave it to him. He began to clap his hands with childish joy; then looking at my shirt-sleeves, and seeing that I shivered, he added, “You are cold, Sir; put on this; it rains, and you will be wet through; besides, you ought to go decently on the wagon!”
While saying this, he took off his coarse, grey woollen jacket, and put my arms into it, which I allowed him to do unconsciously. I then leaned against the wall, and I cannot describe the effect this man had on me. He was examining the coat which I had given him, and uttered each moment an exclamation of delight. “The pockets are quite new! The collar is not in the least worn! It will bring me at least fifteen francs. What luck! I shall have tobacco during all my six weeks.”
The door opened again. They were come to conduct me to the room where the condemned finally await their execution; and the guard was also come to take the other prisoner to the Bicêtre. He placed himself, laughingly, amongst them, and said to the gendarmes, —
“I say, don’t make a mistake! We have changed skins, the gentleman and I; don’t take me in his place. That won’t suit me at all, now that I can have tobacco for six weeks!”