In the long period of irresponsible despotism now at hand, the prisons were destined to play a prominent part. No one was safe from arbitrary arrest. The right of personal liberty did not exist. Every one, the highest and the lowest, the most criminal and the most venial offender, might come within the far reaching hands of the King’s gaolers. Both the “Wood,” as Vincennes was commonly called, and the Bastile, the “castle with the eight towers,” were constantly crowded with victims of arbitrary power. It was an interminable procession as we shall presently see.
Let us first describe the procedure in arrest, the reception of prisoners and their daily régime within the great fortress gaol. It has been claimed that the system in force was regulated with the most minute care. As imprisonment might be decreed absolutely and without question, a great responsibility was supposed to weigh upon officials. In the first instance the Bastile was under the immediate control of a minister of state, for a long time a high official. He received an accurate and exact list of all arrests made, and rendered to the King an account of all remaining at the end of each year. The order for arrest was hedged in with all precaution. Each lettre de cachet bore the King’s own signature countersigned by a minister, and the governor of the Bastile signed a receipt for the body at the end of the order. In some cases, prisoners of distinction brought their own warrants of arrest; but the court also signed an order to receive them, without which admission would be refused. In due course, when Louis XIV had fully established his police, arrests were made by the Lieutenant-Criminel, whose agent approached and touched his intended prisoner with a white wand. A party of archers of the guard followed in support. A carriage was always employed; the first that came to hand being impressed into the King’s service. Into this the prisoner mounted with the officer making the arrest by his side. The escort surrounded the carriage and the party marched at a foot’s pace through the silent, over-awed crowd. In many cases to avoid gossip, the agent took his prisoner to a place he kept for the purpose, a private house commonly called the four (oven) and the remainder of the journey to the Bastile was made after dark.
The party was challenged as it approached the Bastile. The first sentinel cried, “Who goes there?” The agent replied, “The King’s order;” and the under officer of the guard came out to examine the lettre de cachet when, if all was correct, he allowed the carriage to enter and rang the bell to inform all concerned. The soldiers of the garrison turned out under arms, the King’s lieutenant and the captain of the gateway guard received the prisoner as he alighted from the carriage. If the governor was in the castle the new prisoner was conducted immediately into his presence. A short colloquy followed. It was decided in which part of the castle the new comer should be lodged. He was then taken into an adjoining apartment to be thoroughly searched and was deprived of arms, money and papers. No one but the officials and those specially authorised by the King were permitted to carry arms in the Bastile. All visitors surrendered their swords at the gate.
Now the drawbridge was let down and admission given to the inner court, whence the prisoner passed on, escorted by turnkeys, to the lodging assigned to him. If he was a person of distinction, he found a suite of rooms; if of low degree he was thrown into one of the cells in the towers. New arrivals were detained for several days in separation until the interrogatory instituted gave some idea of the fate foreshadowed. Rooms in the Bastile were not supplied with furniture. The King only guaranteed food for his guests, and they were obliged to hire what they needed unless their friends sent in the necessary articles. Later on, the King provided a special fund for the purpose of buying furniture, and five or six rooms came to be regularly furnished with a bed, a table and a couple of chairs. In rare cases servants were admitted to attend their masters, but the warders generally kept the rooms in order. If the preliminary inquiry was lengthy or the imprisonment promised to be prolonged, the prisoner was given a companion of his own class and quality whose business it was to worm his way into his confidence and eventually to betray it. These were the moutons, or spies of latter days. Every prison chamber was closed with a double gate with enormous locks and an approaching visitor was heralded by the rattling of the keys. The warders came regularly three times a day: first for breakfast, next for dinner at mid-day and to bring supper in the evening.
The dietary in the Bastile is said to have been wholesome and sufficient. The allowance made to the governor who acted as caterer was liberal. Some prisoners were so satisfied with it that they offered to accept simpler fare if the governor would share with them the difference saved between the outlay and the allowance. There were three courses at meals: soup, entrée and joint with a dessert and a couple of bottles of wine per head, while the governor sent in more wine on fête days. Reduction of diet was a common punishment, but the offenders were seldom put upon bread and water treatment, which was thought so rigorous that it was never used except by the express orders of the Court. The King paid for ordinary rations only. Luxuries such as tobacco, high-class wine and superior viands prisoners found for themselves, and these were charged against their private funds, held by the authorities. Some smoked a good deal, but many complaints against the practice were made by other prisoners. The keeping of pets was not forbidden; there were numbers of dogs, cats and birds in cages and even pigeons which were set free in the morning and returned every evening after spending the day in town. But these last were looked upon with suspicion as facilitating correspondence with the outside. The surgeon of the castle attended to the sick, but in bad cases one of the King’s physicians was called in and nurses appointed. When death approached a confessor was summoned to administer the rites of the Church, and upon death a proper entry was made in the mortuary register, but often under a false name.
Time passed heavily, no doubt, but the prisoners were not denied certain relaxations. They might purchase books subject to approval. When brought in they were scrupulously examined and the binding broken up in the search for concealed documents. Where prisoners did not care to read they were permitted to play draughts, chess and even cards. Writing materials were issued, but with a very niggardly hand. A larger consideration was extended to those given the so-called “liberty of the Bastile.” The doors were opened early and they were permitted to enter the courtyard and remain there until nightfall, being allowed to talk, to play certain games and to receive visits from their friends. Such relaxations were chiefly limited to non-criminal prisoners, those detained for family reasons, officers under arrest, and prisoners, whose cases were disposed of but who were still detained for safe custody. The well-being of the inmates of the Bastile was supposed to be ensured by the constant visits of the superior officials, the King’s lieutenant, the governor and his major. Permission to address petitions to the ministers was not denied and many heart-rending appeals are still to be read in the archives, emanating from people whose liberty had been forfeited. Clandestine communications between prisoners kept strictly apart were frequently successful, as we have seen; old hands exhibited extraordinary cleverness in their desire to talk to their neighbors. They climbed the chimneys, crawled along the outer bars or raised their voices so as to be heard on the floor above or below.
Much ingenuity was shown in utilising strange articles as writing materials; the drumstick of a fowl was turned into a pen, a scrap of linen or a piece of plaster torn from the wall served as writing paper and fresh blood was used for ink. Constant attempts were made to communicate with the outside. The old trick of throwing out of the window a stone wrapped in paper covered with writing was frequently tried. If it reached the street and was picked up it generally passed on to its address. Patroles were employed, day and night, making the rounds of the exterior to check this practice. The bird fanciers tied letters to the legs of the pigeons which took wing, and the detection of this device led to a general gaol delivery from all bird cages. Friends outside were at great pains to pass in news of the day to prisoners. Where the prison windows gave upon the street, and when prisoners were permitted to exercise on the platforms of the towers, their friends waited on the boulevards below and used conventional signs by waving a handkerchief or placing a hand in a particular position to convey some valued piece of intelligence. It is said that when Laporte, the valet de chambre of Anne of Austria, was arrested, the Queen herself lingered in the street so that her faithful servant might see her and know that he was not forgotten. Sometimes the house opposite the castle was rented with a notice board and a message inscribed with gigantic
letters was hung in the windows to be read by those
inside.
The governing staff of the Bastile, although ample and generally efficient, could not entirely check these disorders. The supreme chief was the Captain-Governor. Associated with him was a lieutenant of the King, immediately under his orders were a major and aide-major with functions akin to those of an adjutant and his assistant. There was a chief engineer and a director of fortifications, a doctor and a surgeon, a wet-nurse, a chaplain, a confessor and his coadjutor. The Châtelet delegated a commissary to the department of the Bastile, whose business it was to make judicial inquiries. An architect, two keepers of the archives and three or four turnkeys, practically the body servants and personal attendants of the prisoners, completed the administrative staff. A military company of sixty men under the direct command of the governor and his major formed the garrison and answered for the security of the castle. Reliance must have been placed chiefly upon the massive walls of the structure, for this company was composed mainly of old soldiers, infirm invalids, not particularly active or useful in such emergencies as open insubordination or attempted escape. The emoluments of the governor were long fixed at 1,200 livres, but the irregular profits far out-valued the fixed salary. The governor was, to all intents and purposes, a hotel or boarding house keeper, who was paid head money for his involuntary guests. The sum of ten livres per diem was allowed for each, a sum far in excess of the charge for diet. This allowance was increased when the lodgers exceeded a certain number. The governor had other perquisites, such as the rent of the sheds erected in the Bastile ditch. He was permitted to fill his cellars with wine untaxed, which he generally exchanged with a dealer for inferior fluid to re-issue to the prisoners. In later years when the influx of prisoners diminished, the governors appear to have complained bitterly of the diminution of their income. Petitions imploring relief may be read in the actions from governors impoverished by their outgoings in paying for the garrison and turnkey. They could not “make both ends meet.”
The governor, or captain of the castle, was in supreme charge. The ministers of state transmitted to him the orders of the King direct. He corresponded with them and in exceptional cases with the King himself; but was answerable for the castle and the safe custody of the inmates. His power was absolute and he wielded it with military exactitude. We have seen in the list of earlier custodians, that the most distinguished persons did not feel the position was beneath them; but as time passed, it was thought safer to employ smaller people, the creatures of the court whose loyalty and subservience might be most certainly depended upon. After du Tremblay, who surrendered his fortress to the Fronde, came Broussel the elder, the member of Parliament who had defied Anne of Austria, with his son as his lieutenant. Then came La Louvière, who was commandant of the place when the “Grande Mademoiselle” seized it in aid of the great Condé. He was removed by the King’s order and when peace was declared one de Vennes succeeded him and then La Bachelerie. But De Besmaus, who had been a simple captain in Mazarin’s guard, was the first of what we may call the “gaoler governors.” He was appointed by the King in 1658 and held the post for nearly forty years. Through all the busy period when Louis XIV personally controlled the morals of his kingdom and used the castle to enforce his despotic will a great variety of prisoners came under his charge; political conspirators, religious dissidents, Jansenists and Protestants, free thinkers and reckless writers with unbridled libellous pens, publishers who dared to print unauthorised books which were tried in court and sentenced to committal to gaol for formal destruction, common criminals, thieves, cutpurses and highway robbers. De Besmaus has been described as a “coarse, brutal governor, a dry, disagreeable, hard-hearted ruffian;” but another report applauds the selection, declaring that his unshaken fidelity through thirty-nine years of office was associated with much gentleness and humanity. His honesty is more questioned, for it is stated that although he entered the service poor, he bequeathed considerable sums at his death. Monsieur de Saint Mars, who fills so large a place in the criminal annals of the times, from his connection with certain famous and mysterious prisoners, succeeded De Besmaus. He was an old man and had risen from the ranks, having been first a King’s musketeer, then corporal, then Maréchal de Logis, and was then appointed commandant of the donjon of Pignerol.
When Cardinal Mazarin died, the probable successor to the vacant office was freely discussed and choice was supposed to lie between Le Tellier, secretary of State for war, Lionne, secretary for foreign affairs, and Fouquet, superintendent of finances. Louis XIV soon settled the question by announcing his intention of assuming the reins of government himself. When leading personages came to him, asking to whom they should speak in future upon affairs of State, Louis replied, “To me. I shall be my own Prime Minister in future.” He said it with a decision that could not be questioned, and it was plain that the young monarch of twenty-two proposed to sacrifice his ease, to subordinate his love of pleasure and amusement to the duties of his high position—resolutions fulfilled in the main. In truth he had been chafing greatly at the vicarious authority exercised by Mazarin and was heard to say that he could not think what would have happened had the Cardinal lived much longer. People could not believe in Louis’s determination and predicted that he would soon weary of his burdensome task. Fouquet was the most incredulous of all. He thought himself firmly fixed in his place and believed that by humoring the King, by encouraging him in his extravagance and providing funds for his gratification, he would still retain his power. He sought, too, by complicating the business and confusing the accounts of his office, to disgust the King with financial details and blind him to the dishonest statements put before him. Fouquet thus prepared his own undoing, for Louis, suspecting foul play, was secretly coached by Colbert, who came privately by night to the King’s cabinet to instruct and pilot him through the dark and intricate pitfalls that Fouquet prepared for him. Louis patiently bided his time and suffered Fouquet to go farther and farther astray, to increase his peculations and lavish enormous sums of the ill-gotten wealth in ostentatious extravagance. Louis made up his mind to pull down and destroy his faithless minister. His insidious plans, laid with a patient subtlety, not to say perfidy, were the first revelation of the masterly and unscrupulous character of the young sovereign. He led Fouquet on to convict himself and show to all the world, by a costly entertainment on unparalleled lines, how deeply he had dipped his purse into the revenues of the State.