An early victim of Bicêtre was the Protestant Frenchman, Salomon de Caus, who had lived much in England and Germany and had already, at the age of twenty, gained repute as an architect, painter and engineer. One of his inventions was an apparatus for forcing up water by a steam fountain; and that eminent scientist, Arago, declares that De Caus preceded Watt as an inventor of steam mechanisms. It was De Caus’s misfortune to fall desperately in love with the notorious Marion Delorme. When his attentions became too demonstrative this fiendish creature applied for a lettre de cachet from Richelieu. De Caus was invited to call upon the Cardinal, whom he startled with his marvellous schemes. Richelieu thought himself in the presence of a madman and forthwith ordered De Caus to Bicêtre. Two years later Marion Delorme visited Bicêtre and was recognised by De Caus as she passed his cell. He called upon her piteously by name, and her companion, the English Marquis of Worcester, asked if she knew him, but she repudiated the acquaintance. Lord Worcester was, however, attracted by the man and his inventions, and afterwards privately visited him, giving his opinion later that a great genius had run to waste in this mad-house.
Bicêtre was subsequently associated with the galleys and was starting point of the chain of convicts directed upon the arsenals of Toulon, Rochefort, Lorient and Brest. A full account of these modern prisons is reserved for a later chapter.
The prison of Sainte Pélagie was founded in the middle of the seventeenth century by a charitable lady, Marie l’Hermite, in the faubourg Sainte Marcel, as a refuge for ill-conducted women, those who came voluntarily and those who were committed by dissatisfied fathers or husbands. It became, subsequently, a debtors’ prison. The Madelonnettes were established about the same time and for the same purpose, by a wine merchant, Robert Montri, devoted to good works. The prison of St. Lazare, to-day the great female prison of Paris, appears to have been originally a hospital for lepers, and was at that time governed by the ecclesiastical authority. It was the home of various communities, till in 1630 the lepers disappeared, and it became a kind of seminary or place of detention for weak-minded persons and youthful members of good position whose families desired to subject them to discipline and restraint. The distinction between St. Lazare and the Bastile was well described by a writer who said, “If I had been a prisoner in the Bastile I should on release have taken my place among genres de bien (persons of good social position) but on leaving Lazare I should have ranked with the mauvais sujets (ne’er do weels).” A good deal remains to be said about St. Lazare in its modern aspects.
[CHAPTER II]
STRUGGLE WITH THE SOVEREIGN
Provincial prisons—Loches, in Touraine, still standing—Favorite gaol of Louis XI—The iron cage—Cardinal La Balue, the Duc d’Alençon, Comines, the Bishops—Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, and his mournful inscriptions—Diane de Poitiers and her father—Mont St. Michel—Louis Napoleon—Count St. Pol—Strongholds of Touraine—Catherine de Medicis—Massacre of St Bartholomew—Murder of Duc de Guise—Chambord—Amboise—Angers—Pignerol—Exiles and the Isle St. Marguerite.
The early history of France is made up of the continuous struggle between the sovereign and the people. The power of the king, though constantly opposed by the great vassals and feudal lords, steadily grew and gained strength. The state was meanwhile torn with dissensions and passed through many succeeding periods of anarchy and great disorders. The king’s power was repeatedly challenged by rivals and pretenders. It was weakened, and at times eclipsed, but in the long run it always triumphed. The king always vindicated his right to the supreme authority and, when he could, ruled arbitrarily and imperiously, backed and supported by attributes of autocracy which gradually overcame all opposition and finally established a despotic absolutism.
The principal prisons of France were royal institutions. Two in particular, the chief and most celebrated, Vincennes and the Bastile, were seated in the capital. With these I shall deal presently at considerable length. Many others, provincial strongholds and castles, were little less conspicuous and mostly of evil reputation. I shall deal with those first.