Then the condition of the freed convict is much more terrible, painful, and difficult than it was before he committed his first fault. He is surrounded by perils and rocks,—he must have refusal, disdain, and often even the deepest misery. And if he relapses and commits a second crime, you are more severe towards him than for his first fault a thousand times. This is unjust, for it is always the necessity you impose on him that makes him commit the second crime. Yes, for it is demonstrated that, instead of correcting, your penitentiary system depraves; instead of ameliorating, it renders worse; instead of curing slight moral defects, it renders them incurable.
The severe punishment inflicted on offenders for the second time would be just and logical if your prisons, rendered moral, purified the prisoners, and if, at the termination of their punishment, good conduct was, if not easy, at least possible for them. If we are astonished at the contradictions of the law, what is it when we compare certain offences with certain crimes, either from the inevitable consequences, or from the immense disproportions which exist between the punishments, awarded to each?
The conversation of the prisoner who came to see the bailiff will present one of these overwhelming contrasts.
CHAPTER VII.
MAÎTRE BOULARD.
The prisoner who entered the reception-room at the moment when Pique-Vinaigre left it was a man about thirty, with reddish brown hair, a jovial countenance, florid and full; and his short stature made his excessive fatness still more conspicuous. This prisoner, so rosy and plump, was attired in a long and warm dressing-gown of gray kersey, with pantaloons of the same down to his feet. A kind of cap of red velvet, called Perinet-Leclerc, completed this personage's costume, when we add that his feet were thrust into comfortable furred slippers. His gold chain supported a number of handsome seals with valuable stones, and several rings with real stones shone on the red fingers of the détenu, who was called Maître Boulard, a huissier (a law-officer), and accused of breach of trust.
The person who had come to see him was, as we have said, Pierre Bourdin, one of the gardes de commerce (bailiffs) employed to arrest poor Morel, the lapidary. This bailiff was usually employed by Maître Boulard, the huissier of M. Petit-Jean, the man of straw of Jacques Ferrand.
Bourdin, shorter and quite as stout as the huissier, formed himself on the model of his employer, whose magnificence he greatly admired. Very fond as he was of jewelry, he wore on this occasion a superb topaz pin, and a long gilt chain was visible through the buttonholes of his waistcoat.