Legends of the Bastille

by Frantz Funck-Brentano

HAVING sketched rapidly and with bold strokes the outlines of the history of the Bastille from its foundation to its fall, we intend to show how the rule to which prisoners in the fortress of the Suburb Saint-Antoine were submitted underwent its own process of transformation, parallel with the transformation of the prison itself. To understand the facts which follow, and which are of a kind to astound the mind of everyone in these days, it is necessary to remember what we have already said as to the character of the Bastille. It was the prison of luxury, the aristocratic prison of the ancien régime, the prison de luxe at a period when it was no dishonour, as we shall see later, to be confined there. We must remember the phrase of the minister of Paris writing to D’Argenson, in regard to a personage of but modest rank, that this individual did not deserve “consideration” enough to be put in the Bastille. Let us reflect on this observation of Mercier in his excellent Pictures of Paris: “The people fear the Châtelet more than the Bastille. Of the latter they have no dread, because it is almost unknown to them.”

We have shown how the Bastille, originally a military citadel, had become a prison of state; then, little by little, had approximated to the ordinary prisons, until the day when it died a natural death ere it could be assassinated. The same transformation took place in the treatment of the prisoners. Midway in the seventeenth century, the Bastille had none of the characteristics of a prison, but was simply a château in which the king caused certain of his subjects to sojourn, for one cause or another. They lived there just as they thought proper, furnishing their rooms according to their fancy with their own furniture, indulging their tastes in regard to food at their own expense, and waited on by their own servants. When a prisoner was rich he could live at the Bastille in princely style; when he was poor, he lived there very wretchedly. When the prisoner had no property at all, the king did not for that reason give him furniture or food; but he gave him money which he might use as seemed good to him in providing himself with furniture and food: money of which he could retain a part—a number of prisoners did not fail to do so—these savings becoming his own property. This system, the character of which it is important to recognize, underwent gradual modification during the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, approximating, without ever becoming identical with, the system of our modern prisons. Thus the king, instead of granting pensions individually to the poorest of the prisoners, came to endow the Bastille with a certain fixed number of pensions for the less fortunate prisoners. The recipients of these pensions continued to enjoy them for long years, and if they did not wish the whole of the money to be expended on their support, the balance was handed over to them. So we see certain individuals getting little fortunes together by the mere fact of their having been prisoners in the Bastille—a circumstance which has so much surprised historians because they have not sought its cause. It even happened that prisoners, when their liberation was announced to them, asked to remain a little longer in order to swell their savings, a favour which was sometimes granted them. In the course of the eighteenth century the money destined to the maintenance of the prisoners at the Bastille could not be diverted from its purpose; the prisoners were no longer able to appropriate a part; the whole sum had to be expended.

It was only in the second half of the seventeenth century that the king had some rooms at the Bastille furnished for such prisoners as were without means of procuring furniture themselves. And it is very interesting to note that it was only at the extreme end of the century, under the administration of Saint-Mars, that certain apartments of the Bastille were arranged in the prison style with bars and bolts. Until then they had been simply the rooms of a stronghold.[31]

Let us follow the prisoner from his entrance to his exit.

When the lettre de cachet had been signed, it was usually a sort of sheriff’s officer who effected the arrest. He appeared in company with five or six men-at-arms, and signified the arrest by touching his quarry with a white staff. A coach was in waiting. The police officer politely begged the person he was instructed to secure to step into the coach, and took his place beside him. And, according to the testimony of various memoirs, while the vehicle was rolling along with lowered blinds, there was a pleasant conversational exchange of courtesies up to the moment of the prisoner’s finding himself within the walls of the Bastille. A certain Lafort was living in furnished apartments with a young and pretty Englishwoman whom he had abducted, when one evening, about sunset, a police officer arrived. The coach was at the door. Preliminaries were settled on both sides with as much politeness as if a visit or an evening party had been the topic of discussion. They all got into the vehicle, even the young man’s lackey who, beguiled by appearances, mounted behind. Arrived at the Bastille, the lackey lost no time in descending to open the door: there was general astonishment, especially on the part of the poor servant, when he learnt that since he had entered the Bastille along with his master, he must stay with him.

Most often the officer and his companions surprised their quarry early in the morning, on rising from bed. Imagine then the coach with the prisoner and the police officer inside, arriving before the Bastille, in the first court in front of the castle keep. “Who goes there?” cries the sentinel. “The king’s writ!” replies the officer. At this, the shops we have seen attached to the flanks of the château are bound at once to be shut. The soldiers on guard have to turn their faces to the wall, or perhaps to pull their hats over their eyes. The coach passes the outpost, a bell sounds. “Advance!” cries the officer on duty. The drawbridge is lowered and the coach rattles over the stout iron-clamped boards. For greater secrecy, spies and prisoners of war were taken in by a private door leading to the gardens of the Arsenal.

Officers and noblemen presented themselves before the Bastille alone, unless they were accompanied by relatives or friends. “It is my intention,” the king had written to them, “that you betake yourselves to my château of the Bastille.” And no one dreamt of declining the royal invitation. Further, when the governor desired to transfer one of them from one prison to another, he contented himself with telling him so. We find in the Journal of Du Junca, king’s lieutenant[32] at the Bastille, several notes like the following: “Monday, December 26, 1695, about ten o’clock in the morning, M. de Villars, lieutenant-colonel of the regiment of Vosges infantry, came and reported himself a prisoner, as ordered by M. Barbezieux, though he was a prisoner in the citadel of Grenoble, whence he came direct without being brought by anyone.”[33] On the arrival of the prisoner, the king’s lieutenant, accompanied by the captain of the gates, came to receive him as he got out of his carriage. The officers of the château at once led the new-comer into the presence of the governor, who received him civilly, invited him to sit down, and after having endorsed the lettre de cachet conversed with him for some time. Under Louis XIV. the governor in most cases even kept his new guest, as well as the persons who had accompanied him, to lunch or dinner. Meanwhile his quarters had been got ready. We read in Du Junca’s Journal that on January 26, 1695, a certain De Courlandon, a colonel of cavalry, presented himself for incarceration at the Bastille. There being no room ready to receive him, the governor asked him to go and pass the night in a neighbouring inn, at the sign of the Crown, and to return next day. “Whereupon M. de Courlandon did not fail to return about eleven o’clock in the morning, having dined with M. de Besmaus (the governor), and in the afternoon he entered the château.”

The reader will not be surprised at learning that the prospect of incarceration at the Bastille did not always strike the future prisoner with terror. We read in the Memoirs of the Duke de Lauzun:[34] “Scolded for two hours on end by everybody who fancied himself entitled to do so, I thought I could not do better than go to Paris and await developments. A few hours after my arrival, I received a letter from my father telling me that it had been decided to put us all in the Bastille, and that I should probably be arrested during the night. I determined at least to finish gaily, so I invited some pretty girls from the Opera to supper, so that I might await the officer without impatience. Seeing that he did not arrive, I determined on the bold move of going to Fontainebleau and joining the king’s hunt. He did not speak to me once during the chase, which was such a confirmation of our disgrace that on our return no one gave us the customary salute. But I did not lose heart; in the evening I was in attendance, and the king came to me. ‘You are all,’ he said, ‘hotheaded rips, but funny dogs all the same; come along and have supper, and bring M. de Guéméné and the Chevalier de Luxembourg.’”

Before the new arrival was installed in the chamber prepared for him, he was taken to the great council hall, where he was requested to empty his pockets. Only notorious rogues were searched. If the prisoner had upon him money, jewels, or other articles such as knives and scissors, the use of which was not allowed by the regulations, they were done up in a parcel which he himself sealed, with his own seal if he had one; if not, with the seal of the Bastille. Finally, he was conducted to the room reserved for him.