Denounced: A Romance

by John Bloundelle-Burton

"Nay, more timorous. For, observe, he fears the King should find out he is being hoodwinked. Yet, all do not drink nor eat alike here. Some get only a chopine of the thinnest, one plat to each meal, coarse bread, and no fruit. It depends on the degree of the personage, also the probability of the length of his visit. Because, you see, Monsieur le Capitaine, some seem never likely to depart--and there are many such, I assure you, who become forgotten; there is no hope they will ever go forth; they have no money to give away in fees--for if a visitor wishes to reward us for our little cares, he may make an order on De Launey to distribute some of the money he holds; they become the guest who has outstayed his welcome. You understand, monsieur?"

He spoke with an air of drunken gravity, and, although in drink, showed so much intelligence that Bertie guessed this was the man's normal condition. Also, the latter observed that the state he was in by no means prevented him from being able to fulfil any duty he had to perform. Indeed, during the time he had been enlightening Bertie as to the customs of the Bastille, he had been arranging in a corner of the room some furniture the other man had come back with, as well as that which he had originally brought. Thus he had fitted up a little truckle bedstead in one of the corners near the fireplace and under the statue of St. Matthew which stood in the wall above, a bedstead which had some curtains of dirty flowered stuff, with a bag of straw for a mattress, and also a blanket as dirty as the curtains, and full of holes, and a quilt of flock. Likewise he had brought in a great pitcher of water, a ewer and mug, all of which were of pewter.

"Avec ça," he said, regarding these things with a look of satisfaction, "monsieur is well provided. Oh, well provided! Now for this you must pay six livres a month--none of which comes to me, alas!--and if you wish more it can be hired. Yet, faith! it is a chamber for a King. Shall I send for a fagot and make a fire to purge the air of the room?"

"Nay," said poor Bertie, "it is very well. Yet I would that the chamber was not so vast; it is large, and draughty, and dark. Can I not be removed into a better one--at least, a smaller one?"

"That will come if you remain with us. Lengthened sojourns are not made in this one. So you may content yourself with this, namely, while you are here--in this apartment--you may go out at any moment. Now, I have other guests to see to; I will return later with the dinner. Adieu, monsieur," and he went away, banging, and locking, and barring the heavy door behind him.

Through the glazed window above, which had two great shutters to it that were always closed, but had an iron gate or smaller window within them, while outside was a green wooden lattice, Bertie could see that the sun was shining; nay, a ray or so even forced its way through the iron gate and illuminated a foot's breadth all along the dungeon, or room. In one way it was, perhaps, not very welcome, for it showed plainly the filthy condition of the floor, all incrusted with dirt as it was, and with other refuse, such as small meat-bones, fish-bones, egg-shells, and pieces of bread-crust trodden into it. Yet, also, to his sad heart it brought some comfort; it spoke to him of the world without, of the gay streets and gardens of Paris; of her, his love. What was she doing now, he pondered; would she soon be wondering what had become of him, and why, as once before--so long, so long ago, as now it seemed--he had again disappeared from her and made no sign? Or would he be free before Thursday came again?

He thought, looking round the gloomy chapel, while he considered and mused on these things, that his head might reach that little iron gate, or grille, in the shutters if he placed upon the table the chair and then stood on that, and thus he would be able to obtain a sight of what was outside. So he set to work to place them in position, and then, on clambering up, found that he could obtain a view of the garden of the Bastille, and, owing to a low-roofed portion of the fortress almost immediately in front of him, of away beyond into the city.

In the garden he perceived a lady walking, accompanied by a dog that seemed from its action to be very old, for it moved slowly and feebly without any gambols; and he wondered who she was, and if she might be De Launey's wife, who was "young enough to be his daughter." The garden itself, he could also perceive, since the chapel was no higher than the first floor, formed the interior, or courtyard, of all towers of the prison, and he saw that, by glancing upwards, the windows of other rooms, or cells, were visible to him. Indeed, not only were they visible, but so also was one of the inmates, who, as Bertie observed him, was leaning against his little window frame with his face at the bars as though to catch the air. He was a man somewhat over middle age, with scowling features and long, unkempt hair, and as Bertie regarded him he saw his lips moving as though either he was talking to some fellow-prisoner within the room or muttering to himself. This man fascinated Elphinston so that he could not remove his eyes from off him--for in those other eyes there seemed to be a hell of despair--and, as he thus looked, the man, shifting his gaze, glanced down and across, and so saw him at his lattice. For a moment he stared at Bertie and then made a motion to him with his finger--it seemed as though to bid him stay where he was--and then disappeared from the window to return a moment later with a little piece of light board in one hand to which he pointed with the other.

Made more curious than ever by this, Elphinston continued to regard him and his actions fixedly, which were as follows: First the man held up in his right hand--his left still grasping the board--something that appeared like a piece of burnt wood, and then, applying it to the board, drew on it the letter N. Pointing to it, he next drew the letters O, U, and V, then E, then A, then another U, until at last he had spelt out the whole of the word Nouveau. Next, after a glance across at Bertie, as though to ask if he understood, and seeing that he did, he again went on with four more letters, making the word Venu, and carefully finishing the sentence by drawing, last of all, a solitary note of interrogation, and looking over to Bertie as though awaiting his reply to the question. Receiving from him two or three emphatic nods of the head, he began again, and this time produced a longer sentence, which, by recollecting each word as it had been found, Bertie made out to be (in French, of course), "I have been here twenty-one years."

At this melancholy information he tried to throw into his features--for no action of his body could be at all apparent to the man--as much sympathy as was possible, whereon the other again pointed to his board and continued with his letters until he had formed the sentence, "Have you been before the Judges?" and receiving a negative shake from Bertie's head, again worked out, "Nor I, yet," and waited as though to see what effect this stupendous piece of information might have on a newly-arrived prisoner.