And still the weeks went on now, and he was there, though he had begged the turnkey to ask the Governor to remove him to a warmer and smaller room, and also to some place where he might have company. But Bluet had only shrugged his shoulders and said that such a request was useless, adding that De Launey was a brigand who would do nothing until it pleased him.
"Yet," replied Bertie, "he said he would do his best for me and make me comfortable. Comfortable! comfortable! My God!"
"Poof! poof?" exclaimed Bluet. "You must not believe in him. He is full of words to those who come in--le sal Gascon!--because he knows not how soon they may go out again, nor whether they may not have come in by mistake--as mon Dieu! many have--nor what trouble those who go out may plunge him into. But once he finds they are not going--that is to say, not going just at once--why, then he possesses the Bastille memory which, ma foi! means an agreeable forgetfulness. Tenez! have no hopes from that shivering escargot!"
"I am doomed, then, to die in this vault--to be killed by the cold and the draughts!"
"Non, non, be calm. You will go forth. None but princes and marshals stay long here. And there has been a clearing from above; many have departed; there is room for you now. Soon I shall remove monsieur."
"Who are gone? Any who have been here long?"
"No. Many new ones, and one who was here eight years--by a mistake. He was a Hollander, a doctor, and--mort de ma vie!--they thought he was Schwab, the Alsatian poisoner. He now is gone, and the pig, De Launey, entertained him to breakfast ere he went, though he would allow him only la petite bouteille while he remained. And the captain of the road, the sweet singer of songs, he is gone too, only 'tis to the Place de Grève, for a certain purpose," and he motioned to his throat as he spoke and winked at the other, who shuddered. Vile and dissolute as the man's roarings and carousals had been, they had served to cheer him up in his loneliness and desolation, and he regretted his fate.
Another week passed, and Bertie, who had now contracted a terrible cold and cough that plagued him at nights, began to believe that he would never leave the chapel alive, when Bluet, coming with his breakfast one morning, told him that he was to be moved.
"Thank God!" exclaimed the poor prisoner, "thank God! it cannot be worse than this."
"No," said the turnkey, "because where you are going to you will find la société. Though, par hazard, I know not if it will enchant you much. There is the oldest pensioner of Madame La Bastille, the Marquis de Chevagny--a sad man, taking little enjoyment of his life--though he should be used to it by now! and another, a fool, a madman, they say a murderer. But I know not. However, he is a compatriot of Monsieur le Capitaine, an Englishman."