“‘Yes, and I delight the heart of some poor little tradesman or clerk by sending him a wing of a red partridge, a slice of venison, or a slice of a truffled pasty, dishes which he never tasted except in his dreams (these are the leavings of the twenty-four-franc prisoners); and he eats and drinks, and at dessert cries, “Long live the king!” and blesses the Bastille. With a couple of bottles of champagne, which cost me five sous, I make him tipsy every Sunday. That class of people call down blessings upon me, and are sorry to leave the prison. Do you know that I have remarked, and it does me infinite honour, that certain prisoners, who have been set at liberty, have almost immediately afterward got imprisoned again? Why should this be the case, unless it be to enjoy the pleasures of my kitchen? It is really the fact.’ Aramis smiled with an expression of incredulity.”
A visit to the prisoners themselves follows, but the reader of these lines is referred to “Le Vicomte de Bragelonne” for further details.
The following few lines must suffice here:
“The number of bolts, gratings, and locks for the courtyard would have sufficed for the safety of an entire city. Aramis was neither an imaginative nor a sensitive man; he had been somewhat of a poet in his youth, but his heart was hard and indifferent, as the heart of every man of fifty-five years of age is, who has been frequently and passionately attached to women in his lifetime, or rather who has been passionately loved by them. But when he placed his foot upon the worn stone steps, along which so many unhappy wretches had passed, when he felt himself impregnated, as it were, with the atmosphere of those gloomy dungeons, moistened with tears, there could be but little doubt he was overcome by his feelings, for his head was bowed and his eyes became dim, as he followed Baisemeaux, the governor, without uttering a syllable.”
Dumas gives a further description, of similar import, in “The Regent’s Daughter:”
“And now, with the reader’s permission, we will enter the Bastille—that formidable building at which even the passing traveller trembled, and which, to the whole neighbourhood, was an annoyance and cause of alarm; for often at night the cries of the unfortunate prisoners who were under torture might be heard piercing the thick walls, so much so, that the Duchesse de Lesdequieres once wrote to the governor, that, if he did not prevent his patients from making such a noise, she should complain to the king.
“At this time, however, under the reign of Philippe d’Orleans, there were no cries to be heard; the society was select, and too well bred to disturb the repose of a lady.
“In a room in the Du Coin tower, on the first floor, was a prisoner alone.... He had, however, been but one day in the Bastille, and yet already he paced his vast chamber, examining the iron-barred doors, looking through the grated windows, listening, sighing, waiting....
“A noise of bolts and creaking hinges drew the prisoner from this sad occupation, and he saw the man enter before whom he had been taken the day before. This man, about thirty years of age, with an agreeable appearance and polite bearing, was the governor, M. De Launay, father of that De Launay who died at his post in ’89....
“‘M. de Chanlay,’ said the governor, bowing, ‘I come to know if you have passed a good night, and are satisfied with the fare of the house and the conduct of the employés’—thus M. De Launay, in his politeness, called the turnkeys and jailors.