Jacq left our cell at half-past six in the morning, and soon afterwards Firmin and I rose. We first of all lit the small stove. I had to pay for the wood and coal, of course. The coal was stacked in a corner of the cell, and I placed the wood on my only shelf, to keep it as dry as possible. Then we swept and cleaned the room. The door was opened to allow us to carry the dust away and fetch some water to wash—and to make coffee. We had to handle the coal with our hands, for a shovel might have been used as a weapon!
It was not easy to dress. All I had at my disposal was a very small stone basin, a jug—bought from the prison for fourpence—a brush and comb, a tooth brush, a piece of mottled soap, a penny looking glass less than three inches in diameter, and a hard rough towel. There was no bucket or pail, and we had to leave the cell—on the two or three occasions when the door was opened for a few minutes—to empty the basin. I had to do my washing-up in the very basin in which I used to wash... my face!
My daughter several times brought proper soap and toothpaste for me, but the warder near the parlour invariably decreed: "You can't take these in; they are luxuries, and luxuries are prohibited here."
I wore a plain black dress, which I made myself in one afternoon in prison, and when I left my cell I threw a black hood over my shoulders. I wore my hair parted in the centre and fastened at the back with a piece of ribbon and a few hair-pins. That was the simplest coiffure, and the lightest to my ever-aching head.
I only wore the dress in which I had come to Saint-Lazare when I went to the Palace of Justice for the Instruction, and, of course, when, a year later, I was tried in the Assize Court.
Owing to illness and the complete lack of exercise—I was entitled to go round the yard for an hour every day, but when I did so, once, the other prisoners insulted and even hit me, and I had to give up that hour of exercise—I became very weak. Shoes hurt my feet, and I made a pair of slippers for myself with bits of cardboard, velvet, and fur given me by the sisters.
I also made a basket with plaited paper, to keep my bread clean.
After breakfast—coffee and bread—I usually opened the window to air the room and to look outside.
Below was the yard, with its few trees and its basin. I saw women washing or walking. Many of these prisoners were mothers, and held babies in their arms. Many had two or three children. There were little boys and girls—the oldest being about five—and they played with the rubbish on the ground, cried, fought, or hung to their mother's skirts. All were terribly unkempt and slovenly, and all were in tatters. The majority of these mothers ill-treated their children and abused them in the vilest language.
Foul and obscene language, indeed, is the rule at Saint-Lazare, when the scum of the feminine population of Paris, the lowest and most degraded of "gay women," the vilest viragoes of the slums, and thieves and vagabonds are brought day after day, the majority for a short time only.