He began with the Bastille, and ended with the Châtelet.
The governor handed him his list of prisoners, told him which ones had died or been transferred or set free, and which were sick, and finally made them pass in review before him,—a sad review, a mournful spectacle. He thought his duties were done, when the governor of the Châtelet called his attention to a page in his register which was almost blank, and bore only this extraordinary memorandum, which impressed Gabriel more than all the rest:—
"No. 21, X.—Secret prisoner. If during the visit of the governor or the captain of the Guards he makes the least attempt to speak, have him removed to a deeper and harsher dungeon."
"Who is this prisoner of such importance? May I know?" Gabriel asked Monsieur de Salvoison, governor of the Châtelet.
"No one knows who he is," was the reply. "I received him from my predecessor as he had received him from his. You notice that the date of his imprisonment is left blank. It must have been during the reign of François I. that he was brought here. He has undertaken to speak two or three times, so I am told; but at his first word the governor is bound, under the severest penalties, to close the door of his cell, and to remove him at once to a more rigorous dungeon; and this has always been done. There is now only one dungeon left more severe than that he occupies, and confinement in that means death. No doubt they desire that he should finally come to that; but just now the prisoner makes no attempt to speak. He must be some very dangerous criminal. He is always in shackles; and his jailer, to guard against any possibility of an escape, is in and out of his cell every minute."
"But suppose he speaks to the jailer?" said Gabriel.
"Oh, he is a deaf mute, born in the Châtelet, who has never been outside the walls."
Gabriel shuddered. This man, so completely isolated from the world of the living, and who yet lived and thought, inspired in his breast a feeling of compassion mingled with an undefinable dread. What resolution or compunction, what fear of hell or trust in heaven, could prevent so wretched a being from dashing out his brain against the walls of his dungeon? Could it be the thirst for revenge, or some hope of deliverance that enabled him to retain his hold on life!
Gabriel felt a sort of anxious eagerness to see this man; his heart beat faster than it had ever done before except when he was on his way to see Diane. He had visited a hundred other prisoners with no other emotion than a sort of general compassion for their lot; but the thought of this poor wretch appealed to him and moved him more than all the others, and his heart was filled with sorrow when he thought of his tomb-like existence.
"Let us go to Number 21," he said to the governor with a choking voice.