The lettres de cachet did not fall with as great profusion under Louis XV; but they were given and traded with in the most shameless manner. The minister La Vrillière, the lieutenants of police Sartines and Lenoir, placed them at the disposal of any great personage who had some personal resentment to satisfy, and they were often sold blank, at high prices, to be filled in by the purchaser with the name of a rival, or a relation, and Sartines would send blank orders as a New Year's gift to friends, or to nobles whose protection he solicited. Latude, of whom mention has already been made, was dragged for thirty-five years from prison to prison, to satisfy the resentment of a harlot. Leprevôt de Beaumont was in the Bastille now; he had been there already twenty-two years,—his crime, having undertaken to denounce before the parliament of Rouen that iniquitous speculation in grain, known popularly as the Compact of Famine, by which the corn-factors, men like Foulon, favoured by government, bought up all the corn in the land, and retailed it at their own price, so as to keep up the high rate. Louis XV, interested to the amount of ten millions in the success of this cruel scheme, shared the profit with the monopolists; Louis XVI, too honest to participate in this, but too feeble to prevent its continuance, did not repair the iniquities of his predecessors. The Compact of Famine still continued; by that means, Foulon had accumulated an enormous fortune.
The Bastille still received prisoners without trial. The annual emoluments of the governor amounted to sixty thousand livres. He had, however, but limited authority. Without an order signed by a magistrate, he could not permit a prisoner to shave himself, to hear Mass, to receive visits, to write letters, even to change his linen. Those incarcerated were usually entered under other names. Their relations were never informed of their captivity, nor of their death. If they died, they were buried at midnight, two turnkeys assisting as witnesses. The dying could not receive spiritual consolations, nor be attended by a physician, without a superior order.
Whilst we have been describing the Bastille, the turnkey has been conducting Gabrielle André across the court, then through a door in the new buildings to a corridor, opening on one side into the dismal yard at the back, called the Well Court, from a draw-well in the centre, surmounted by a roof, and decorated with a scutcheon bearing the lilies of France. On account of the height of the walls, the sun seldom lighted the soil of this quadrangle, there was not space for a draught, and consequently the walls were covered with mould and lichens. Fungi sprang up between the interstices of the stones, a forest of little toadstools encumbered the ground at the foot of the posts supporting the roof over the well, and one of these beams was adorned with a huge yellowish-white fungus, somewhat resembling, in shape and size, an elephant's ear, which the warders respected as a natural curiosity. On the opposite side of the corridor to that opening on this cheerless court, was a range of small doors, numbered with cyphers in white.
The jailer stopped at 35, unlocked the door, threw it open, and introduced Gabrielle; then said shortly,—'It is permitted you to be with Madame 35 for one hour;' then he shut and double-locked the door, and Gabrielle heard his retreating steps and the jingle of keys at his girdle become gradually less audible.
The cell into which she was ushered was about twenty feet long by fifteen broad. It was whitewashed, and floored with red-glazed tiles, over which a piece of carpet had been laid near the bed; a curtain suspended from a rod by brass rings screened the couch and the wash-hand stand, and shut off the portion of the room near the door from that lighted by the window. This lower part of the cell, which by the curtain was made into a square apartment, was furnished with a deal table, two chairs, a chest of drawers, and a small fireplace. The room would have been as cheerful as it was comfortable, but that the window was high up in the wall, and too small to admit sufficient air. It was also protected by heavy stanchions, which obscured the light.
At the table, with her back to the door and her face to the light, her feet on a footstool, sat Madame Berthier, dressed in black, busily engaged in constructing cats' cradles.
As Gabrielle entered, the unfortunate lady looked hastily round, and exclaimed: