M. de Launay was installed in his government of the Bastille in October, 1776. He had promised the ministers and the lieutenant of police passive obedience to their orders, their fancies, and their caprices, and he kept religiously to his engagement. Never was there a more cringing, obsequious officer. But, as is always the case with such persons, they revenge themselves for the degradation their servility brings, by severity towards those subject to them. From the moment of his entry into office, the most severe and tyrannical despotism was enthroned in the Bastille; proud and rough towards the subalterns, he was brutal, arbitrary, and odious to the prisoners; and under the excuse of precaution for their safe durance, he surrounded their captivity with a thousand vexations, cruelties, and privations. His favourite virtue was parsimony. To recoup a hundredfold the price of the charge he had bought, he himself measured out the water, the bread, the fuel, and the clothes. When he had not enough prisoners, and the revenues diminished, he complained, and asked for more. Those under his care, he retained under a thousand pretexts, or made against them reports which retarded their release.

The old bastions had been laid out in gardens full of flowers and fruit-trees and fountains, and in these gardens the prisoners had been allowed to take the air. But the Marquis de Launay had turned this ground into fruit and vegetable gardens, which he let; and thus the unhappy captives were reduced to taking the air on the top of the towers of the fortress. This, however, was found to demand too close a watch, and M. de Launay suppressed this privilege also, and those in custody were reduced to the use of the great court. The court, of which a description has been already given, was two hundred feet long by seventy-two feet wide. The walls enclosing it on all sides were a hundred feet high, so that it was little better than a huge well, where in winter the cold was insupportable, and in summer the heat was intense, and was unrelieved by a breath of air. The prisoners took their turns to walk in this court. Whenever any one crossed the court (and this was happening continually, as the kitchens and the lodgings of the officers were in the new buildings erected by M. de Sartines), a signal was made, and the prisoner was required to dive out of sight into a cabinet, without light or air, and remain concealed till notice was given him to come out.

We return now to the point from which we digressed, merely adding, that Madame Berthier, not being in prison for political reasons, and being, moreover, the wife of the Intendant of Paris, was treated in every way better than other prisoners, conformably to her husband's orders. But for this, Gabrielle would certainly not have obtained permission to visit her.

M. Berthier stood mute with astonishment in the doorway, contemplating his wife and Gabrielle André.

'See!' exclaimed madame; 'there, there, there is the Beast! Look, Gabriel, my cat, that you may not forget him. Is he not ugly? Is he not stout, and coarse, and bloated? Look at his hideous eyes!'

'You have got a companion!' said Berthier, at last, with his eyes fixed on Gabrielle. 'How is that, my good friend De Launay?'

'I did not know that you would object,' said the governor. 'You will surely remember that you allowed some of the servants to visit her occasionally, and bring her linen and fruit, and trifles to amuse her. If I am not mistaken, your wishes were express on that point.'

'My dear marquis, this girl is not one of our servants.'

'No,' answered the governor, 'but I understand that she was one till quite lately. If it is your wish that she be removed, it shall be complied with at once.'

'By no means. I do not object. Is she not a charming little creature, my friend? Gabrielle, sweetest! step from behind the curtain. Look how she blushes, how bewitchingly she hangs her head, what hair, what a neck, what lovely temples! Dearest! do not be shy. My worthy De Launay is quite a connoisseur in woman-flesh. Step out and show him your ankles. Now, marquis, what do you think of my taste?'