A DANGEROUS BRIDGE.
In one of the Western States I am acquainted with a wine dealer whose cellar is entered by crossing a narrow bridge over a brook. The bridge is ten or twelve feet long, about three feet wide, and has no railing. I have heard him say that no visitor to his wine vaults ever yet walked that plank on his return from the cellar without tumbling into the brook. From what I have heard of his establishment, I think he is not very far from the truth. Many a visitor to that cellar has received an involuntary plunge bath as he came out into the open air.
XXIV.
THE BASTILLE.
ITS HISTORY AND CONSTRUCTION.—THREE AMERICANS SEARCHING FOR IT.—A FRENCH JOKE AT THEIR EXPENSE.—HOW PRISONERS WERE RECEIVED AND TREATED.—HORRIBLE DUNGEONS.—THE OUBLIETTES.—CRUELTIES OF THE BASTILLE.—THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK.—HIS ROMANTIC STORY.—DESTRUCTION OF THE BASTILLE.
One of the most famous dungeons or prisons in the world was the Bastille of Paris.
It was a state prison and citadel of the city, was built in the year 1369, and destroyed by the mob in the beginning of the revolution of 1789, or more than four centuries after its construction.
It is a curious fact that no plan of the Bastille as originally constructed is in existence, neither is there any plan extant of the Bastille as it appeared at the time of its destruction. Somehow the kings of France were averse to giving the public much information about this famous prison of state. They appear to have been satisfied with the knowledge that the place existed, and that those who displeased them could be shut up there, and they never troubled themselves to know the exact plan or model of the concern.