The Terror seems almost to have emptied Sainte-Pélagie, and it is not until the days of the Empire that we find its cells once more in the occupation of political prisoners. Prisoners of that quality were not lacking there in Buonaparte's despotic era; but (and this may have been of design) the registers were not too well kept, and prisoners' names and the motives of their imprisonment are hard to arrive at. Had we the lists in full, however, they would excite small interest at this day. Between 1811 and March, 1814, when the records were more precise, two hundred and thirty-four persons were confined in this prison for causes more or less political. In April, 1814, we have the Russian Emperor giving their freedom to some seventy of the prisoners of Napoleon. The Restoration sends the officers of the old Imperial Guard to Sainte-Pélagie. The record of the Hundred Days, so far as this prison is concerned, is a clean one; but Charles X. continues the use of Sainte-Pélagie as a prison of State, and Béranger, Cauchois-Lemaire, Colonel Duvergier, Bonnaire, Dubois, Achille Roche, and Barthélemy are amongst the names on the gaoler's books. The Constitutional Monarchy from 1830 to 1848, the Republic succeeding it, and the reign of Napoleon III. (who swept into it five hundred citizens in the space of a few days) kept alive the political tradition of Sainte-Pélagie. M. Rochefort, who had his turn there from 1869-1870, was one of the last of Napoleon III.'s prisoners, to whom the revolution of the 4th of September gave back their liberty. From that date, the "political boarders" of Sainte-Pélagie were few, the governments of MM. Thiers and De Broglie preferring rather to suppress newspapers than to pursue their editors.
Under the Empire and the Restoration the organisation and administration of Sainte-Pélagie evidently left much to be desired. It was not rare, says one chronicler, for accused persons to remain six or seven months without being interrogated.
A certain M. Poulain d'Angers lay there a quarter of a year quite ignorant as to the cause of his arrest. Another accused, a certain M. Guillon, who had been attached to the Emperor's Council, weary of the perpetual shufflings of the police of the succeeding reign, constituted himself a prisoner de facto without having received judgment; and remained six months a captive, although there was no entry against his name: one morning, they showed him the door, malgré lui. An adventure which befell this gentleman attests sufficiently the disorder which reigned in the prison service.
Being to some extent indisposed, the doctor had given M. Guillon an order for the baths. Not knowing in what part of the prison the infirmary was situated, he presented his order to a tipsy turnkey, who promptly opened the door which gave on the Rue du Puits-de-l'Ermite. M. Guillon, a free man without being aware of it, took the narrow street to be a sentry's walk, and went a few paces without finding any one to direct him. Returning to the sentry at the door, he inquired where were the baths. "What baths?" said the sentinel.—"The prison baths." "The prison baths," said the sentinel, "are probably in the prison; but you can't get in there."—"What? I can't get into the prison! Am I outside it, then?"—"Why, yes; you're in the street; you ought to know that, I should think." "I did not know it, I assure you," said M. Guillon; "and this won't suit me at all." He rang the prison bell, and was readmitted; and the recital of his adventure restored to sobriety the turnkey who had given him his freedom.
It was related that under the Directory a criminal condemned to transportation managed to conceal himself in Sainte-Pélagie, persuaded that there at all events he was safe, nor were his hopes deceived.
It appears to have been after the Revolution of 1830—that brief week of July which "paragons description"—that some kind of method was attained or attempted in the management of Sainte-Pélagie. A new wing had been built, which was reserved for the politicals,—but the builder had reckoned without his guests, and without the King's Attorney. It was considered that thirty-six beds in ten chambers, to say nothing of a small spare dormitory, would be accommodation enough for prisoners of this class. At the same epoch, a droll idea took possession of the administration. It was, that if the gamins and 'prentice-thieves raked into the police-courts were mixed pell-mell with the political prisoners, the former might get a polish on their morals, and the latter an agreeable distraction! As a scheme of reform for the artful dodger it was perhaps elementary, but it shewed at least a kindly anxiety on the part of the administration to prepare diversions for political offenders. Alas! it was a dream; for there were presently so many political delinquents to be accommodated, that the question was no longer how to distract their captivity, but how to lodge the new-comers. The artful dodger was exiled.
More buildings were called for, and another court; and the political wing of Sainte-Pélagie became a colony by itself. A colonist of the early thirties bestowed on it the following appreciation:—"Sainte-Pélagie is death by wasting (le supplice par la langueur), torture by ennui, homicide by process of decline. It is a sort of pneumatic machine applied to the brain, which saps and exhausts it by inches. It is not an active irritation, and it is nothing resembling repose. It is not Paris, and it is not a desert solitude. It is a mélange of everything: air, a modicum; elbow-room, rather less; friends, one or two; bores, any number. It is a prison with a mirage of the world; a world not made for a prison. It is not severe, and it is infinitely wearisome. It is a kind of civilised police; it is a prodigious and perpetual paradox.... Sainte-Pélagie is insupportable!"
Here is another appreciation of about the same date:—"Sainte-Pélagie is a hurly-burly (pêle-mêle) of all imaginable ideas and opinions; a species of political Pandemonium. The Caricature runs foul of the Quotidienne, the Courrier de l'Europe elbows the Revolution, the Gazette pirouettes between the Tribune and the Courrier Français.... All colours and all races, all ages and all tongues are confounded. It is a Babel; it is a common camp in which friends and foes are flung together after a general rout. As a huge anomaly it is curious to see, but it has the depressing effect of a monster!"
Let us turn to the debtors' side. Dulaure quotes in this connection a description given by De la Borde in his Memoirs, which is worth translating: