"Are you mad?"
"No—are you?"
"Do you not know that we can send you to the"—
"If you do, I shall only go before you."
This put an end to my interrogatory at once. I had accidentally touched upon the nerve which quivered in every bosom of these fellows. There was a singular presentiment among even the boldest of the Revolutionists, that the new order of things would not last, and that, when the change came, it would be a bloody one. Life had become sufficiently precarious already among the possessors of power; and the least intimation of death was actually formidable to a race of villains whose hands were hourly imbued in slaughter. I had been hitherto placed in scarcely more than surveillance. An order for my confinement as a "Brigand Anglais," was made out by the indignant "commission," and I was transferred from my narrow and lonely cell into the huge crowded building in the opposite cloister, which had been the scene of the attack on the previous night. I could, with Cato, "smile on the drawn dagger and defy its point." I walked out with the air of a Cato.
This change, intended for my infinite degradation until the guillotine should have dispatched its business in arrear, I found much to my advantage. The man who expects nothing, cannot be hurt by disappointment; and when I was conducted from my solitary cell into the midst of four or five hundred prisoners, I felt the human feelings kindle in me, which had been chilled between my four stone walls.
The prisoners with whom I was now to take my chance, were of all ranks, professions, and degrees of crime. The true crime in the eyes of the republic being, to be rich. Yet there the culprit had some hope of being suffered to live, at least while daily examinations, with the hourly perspective of the axe, could make him contribute to the purses of the tribunal. Those who happened to be poor, were found guilty of incivisme at once, and were daily drafted off to the Place de Grève, from which they never returned. But some of the prisoners were from La Vendée, peasants mixed with nobles; who, though no formal shape of resistance to the republic was yet declared, had exhibited enough of that gallant contempt of the new tyranny, which afterwards immortalized the name, to render them obnoxious to the ruffians at its head. It was this sturdy portion which had made the dash on the night of the riot, and their daring had the effect, at least, of saving their fellow-prisoners in future from being made marks, to teach the national guard the art of shooting. Even their sentries kept a respectful distance; and M. Henriot, wisely mindful of his flagellation, flourished his staff of command no more within our cloister. We were, in fact, left almost wholly to ourselves. Yet, if a philosopher desired to take a lesson in human nature, this was the spot of earth for the study. We had it in every shape and shade. We had it in the wits and blockheads, the courtiers and the clowns, the opulent and the ruined, the brave and the pusillanimous—and all under the strangest pressure of those feelings which rouse the nature of man to its most undisguised display. Death was before every eye. Where was the use of wearing a mask, when the wearer was so soon to part with his head? Pretence gradually vanished, and a general spirit of boldness, frankness, and something, if not exactly of dignity, at least of manliness, superseded the customary cringing of society under a despotism. In all but the name, we were better republicans than the tribe who shouted in the streets, or robbed in the tribunals.
I made the remark one day to the Marquis de Cassini, a philosopher and pupil of the great Buffon. "The reason is," said he, "that men differ chiefly by circumstances, as they differ chiefly by their clothes. Throw off their dress, whether embroidery or rags, and you will find the same number of ribs in them all."
"But my chief surprise is, to find in this prison more mutual kindness, and, in every sense, more generosity of sentiment, than one generally expects to meet in the world."
"Helvetius would tell you that all this was self-interest," was my pale-visaged and contemplative friend's reply. "But I always regarded M. Helvetius in the light of a well-trained baboon, who thought, when men stared at his tricks, they were admiring his talents. The truth is, that self-interest is the mere creature of society, and is the most active in the basest society. It is the combined cowardice and cruelty of men struggling for existence; the savageness of the forest, where men cannot gather acorns enough to share with their fellows; the effort for life, where there is but one plank in a storm, and where, if you are to cling at all, it must be by drowning the weaker party. But here," and he cast his eyes calmly round the crowd, "as there is not the slightest possibility that any one of us will escape, we have the better opportunity of showing our original bienséance. All the struggling on earth will not save us from the guillotine; and therefore we resolve to accommodate each other for the rest of our journey."