"Ah, monsieur le vicomte, that depends on our captures .... The perquisites are sometimes good and sometimes poor, just as in war."
During my walk, I saw the spies return in different disguises like maskers on Ash Wednesday coming down from the Courtille: they came to report on the doings of the night. Some were dressed as vendors of green-stuff, as street-hawkers, as charcoal-sellers, as market-porters, as old-clothes'-men, as rag-men, as organ-grinders; others wore wigs under which appeared hair of a different colour; others had false beards, whiskers and mustachios; others dragged their legs like respectable invalids and wore a dazzling red ribbon at their button-holes. They disappeared into a small yard and soon returned in other clothes, without mustachios, without beards, without whiskers, without wigs, without baskets, without wooden legs, without arms worn in a sling: all these birds of day-break of the police flew away and vanished as the light increased.
My lodging was ready, the gaoler came to tell us, and M. Léotaud, hat in hand, led me to the door of my honest dwelling, saying, as he left me in the hands of the gaoler and his assistants:
"Monsieur le vicomte, I am your humble servant; I trust to have the pleasure of meeting you again."
And taken to prison.
The entrance-door closed behind me. Preceded by the gaoler, who carried his keys, and went before his two men, who followed me to prevent me from turning tail, I went up a narrow stair-case till I came to the second floor. A little dark passage led to a door: the turnkey opened it; I followed him into my box. He asked me if I wanted anything: I answered that I would have breakfast in an hour. He told me that there were a coffee-house and a tavern which supplied prisoners with all that they wanted for their money. I bagged my keeper to send me some tea and, if possible, some hot and cold water and towels. I gave him twenty francs in advance: he withdrew respectfully, promising to return.
Left alone, I inspected my den: its length was a little greater than its width, and its height was perhaps some seven or eight feet. The walls, stained and bare, were scribbled over with the prose and verse of my predecessors, and especially with the scrawl of a woman who said much that was insulting about the juste-milieu.[411] A pallet, with dirty sheets, took up half of my cell; a plank, supported by two brackets fastened against the wall, two feet above the pallet, served as a cupboard for the prisoners' linen, boots and shoes: a chair and a sordid article composed the rest of the furniture.
My faithful keeper brought me the towels and jugs of water that I had asked for; I besought him to take away from the bed the dirty sheets and the yellow woollen blanket, to remove the pail, which was choking me, and to sweep out my den after first sprinkling it All the works of the juste-milieu having been carried off, I shaved; I poured the water from my jug over myself, I changed my linen: Madame de Chateaubriand had sent me a little parcel; I set out all my things on the plank over my bed as though I were in the cabin of a ship. When this was done, my breakfast arrived, and I took my tea on my well-washed table, which I covered with a clean napkin. Soon they came to fetch the utensils of my matutinal feast and I was left alone, duly locked in.
My cell was lighted only by a grated window which opened very high up; I placed my table under this window and climbed on the table to breathe and to enjoy the light Through the bars of my thieves' cell, I saw only a yard, or rather a dark and narrow passage, with gloomy buildings with bats fluttering around them. I heard the clanking of keys and chains, the noise of policemen and spies, the foot-steps of soldiers, the movement of arms, the shouting, the laughter, the licentious songs of the prisoners, my neighbours, the yells of Benoît[412], condemned to death for the murder of his mother and his obscene friend. I caught these words uttered by Benoît between his confused exclamations of fear and repentance:
"Ah, my mother, my poor mother!"