"What!" said he, "can I not answer the signals which two of my colleagues are making to me?"
"Two of your colleagues, indeed," answered the jailer, "they are two thieves." And he shut the door, shouting with laughter.
They were, in fact, two thieves, between whom M. Emile Leroux was, not crucified, but locked up.
The Mazas prison is so ingeniously built that the least word can be heard from one cell to another. Consequently there is no isolation, notwithstanding the cellular system. Thence this rigorous silence imposed by the perfect and cruel logic of the rules. What do the thieves do? They have invented a telegraphic system of raps, and the rules gain nothing by their stringency. M. Emile Leroux had simply interrupted a conversation which had been begun.
"Don't interfere with our friendly patter," cried out his thief neighbor, who for this exclamation was thrown into the dungeon.
Such was the life of the Representatives at Mazas. Moreover, as they were in secret confinement, not a book, not a sheet of paper, not a pen, not even an hour's exercise in the courtyard was allowed to them.
The thieves also go to Mazas, as we have seen.
But those who know a trade are permitted to work; those who know how to read are supplied with books; those who know how to write are granted a desk and paper; all are permitted the hour's exercise required by the laws of health and authorized by the rules.
The Representatives were allowed nothing whatever. Isolation, close confinement, silence, darkness, cold, "the amount of ennui which engenders madness," as Linguet has said when speaking of the Bastille.
To remain seated on a chair all day long, with arms and legs crossed: such was the situation. But the bed! Could they lie down?