sometimes very considerable, especially when we reflect how little accommodation the fortress afforded, notwithstanding its large size. In the year 1663, fifty-four persons were incarcerated in it; and although the number was fewer in some years, it arose in others to nearly one hundred and fifty. In 1665, the Bastile was so full, that part of the prisoners were removed to other places of confinement. It not unfrequently happened that the fortress was employed by government as a means of extorting money from wealthy individuals-who, to say the truth, had mostly acquired their riches by robbing the public. Massat, a registrar of the council, was bastiled for remonstrating against a demand of six hundred thousand livres from himself and three of his colleagues. Catalan, a contractor, shared the same fate, and was even threatened with death; but, after a confinement of several months, he ransomed himself for six millions of livres. From another individual nine hundred thousand livres, and from three of the treasurers of the exchequer several millions, were obtained by the same powerful and efficient means. Monopolies likewise lent their aid to replenish the royal store. Niceron, a grocer, was lodged in the Bastile for having ventured to remonstrate against a projected monopoly of whale-oil; Poignant, a respectable citizen of Paris, shared the same fate for having too freely spoken on a similar subject; and a female named Madame de la Trousse was, for the same cause, prohibited from going to the town-hall, or to any other meeting, under pain of corporal punishment.

The money thus extorted was spent in the most lavish manner by the king, who sometimes gave as much as forty thousand pounds for the getting up of a ballet destined to the amusement of his court. To venture to blame in any manner the royal measures, would, however, have proved highly dangerous, and most likely qualified the imprudent censurer for what Guy Patin aptly termed "a stone doublet." It was not, indeed, always safe even for a barrister to perform his duty. In 1665, M. Burai, the advocate, was committed to the Bastile for having undertaken the defence of a treasurer prosecuted by government. Freedom of thought or speech, however innocent, met with severe punishment. The Journal des Savans having attacked Charles Patin, he was about to reply, when it was intimated to him that if he ventured to do so, the Bastile would assuredly receive him-the journal being under the protection of the minister. M. de Montespan, having thought fit to blame the choice which the king had made of M. de Montausier for the dauphin's tutor, suffered a long imprisonment in consequence; and a poor priest named St Severin expiated, by years of captivity in the Bastile, the imaginary crime of sorcery. In short, there did not exist a charge, however unjust, trifling, or absurd, by which any individual might not, at the will of his tyrants or enemies, be consigned to the keeping of the gloomy prison, and

linger there for years without so much as obtaining a chance of redress.

The next prisoners of the Bastile who come under our notice can inspire us with little or no compassion. We allude to those celebrated poisoners whose crimes shed such terror in the minds of all during the reign of Louis XIV.

Madame de Brinvilliers concealed, under an amiable and pleasing aspect, an almost inconceivable perversity of heart. The priest who attended her during her last moments, and who has left an interesting account of her, seems to think that she was naturally virtuous, but that she was disposed to receive evil impressions as well as those that were good. Unfortunately for herself and for others the first prevailed.

Her father, M. Dreux d'Aubrai, a respectable magistrate, had somewhat arbitrarily, but not without sufficient motives, caused an individual named St Croix to be incarcerated in the Bastile, where he spent a year with Exili, the celebrated chemist and poisoner. Owing to the lessons of his fellowprisoner, St Croix soon became an adept in the art of poisoning, without so much as leaving traces of the crime; and on quitting the Bastile, he imparted his knowledge to the Marchioness of Brinvilliers, with whom he was on intimate terms. He gave her several poisons, which she resolved to try on human beings, before she put into execution the horrible project she had conceived of destroying her own father. For this purpose she made her first attempt upon her maid, to whom she gave a piece of poisoned cake: the girl was seriously ill, but did not die. Seeing that the quantity was not sufficiently strong, Madame de Brinvilliers visited the hospitals (for she maintained the appearance of an eminently pious and charitable person), and distributed to such of the sick as were convalescent poisoned cakes and delicacies. When some time had elapsed, she called again and inquired after the individuals whom she had seen. She was informed that, shortly after her visit, they had all been affected with a strange and unknown malady, from the effects of which they had since successively died. Not the least suspicion attached to her, nor was even poison thought of by the hospital doctors. Madame de Brinvilliers was now satisfied as to the quantity it was necessary for her to administer, and with unparalleled atrocity proceeded to poison her father. It would be useless to detail how, under the perfidious mask of affection, she effected her purpose-tending with unwearied care on the unhappy man during his illness, and bewailing his loss with all the appearance of despair. Her main object in poisoning her father had been to escape from the rigid control he exercised over her actions, and to inherit his property. What was her rage on discovering from his will that he had transmitted his authority to her two brothers, and that the management of her portion of his inheritance would be in their hands. She immediately resolved

to get rid of them; and after allowing some time to elapse, she succeeded, with the help of a servant, in effecting her detestable project.

These successive crimes had as yet attached no suspicion to the marchioness, when her accomplice, St Croix, died in 1672— killed, as some say, by an explosion which occurred whilst he was preparing a new poison over a furnace. Amongst the different objects found in his laboratory was a box directed to the Marchioness de Brinvilliers, and which he requested in his will might be given to her without being opened. Madame de Brinvilliers no sooner heard of his death than she asked for that box with such eagerness, that, suspicions being excited, it was opened. It was found to contain different and deadly poisons. The marchioness immediately left Paris, and took refuge in a convent of Liege. Means were, however, found to draw her from her retreat: she was arrested, conveyed to Paris, and imprisoned in the Bastile.

When brought to trial, Madame de Brinvilliers behaved with extraordinary firmness and courage, and boldly asserted her innocence. In order to extort a confession from her, it was resolved to put her to the ordinary question or torture. This consisted in forcing down the throat of the accused an immense quantity of water. On being introduced to the torture-room, and on noticing three large buckets of water which were in it, she observed, with cool irony, "This must be for the purpose of drowning me, for they can never expect a woman of my size to drink it all."

After her condemnation to death, she, however, resolved to confess her crimes, and behaved with apparently very sincere penitence, yielding with exemplary humility to the ignominious inflictions which attended her end. She was beheaded, and her remains were thrown into the fire, and burned, on the 16th of July 1676. One hundred and seventy years which have elapsed since her death have not effaced the memory of her crimes, and the name of Brinvilliers is still synonymous in France with that of poisoner.

A few years after her execution, a fortune-teller named La Voisin was charged with vending a deadly powder, entitled "the Powder of Succession," and of which the object was to allow impatient heirs to enter speedily in possession of their expected property. No less than forty individuals were accused of being her accomplices, and imprisoned with her in the Bastile. Besides these, persons of the most eminent rank were, though not tried, asserted to be implicated in the whole affair. All were found guilty; but La Voisin alone was sentenced to be burned alive on the Grève. The revolting details of her execution show her to have been totally devoid of every moral or religious feeling.

Amongst the prisoners which the Bastile received during the

latter part of the seventeenth century, one of the most remarkable was the celebrated Man with the Iron Mask, whose history has been fully detailed in No. 131 of this series. Madame Guyon, a religious enthusiast, likewise became for several years an inmate of the gloomy fortress, where she was very harshly treated. She was succeeded in this abode of wo by many equally unhappy individuals, and amongst the rest by Constand de Renneville, a Norman gentleman, celebrated for his sufferings, and for being the first captive who ventured to reveal to public obloquy the iniquitous mysteries of his prison-house. The real motive of his imprisonment is supposed to have been a satirical poem against France, which he wrote whilst exiled in Holland for his religious tenets: his enemies, however, accused him of being a spy in foreign pay, and after first recalling him to France, caused him, with unparalleled treachery, to be imprisoned in the Bastile. He was there treated with even more than usual severity. The gloomy and dirty chamber in which he was placed swarmed with fleas, whilst even his bed was overrun with vermin. He had, nevertheless, no great reason to complain of his jailors, until after the escape of another prisoner, whom he was thought to have assisted. On the mere supposition of this offence he was thrown into one of the worst dungeons of the fortress, where he remained till life was nearly extinct. He tells us that his only sustenance was bread and water, and that his sleeping-place was the bare ground, where, without straw, or even a stone on which to lay his head, he lay stretched in the mire and the slaver of toads. His situation when he was at length removed from this horrible den was indeed most pitiable. "My eyes," says he, were almost out of my head; my nose was as large as a middling-sized cucumber; more than half my teeth, which previously were very good, had fallen out by scurvy; my mouth was swelled, and entirely covered with an eruption; and my bones came through my skin in more than twenty places." Although, on being conveyed from his dungeon to another apartment in the Bastile, more cleanly and comfortable than the former, De Renneville partly recovered, he continued to be treated by his jailors with great harshness during the remaining years of his captivity. He bore his misfortunes with much fortitude, and solaced his lonely hours by reading and composition. His pen was only a small bone, his ink a little lampblack mixed with wine, and he wrote between the lines and on the margins of books which he had succeeded in concealing. Notwithstanding these great disadvantages under which he laboured, he composed several works of considerable length. Amongst these productions was a "Treatise on the Duties of a Faithful Christian." They were taken away from him by his persecutors, and he ever deeply regretted their loss. After having been confined for no less than eleven years, M. de Renneville was at last set at liberty, on condition that he should leave France for ever. To

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this he very willingly agreed, and accordingly sought an asylum in England, where he was pensioned by George I. In the year 1715 he published a work entitled "French Inquisition, or the History of the Bastile," which, from the harrowing pictures it gave of hitherto unknown though suspected tyranny, met with great success, and, after going through several editions, was translated into various languages. It was probably at the instigation of those whom he had exposed in this book that he was attacked in the street by three cut-throats, whom he, however, bravely repulsed. De Renneville was still living in the year 1724, but the time and place of his death are both unknown."

THE BASTILE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

During the regency of the Duke of Orleans, many individuals were incarcerated in the Bastile: these were mostly guilty of meddling in petty political intrigues, or writing lampoons and satires on the government; and though their captivity was somewhat protracted, it was never very rigorous. Many literary individuals, of both sexes, were thus imprisoned. The most remarkable amongst these was Mademoiselle de Launay, better known as Madame de Staal [not the celebrated daughter of Necker, Madame de Staël, for whom she has frequently been mistaken], who, notwithstanding her great wit and good sense, had been led, by her attachment for the ambitious Duchess du Maine, to take an active share in the absurd Cellamare plot (1718). The object of this conspiracy was, with the assistance of Spain, to deprive the Duke of Orleans of the regency, in order to bestow it on the Duke du Maine. As she was deeply implicated in the whole affair, and firmly refused to confess any of the facts that had come to her knowledge, and by which Madame du Maine might be injured, Mademoiselle de Launay remained for two years in the Bastile. She was, however, allowed the society of her faithful maid Rondel; and the rigours of her captivity were much softened by the kindness of the king's lieutenant, M. de Maison-Ronge, a most amiable and worthy man, who became deeply attached to her. But though Mademoiselle de Launay much esteemed him, she unfortunately could not repay his affection. The Chevalier de Menil, another prisoner of the Bastile, had likewise been smitten with her fascinating wit and manners, and to him she gave the preference. Time showed her the error she had committed, in prizing the brilliant accomplishments of the chevalier above the simple but noble virtues of his rival. No sooner was M. de Menil out of the Bastile than he proved faithless, and married another. Mademoiselle de Launay long remained inconsolable; but time having at length cured her of her grief, she resolved to reward the constancy of her still devoted lover by an offer of her hand. It was too late. The excellent Maison-Ronge, who, since she had left the Bastile, had been a prey to wasting sorrow, was on his deathbed, and soon