Mysteries of Paris - Volume 5 — Ch. 9 The Lion's Den - Part 1

THE LIONS' DEN.

If the appearance of a house of confinement, constructed with every attention to salubrity and humanity, has nothing repulsive in its aspect, the sight of the prisoners causes a very different feeling.

At the sight of the criminals who fill the gaols, we are at first seized with a shudder of fear and horror.

It is only after some reflection that this is overcome, and feelings of pity mixed with bitterness overcome us.

To understand the feeling of horror and fear, our reader must follow us to the Fosse aux Lions (the Lions' Den), one of the yards in La Force so called.

In this are usually placed the most dangerous criminals, whose ferocity, or the charges against whom, are most serious.

At this time they had been compelled to place there, in consequence of the alterations making in the prison, many other prisoners.

These, although equally under accusations and awaiting the assizes, were almost all respectable persons in comparison with the usual occupants of the Lions' Den.

The sky, gloomy, gray, and rainy, cast a dull light over the scene we are about to depict, and which took place in the centre of the yard of considerable extent, square, and enclosed by high white walls, having here and there several grated windows.

At one end of this yard was a narrow door with a wicket; at the other end, at the entrance to the day-room, a large apartment with a stove in the centre, surrounded by wooden benches, on which were sitting and lying several prisoners conversing together.

Others, preferring exercise, were walking up and down the walks, four or five in a row, arm in arm.

It requires the pencil of Salvator or Goya, in order to sketch the different specimens of physical and moral ugliness, to render in its hideous fantasy the variety of costumes worn by these men, for the most part covered with squalid rags,--for being only accused, _i.

e. _ supposed innocent, they were not clad in the usual uniform of the central houses.

Some, however, wore it; for on their entrance into gaol, their rags appeared so filthy and infected that, after the usual washing and bath, they had the frock and trousers of coarse gray cloth, as worn by the criminals, assigned to them.

A phrenologist would have observed attentively those embrowned and weather-beaten countenances, those flat or narrow foreheads, those cruel or crafty looks, the wicked or stupid mouth, the enormous neck,--they nearly all presented frightful resemblances to brutes.

In the cunning looks of one was seen the perfidious subtlety of the fox, in another was the sanguinary rapacity of the bird of prey, in a third, the ferocity of a tiger; and, in all, the animal stupidity of the brute.

We will sketch one or two of the most striking physiognomies in the Fosse aux Lions.

Whilst the turnkey was watching his charge, a sort of council was being held in the day-room.

Amongst the prisoners there assembled were Barbillon and Nicholas Martial.

The prisoner who appeared to preside and lead in this debate was a scoundrel called the Skeleton, whose name has been often mentioned by the Martial family in the Isle du Ravageur.

The Skeleton was _prevot_, or captain, of the day-room.

This fellow was tall and about forty years of age, fully justifying his sinister nickname by a meagreness impossible to describe, but which might almost be termed osteologic.

If the countenance of the Skeleton presented more or less analogy with that of the tiger, the vulture, or the fox, the shape of his forehead, receding as it did, his bony, flat, and lengthened jaws, supported by a neck of disproportioned length, instantly reminded you of the conformation of a serpent.

Complete baldness increased still more this hideous resemblance, for beneath the corded skin of his forehead, nearly as flat as a reptile's, might be distinguished the smallest protuberances, the smallest sutures of his skull.

His beardless face was exactly like old parchment tightly distended over the bones of his face, and only somewhat stretched from the projection of the cheek-bone to the angle of the lower jaw, the working of which was distinctly visible.

His eyes, small and lowering, were so deeply imbedded, and the rim of his brow so prominent, that under his yellow brow, when the light fell, were seen two orbits literally filled with shadows; and, a little further on, the eyes seemed to disappear in the depths of these two dark cavities, these two black holes, which gave so sinister an aspect to the skeleton head.

His long teeth, whose alveolar projections were to be accurately traced beneath the tanned skin of his bony and flat jaws, were almost continually developed by a habitual sneer.

Although the stiffened muscles of this man were almost reduced to tendons, he possessed extraordinary strength, and the strongest resisted with difficulty the grasp of his long arms, his long and lean fingers.

He had the formidable clutch of a skeleton of iron.

He wore a blue smock-frock, very short, and which exposed (and he was vain of it) his knotted hands and half his forearm, or rather two bones, the radius and the ulna (this anatomy will be excused us), two bones enveloped in a coarse and black skin, separated by a deep groove, in which were some veins hard and dry as cords.

When he placed his hands on a table he seemed, as Pique-Vinaigre justly remarked, as if he were spreading out a game of knuckle-bones.

The Skeleton, after having passed fifteen years of his life at the galleys for an attempt at robbery and murder, had broken his ban and been taken in the very act of theft and murder.

The last assassination had been committed with circumstances of such ferocity that the ruffian made up his mind, and with reason, that he should be condemned to death.

The influence which the Skeleton exercised over the other prisoners, from his strength, energy, and wickedness, had caused him to be chosen by the director of the prison as _prevot_ of the dormitory,--that is to say, the Skeleton was charged with the police of the chamber as far as concerned its order, arrangement, and the cleanliness of the room and the beds, a duty which he discharged perfectly; and no prisoner dared to fail in the cares and duties which he superintended.

The Skeleton was discoursing with several prisoners, amongst whom were Barbillon and Nicholas Martial.

"Are you sure of what you say?"

inquired the Skeleton of Martial.

"Yes, yes,--a hundred times, yes!

Father Micou heard it from the Gros-Boiteux, who has already tried to knock this hound on the head because he peached about some one."

"Then let's do for him,--brush him up!"

said Barbillon.

The Skeleton was already inclined to give that skulking Germain a turn of his hand.

The _prevot_ took his pipe from his mouth for a moment, and then said, in a tone so low and husky as to be scarcely audible: "Germain kept aloof from us, gave himself airs, watched us,--for the less one talks the more one listens.

We meant to get rid of him out of the Fosse aux Lions, and if we had given him a quiet squeeze, they'd have taken him away."

"Well, then," inquired Nicholas, "what alteration need there be now?"

"This alteration," replied the Skeleton; "that if he has turned informer, as the Gros-Boiteux declares, he mustn't get off with a quiet squeeze."

"By no manner o' means!"

said Barbillon.

"We must make an example of him," continued the Skeleton, warming as he went on.

"It is not now the nabs who look out for us, but the noses.

Jacques and Gauthier, who were guillotined the other day, were informed against,--nosed; Rousillon, sent to the galleys for life,--nosed."

"And me, and my mother, and Calabash, and my brother at Toulon," cried Nicholas; "have we not all been nosed by Bras-Rouge?

To be sure we have;

because, instead of shutting him up here with us, he has been sent to La Roquette.

They daren't put him with us; he knew he had done us wrong, the old--" "Well," added Barbillon, "and didn't Bras-Rouge nose upon me, too?"

"And I, too," said a young prisoner, in a thin voice, and lisping affectedly.

"I was split upon by Jobert, who had proposed to me a little affair in the Rue St. Martin."

The latter personage, with a fluty voice, pale, fat, and effeminate face, and with a sly and treacherous glance, was singularly attired.

He wore as a head-dress a red pocket-handkerchief, which exposed two locks of light brown hair close to his temples; the two ends of his handkerchief formed a projecting rosette over his forehead; his cravat was a merino shawl, with a large pattern, which crossed over his chest;

his mulberry-coloured waistcoat almost disappeared beneath the tight waistband of a very large pair of trousers of plaid, with very large and different-coloured checks.

"And was not that shameful?

Such a man to turn against me!"

he added, in his shrill voice.

"Yet, really, nothing in the world would have made me distrust Jobert."

"I know very well that he sold you, Javatte," replied the Skeleton, who seemed to protect the prisoner peculiarly; "and as a proof that they have done for thy nose the same as they have done for Bras-Rouge, they have not dared to leave Jobert here, but sent him to the stone jug of the Conciergerie.

Well, there must be an end put to this!

There must be an example; for traitors are doing the work of the police, and believe themselves safe in their skins because they are put in a different prison from those on whom they have nosed."

"That's true."

"To prevent this, every prisoner should consider every nose as his deadly enemy.

Whether he informs against Peter or James, here or there, that's nothing; fall on him tooth and nail.

When we have made cold meat of four or five in the prisons, the others will think twice before they turn 'snitch.'

" "You're right, Skeleton," said Nicholas; "and let Germain be number one."

"And no mistake," replied the _prevot_; "but let us wait until the Gros-Boiteux arrives.

When, for instance, he has proved to all the world that Germain is a nose the thing shall be settled out of hand; the calf shall bleat no more, we'll stop his wind."

"And what shall we do with the turnkeys who watch us?"

inquired the prisoner whom the Skeleton called Javatte.

"I have my plan, which Pique-Vinaigre will aid."

"He!

He's a coward."

"And no stronger than a flea."

"I'm awake.

Where is he?"

"He had come out of the visiting-room, but went back again to see his lawyer."

"And is Germain still in the visiting-room?"

"Yes, with the little wench who comes to see him."

"When he returns be on your guard.

But we must wait for Pique-Vinaigre, without him we can do nothing."

"No?"

"No." "And Germain shall be done for?"

"I'll take care of that."

"But with what?

They have taken all our knives away."

"What do you think of these nippers, would you like to have your neck in their clutch?"

asked the Skeleton, opening his long bony fingers, hard as iron.

"You'll choke him?"

"Decidedly."

"But if they find out that it is you?"

"Well, what if they do?

Am I a calf with two heads, such as they show at the fair?"

"No, that's true; a man has but one throat, and yours--" "Is sentenced; my lawyer told me so yesterday.

I was taken with my hand in the bag, and my knife in the weasand of the stiff'un.

I'm a 'return horse,' too; so nothing can be more certain.

I'll drop my head into Charlot's (the headsman's) basket, and I shall see if it's true that he does his customers, and puts sawdust into his basket instead of the bran which government allows us."

"True, the guillotine has a right to its bran.

Now, I remember my father was robbed in the same way," said Nicholas Martial, with a ferocious grin.

This horrid jest created immense laughter amongst the prisoners.

This is fearful, but far from exaggeration; we give but a faint idea of these conversations, so common in prisons.

The prisoners were all laughing joyously.

"Thousand thunders!"

cried the Skeleton.

"I wish they who punish us would come and see how we bear it.

If they will come to the Barriere St. Jacques the day of my benefit they will hear me address the audience in a neat and appropriate speech, and say to Charlot, in a gentlemanly tone, 'Pere Sampson, the cord if you please.'

"[1] [1] To understand this horrid jest the English reader must know that the doors in France are usually opened by the porter, who sits in his room and pulls a cord to allow the person going out to have free egress; and the blade of the guillotine glides down the grooves of the machine, after a spring has been set in motion, by touching a cord that acts upon it.

Fresh bursts of laughter hailed this jest.

"And then Charlot opens the baker's (the devil's) door," continued the Skeleton, still smoking his pipe.

"Ah, bah!

Is there a devil?"

"You fool, I was only joking.

There's a sharp blade, and they put a head under it, and that's all.

And now that I know my road, and must stay at the abbey of _Mont-a-Regret_ (guillotine), I would rather go there to-day than to-morrow," said the Skeleton, with savage excitement.

"I wish I was there now,--my blood comes into my mouth when I think what a crowd there'll be to see me; there'll be, at least, I should say, from four to five thousand who will push and squeeze to get good places, and they'll hire seats and windows, as if for a grand procession.

I hear 'em now crying, 'Seats to let!

Seats to let!'

And then there'll be troops of soldiers, cavalry and infantry, and all for me,--for the Skeleton!

That's enough to rouse a man if he was as big a coward as Pique-Vinaigre, that would make you walk like a hero.

All eyes on you, and that makes a fellow pluck up; then--'tis but a moment--a fellow dies game, and that annoys the big-wigs and curs, and gives the knowing ones pluck to face the chopper."

"That's true, on Gospel!"

added Barbillon, trying to imitate the fearful audacity of the Skeleton; "they think to make us funky when they set Charlot to work to get his shop open at our expense."

"Ah, bah!"

said Nicholas, in his turn; "we laugh at Charlot and his shop; it is like the prison or the galleys,--we laugh at them, too; and so, that we may be all friends together, let's be jolly as long as we can."

"The thing that would do us," said the shrill-voiced prisoner, "would be to put us in solitary cells day and night.

They do say they mean to do so at last."

"In solitary cells!"

exclaimed the Skeleton, with repressed rage; "don't talk of it!

Solitary cell--alone!

Hold your tongue!

I would rather have my arms and legs cut off!

Alone within four walls!

Quite alone--without having our pals to laugh with!

Oh, that will never be!

I like the galleys a hundred times better than the central prison, because at the galleys, instead of being shut up, one is out-of-doors, sees the world, people going and coming, and has his jokes and fun.

Well, I'd rather be done for at once than be put in a solitary cell, if only for a year.

Yes, for at this moment I am sure to be guillotined--ain't I?

Well, if they said to me, 'Would you rather have a year of solitary confinement?'

I should hold out my neck.

A year all alone!

Why, is it possible?

What do they suppose a man thinks of when he is alone?"

"Suppose you were carried there by main force?"

"Well, I wouldn't stay; I would make such use of my hands and feet that I should escape," replied the Skeleton.

"But if you couldn't,--if you were unable to escape?"

"Then I'd kill the first person who came near me, in order to have my head chopped off."

"But if, instead of sentencing such as us to death, they condemned us to be in solitary confinement for life?"

The Skeleton appeared struck at this remark, and, after a moment's silence, replied: "Why, then, I'll tell you what I should do,--I should dash out my brains against the walls.

I would starve rather than be in a solitary cell.

What, all alone!

all my life alone with myself,--and no chance of escape!

I tell you it is impossible.

Well, you know, there's no man more reckless than I am--I'd kill a man for a dollar, and for nothing if my honour was concerned; they believe I have only killed two persons, but if the dead could tell tales there are five tongues could say what I have done."

The ruffian was boasting.

The sanguinary declarations are still another trait of the hardened criminals.

A governor of a prison said to us, "If the assassinations boasted of by these scoundrels were really committed, the population would be decimated."

"And I, too," said Barbillon, desirous of bragging in his turn; "they think I only silenced the husband of the milk-woman in the Cite, but I did many others with tall Robert, who suffered last year."

"I was going to say," continued the Skeleton, "that I fear neither fire nor devil.

Well, if I were in a solitary cell, and certain I could not escape,--thunder!

I believe I should be frightened!"

"And so, if you had to begin your time over again as prig and throttler, and if, instead of central houses, galleys, and guillotine, there were only solitary cells, you would hesitate before such a chance?"

"_Ma foi!

_ I believe I really should!"

replied the Skeleton.

And he said truly.

It is impossible to describe the vast terror which such ruffians experience at the very idea of being in solitary confinement.

And is not this very terror an eloquent plea in favour of this punishment?