374 The King of the French, [OCT. 



But one display that took place the year before was exempt from those 

 charges. In the French convents, as in all places under the uncontrolled 

 dominion of the popish priesthood, horrible cruelties were practised; some- 

 times on monks and nuns who happened naturally to get weary of their 

 condition, or disgusted with the cold cruelty of their superiors ; sometimes 

 protestants given over to the hands of those horrid persecutors, and 

 sometimes on state prisoners unfortunate beings who had, for something 

 or for nothing, excited the suspicion of some tyrant governor of the pro- 

 vince, or some scoundrel courtier, or some licentious prince. The convent 

 prisons answered the double purpose of paying a compliment to the 

 monks, saving the government the trouble of keeping those wretched 

 people in charge, and securing them till a miserable death ended their 

 sufferings ; for no prison was so secure or so secret as the vault of a con- 

 vent. St. Michael, in Normandy, was one of those pious safeguards ; 

 and there was in the bottom of one of its caverns, a place of peculiar 

 confinement for unfortunates whose crimes were obnoxious to tne tastes 

 of royalty. Writers were especially criminal in the eyes of the French 

 kings and courtiers, and one of the tenants of this dungeon was the 

 publisher of a Dutch gazette ; who, owing no allegiance to Louis XIV., 

 and probably feeling no more admiration than the royal libertine's sub- 

 jects for him, had excited his displeasure by some remarks in his paper. 

 The publisher was laid hold on, hurried off to the St. Michael, and in 

 the iron cage of this horrible dungeon he lay for fifteen years ! Well 

 may Englishmen bless the tongues and swords that rescued them from 

 tender mercies like this ! Well may they look with jealousy and indig- 

 nation on all attempts to bring them to a condition like this, and well 

 may they deserve it if they suffer the slightest inroad on the Press, 

 which is, after all, the only sure guardian of their liberty, surer and safer 

 than all the formal guards of laws, which may be abrogated in an hour ; 

 of a legislature which may be corrupted ; or of a cabinet which may dread 

 the light, for the old reason, of the darkness of its deeds ! The French 

 ministers knew what was the friend of freedom and the foe of tyranny, 

 and they fastened all the fangs and claws of power upon the Press. 

 Nations have the example let them be wise by the warning. 



In the first efforts of the French Revolution, the public mind was 

 turned on what had been its especial horror for so many centuries, and 

 the secrets of those dreadful places were dragged to light. Among 

 the rest, the Norman peasantry insisted on relieving the monks of 

 St. Michael of the honour of being prison-keepers to the king ; and 

 the dungeon was thrown open for public inspection. Louis XVI. was 

 a mild tempered creature, and the fashion at court was astonishment at 

 the thickness of prison walls, the damp of dungeons, and the rusty solidity 

 of bolts and bars. The prisons became a sort of public curiosity ; and 

 among the rest, St. Michael was visited by the Count D'Artois, who 

 was electrified at the sight of the iron cage! gave a general command 

 for its demolition, rode off, and left it as he found it. But it seems as if 

 fate had determined that the Duke of Orleans should always finish what 

 Charles X. left undone. The young eleve of Madame de Genlis not 

 merely commanded its destruction, but stood by till it was completed. 

 The narrative of this transaction, which w r as the parent of the fall of 

 the Bastile, is interesting. 



" The Prior, followed by the monks, two carpenters, and the greater 

 part of the prisoners, who, at our request, were allowed to be present, 



