STUDY XIII. 215 



no longer citizens, they are ftill men, and innocent 

 men too. When I was purfuing my ftudies at 

 Caen, I recoiled having feen, in the madman's 

 ward, fome fhut up in dungeons, where they had not 

 feen the light for fifteen years. I one evening ac-- 

 companied into fome of thofe difmal caverns, the 

 good Curé de S. Martin, whofe boarder I then 

 was, and who had been called to perform the lad 

 duties of his office to one of thofe poor wretches, 

 on the point of breathing his laft. He wasobhged, 

 as well as I, to flop his nofe all the time he was 

 by the dying man ; but the vapour which exhaled 

 from his dunghill v/as [o infedtious, that my clothes 

 retained the fmell for more than two months, nay, 

 my very linen, after having been repeatedly fent to 

 the wafhing. I could quote traits of the mode of 

 treatment of thofe miferablfc objects, which would 

 excite horror. I fliall relate only one, which is 

 flill frefh in my memory. 



Some years ago, happening to pafs through 

 l'Aigle, a fmall town in Normandy, I flroUed out 

 about fun-fcr, to enjoy a little frefli air. I per- 

 ceived, on a riling ground, a convent mofl de- 

 lightfully fituated. A monk, who flood porter, 

 invited me in to fee thehoufe. He conduced me 

 through an immenfe court, in which the firfl thing 

 that flruck my eye, was a man of about forty years 

 old, with half a hat on his head, who advanced di- 



T 4. redly 



