B A S 



14 



HAS 



Rate was dosed, and tnc rood carried without the building. 

 In 1634 afosso. 120 feet wide and 2J feet deep, was dug all 

 round ; and beyond that a stone wall, 36 feet high, wa* 

 built all round. Thus the Baitile became, from a fortified 

 (rate, on* of the strongest fortresses of the kind in Europe. 

 The towers contained several octagonal rooms one above the 

 other, earh having one window pierced in the walls, w huh 

 were rather more than six feet thick. Tnis window was 

 without any glazing, was wido internally, but narrow like a 

 loop-hole on the outside : in the centre was a perpendicular 

 bar of iron, and two cross-barred grating* between that and 

 the internal part. The entrance to each of these rooms was 

 secured by double door* eight inches thick, strapped with 

 iron, and placed at the distance of the thickness of the walls 

 from each other. There wero no fire-place* or chimneys in 



rooms. The only article of furniture, if it may be so 

 called, was an iron grating, raised about six inches from 

 the floor, to receive the prisoner's mattress, and prevent its 

 decay from the damp of the stone floor. To each tower 

 there was a way by a narrow winding staircase. The apart- 

 ments constructed in the walls, connecting the towers, were 

 r and more commodious than the others, and were pro- 

 \ -ided with fire-places and chimneys, but with similar pre- 

 cautions for preventing the escape of prisoners. They were 

 usually assigned to persons of some importance, or to those 

 who were treated with indulgence. The rest of the Bas- 

 tile consisted of two open courts : the larger, 1 02 feet by 

 7-2, called the Great Court ; the smaller, 72 by 42 feet, French 

 measure, called the Court of the Well, was separated from 

 the first by a range of buildings and offices, having a passage 

 through them. The height of the building within was 73 feet, 

 but greater on the outside next the fosse. (See the plan 

 in the British Museum.) 



In modern times the establishment of the Bastile consisted 

 of a governor, a deputy-governor or lieutenant du roi, a major, 

 an aide-major, a physician and surgeons, a certain number of 

 invalid soldiers and Swiss in the pay of France to perform the 

 military duty of the fortress, with turnkeys to watch over 

 the prisoners, and cooks and other dom-stics. The olllec of 

 governor was very lucrative, and the pay and perquisites 

 supposed to amount to 60,000 francs per annum. The other 

 officers were but indifferently remunerated. No. Ilieer or 

 soldier could dine out willu nt permission of t'.ie governor, or 

 sleep out without on order from the prime minister. The 

 invalids were usually about 100 men, with two captains and 

 a lieutenant, who wero well paid. The men had ten sols 

 per diem, with wood, candles, washing, and other alloy 

 The average expense of the Bastile is said to have been 

 60,000 francs per month. The governor and deputy-governor 

 superintended the general management of the i 

 major and his deputy kept all the accounts, including a par- 

 ticular list of all the prisoners, in seven columns, containing, 

 1. Name and quality of the prisoner ; 2. When ho entered : 

 .'). By whom the order for his detention signed; 4. When 



i reed : .5. By whom the order of discharge signed; 



>e of detention ; 7. Observations or remarks. The 

 is said to have been filled up only under the direc- 

 tion of the minister or of the lieutenant of police. Pri- 

 soners were almost always taken to the Bastile by an exempt 

 of police and two or three armed men in a hackney coach, 



id observation, and were conducted direct to t 1 

 vernor at his hou<e, to whom the exempt delivered the 

 Irtlre de cachft and took a receipt for it. The prisoner was 



led into the body of the fortress, a sign beii, 

 made to all the soldiers on duty to cover their faces with 

 their hats during his passage. This was invariably done 

 whenever a pr; >r left the Ba.stilc. On his 



arrival at hi-, nx>m the prisoner was requested to empty his 

 pockeU. A list was made "I th' iv the major, and 



1 by the prisoner. His watch, rings, and every other 

 article wore taken from him. He v 



days without the means of writing; alter which he under- 

 went an examination before the lieutenant of police, or some 

 . officer. The interrogators usually began by inform- 



.0 prisoner that his lileu:i<m r, and that 



'upended on himself; that 



few, they were authorised to promise his discharge, 

 wise be would be given over to an extraordin.: 

 : that they had writtun and oral t 

 that bin accompli*-- 



nig was indulgent : and that 

 :. as his fr, 

 ticulur. If by these moans they succeeded in extracting the 



evidence they wished, they then informed him that they had 

 not yet a precise authority for his discharge, but that 



-hortly to obtain it, would : it, and that he 



should shortly hear more about it. According to circum- 

 stances these examinations were repeat -i. and no means 

 winch cunning could suggest were omitted to entrap and 

 intimidate the prisoner, to draw from him his secret if ho 

 bad one, or to make him commit himself, or his family, or 

 friends, by dangerous admissions or indiscreet replies, 

 treatment of the prisoners depended entirely on the will at' 

 the governor, who was interested in their being detained, as 

 he contracted with the government for their maintenance, 

 and derived a profit from it ; and he being the only eluinnel 

 by which the prisoners could communicate with tie- 

 or with the government, he could suppress their aj 

 if he thought fit. We have the concurrent testimony of 

 almost all the prisoners who have written their im ; 

 that the food was bad and scantily supplied, and that all 

 other necessaries were of the worst description. The dura- 

 tion of a prisoner's detention was arbitrary. No term was 

 ever specified. The longest wo have been able to disc 

 from the registers published after the taking of the Bantile, 

 is that of Isaac Armet de la Mottc, who was removed to 

 Charcnton (a lunatic asylum and prison), after a confine- 

 ment in the Bastile of fifty-four years and five months. In 

 this registry there are several others of thirty years and 

 upwards. The first historical mention of any imprisonment 

 in this fortress is that of Hugucs d'Aubriut himself, who 

 having given offence to the clergy, and being accused by 

 them of blasphemy and impiety, was sentenced to be im- 

 prisoned fur life, but being transferred to another prison, he 

 regained his liberty in the insurrection of a faction called 

 the Mailliotins. The only prisoners who t\ 

 escape from the Bastile were two persons of the name of DC 

 la Tude and D'Aligre. They were confined together in ono 

 of the apartments constructed in the walls oftheBl 

 By unravelling their linen, stockings, and other pa 

 their dollies, and by saving from time to time the billets of 

 wood allowed for their firing, they contrived to make two 

 ladders, one a rope-ladder, near 180 feet long, with rounds 



with tlaiinel to prevent any rattling 

 against the walls; the other a wooden ladder, n' 

 long, consisting of a centre piece, in joints, to he fastened 



:uiis and mortices, and through which passed w 



i i hold it together. The first .. le them to 



descend from the platform, or the top of the Bastile, into 

 the fosse ; the second to ascend the rampart into the garden 

 of the governor. The ladders, as well as the tor>ls they had 

 formed for making them, were concealed, when the tun 



i them, under the floor of their apartment. They 

 cut through the iron gratings in the chimney, which they 

 ascended, and taking a>!\antnge of a dark night, got 

 upon the platform. Having first lowered their wooden 

 ladder, they fa-tcncd that of rope to one of the cannons of 

 the fortress and descended into the fosse. Finding a patrolc 

 with a light in the governor's garden, they altered their 

 plan, and with a handspike formed of ono of the iron bars of 

 the chimney grating, made a hole in the wall next the Hue 

 St. Antoine, through which they effected their escape on 

 the 26th of February, 1756. After the. revolution ol 17v 

 La Tnde claimed and received these ladders, ami l\w\ 

 publicly exhibited at 1'aris in the autumn of that year. Of 

 all the prisoners in the Bastile none have excited curiosity 

 so strongly as the person usually < ,i!' n with the 



Iron Mask. The extraordinary secrecy observed with re- 



to thr* person, ami the attention said to have been 

 shown him, have given rise to a variety of conjecture - 

 cerning him, more especially as no person of impor 

 was at that time missing in Kurope. He has been sup 

 to have been a twin-brother of Loin* XIV.. the r, 1, Crated 

 Due de Beaufort, the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth, the 

 Intendant Fouquet, and Ercolo Matthioh, prime minister to 

 the Duke of Mantua. Our si.;. re dues noi permit us to 

 B opinions, or to enter into details respecting 

 them, further tl: e th it the last mentioned 



.'ulation. 



The Bastile was besieged and taken throe times: in 1418, 



by th >r> IV. : and on the 



lltli July, 17*9, by the Parisians, from which day the 



French Kr\olutin may ! dated. Its demolition was de- 



. nl Committee of Paris on the Ifiih, 



and e-:\n wd into immediate effect. The materials wero em- 

 ployed in the construction of a new bridge, called the Bridge 



