7$6 13 A S 'I 
His mind fee ms to have been too elevated for the country 
lie lived in ; and lome expreftions that elcaped him with 
refpedt to the clergy, drew on him the refentment ot the 
church. He was acculed of herely; condemned to pals 
the rell of his days in prifon; and his enemies, .adding 
mockery to hijuflice, caufed him to be (hut up in that va¬ 
ry rower of the Bulfile, the firib ftone of which he had 
fixed with his own hands; and which feems thus early ro 
have been confecrated to the purpoles ot fuperflition and 
revenge. 
The Baffilc, as planned by d’Aubriot, confided only of 
two round towers, one on each fide of the road leading in¬ 
to Paris, from the fuburb St. Anthony. '1 hey were join¬ 
ed together v\ith a high and ftrong wall, in the centre ot 
which was the gale of the. town- Some years afterwards 
two other towers were built oppofife to the two firft, and 
there is reafon to think,, that the read coo'inued itr the 
fame line, as a gate was found walled up between thole 
towers, correfponding with the other gate. Under king 
Charles V 1 . other towers were added, and joined together, 
by walls.immanlely thick, and mealuring on the rnlide 
eighty feet in height above the level’ of the court. The 
road was then turned oft to the right ot the caftlc; the 
ancient gates were Hint up ; a new gate was made between 
the towers,, and the whole building was enclofed with a 
broad ditch and fortification, having a connterfearp in ma- 
fonrv nearly thirty-fix feet high from the bottom. About 
the middle of the'Seventeenth century, was completed (lie 
advanced work, a piece of modern fortification, the inte¬ 
rior of which was converted into a garden. The ditch 
was dry, excepting during the floods of the Seine, wlren 
the water role in it, though not to any great height. The 
entry to the B a (file was Hill from the ftreet St. Anthony. 
Over the fil’d gate was an armoury. To rhe right of the 
entrance was a guard-room, in tlie firft encloftire were 
barracks for the garrifon; coach-houfes and ftables for the 
governor and officers; and fliops for hitlers. A gate led 
from thence to the arfenal. The way into the fecondenclo- 
fure was by a draw-bridge. On the left in entering was a 
guard-room, and on the right the governor’s lioufe. At 
the end of this court there was a terrace, with rows of 
trees, and a pavilion. The end e-f the terrace fartheft 
from the caftle, was ela-fed by an' iron railing that fepa-ra- 
ted it from the garden of the arfenal. On the right in go¬ 
ing to the caftle, were the kitchens and their offices, erect¬ 
ed on a kind of blind bridge thrown acrofs the ditch. The 
pa IT age into the eaftfe was by a draw-bridge; within- the 
gate, on the right, was a guard-room. The firft court was 
io2 feet long, and feventy-two broad, with fix towers. 
Tliofe on the right of the entrance were called Tour do la 
Conte- r du Trofor ; do la Chapclle. Tliofe on the left, do la 
Bajiniero ; de la Bertdudiere ; do la Liber to. d he court was 
terminated by u modern building, on the ground-floor of" 
which was the council-chamber, the library, and Come 
lodging-rooms. 1 he upper flories contained quarters for 
the lieutenant du roi, the major, liirgeon, and the other of¬ 
ficers. Formerly the kitchens were in this building, but 
when others were epeded, the places occupied by them 
were converted to other piirpofes. The reft of the edifice 
c on lifted in apartments for prifoners of difli ndtion . The 
ieCond court was feventy-two feet lorrg, and forty-two 
broad : the length ran parallel with the breadth ot the 
other. At the two extreme angles were towers; one na¬ 
med i/« Coin, the other du Putty from a weft that was con¬ 
tiguous to it. Between thefe towers were lodgings for per- 
fons belonging to the caftle. In the firft court was the 
clock that marked the heavy hours to the folitary and un¬ 
happy priloners. It was once decorated with two ftatues of 
men in chains, as if invented by cruelty to infult wretch- 
ednels; but thele ill-imagined ornaments were removed 
by order of the baron de Breteuil, when minifter of Paris, 
'fhe tops of the towers, and of the curtains that joined 
them, were flat with a parapet wall; having an agreeable 
walk within them, where the prifoners were fometimes in¬ 
dulged. On the towers fome pieces of cannon were mount- 
t L E. 
ed. The entrances to the towers were feeured by double 
doors of oak, three inches thick. In each tower was a 
winding ftaircafe, which delcended to a dungeon below, 
and led to the rooms above it. The roof of the dungeon 
was about the level of the court, and the floor of it con- 
frderably above that of the ditch. Thole dungeons were 
arched, paved, ami lined with Itone. Moll of them had a 
flit towards the ditch, that let in air, and a very final 1 de¬ 
gree of light ; though fome of them bad no light at all. 
It was in thele dungeons the unfortunate princes of Ar- 
niagnac, (bus of James-who was beheaded, were confined; 
by Lewis XI. The eldeft loft his fenfes in prifon; the 
youngeft obtained his liberty, after the death of the ty¬ 
rant, by one of the firft fteps taken under the reign of liis 
fucceffor, Charles VIII. In a memorial, written by that 
prince of Armagnac in 1483, he relates fufferings that now 
nlinoft exceed belief, and that humanity would fliudder ;tf 
the mention of; although they were at that time fully 
credited. Above the dungeons were four ftories, contain¬ 
ing each a (ingle room. The three firft ftories were irre¬ 
gular polygons of about eighteen feet diameter, and as- 
many high ; the fourth, or the room at the top of the tow¬ 
er called la Calotte, was not'quite fo large, nor fo high, 
and was arched to fiipport- the ftone-roof or platform . 
lome had a ceiling under the arch! The walls were ftrong- 
ly built of ftone and mortar. They were near (even En°-- 
lilli feet thick at top, and the thicknefs gradually increa- 
fed towards the foundation. The rooms had but one win¬ 
dow each, with an iron grate immenfely ftrong near the 
furface of the wall without, and another about the centre 
of its thicknefs. A glafs-window made in the manner of 
a door opened inward. In fome rooms the embrafure of 
the window came down to the level of the floor; in others 
there were fteps that went up to it, and in many it was 
high enough to enable a perfon to walk forward to the 
window with cafe. The windows of the lower ftory were 
built half way u^i with ftone and mortar, or had planks 
fixed to that height on the outward grate to prevent the 
prifoncr from being feen by any one from abroad. The 
walls were perfectly dry, and, owing to tlieir extreme 
thicknefSj perfons who had been long confined in the Bal- 
tile have laid, that they never found tbemfelves fo much 
incommoded’by- the cold in winter, or heat in fiimmer, in 
thefe rooms, as they would have been at the fame feafons, 
in the houfes of Paris. All the rooms, except the dun¬ 
geons, had a fire-place or (love; and the vents of the 
chimneys were feeured by ftrong iron grates placed'at cer¬ 
tain diftances from each other. The walls and ceilings 
were plaftered and white-waffled. Some floors were laid 
with tiles, and others with ftone, in the manner of mod: 
of the anti-chambers in Paris. The furniture of the rooms 
in general confided of a fmall bed with green ferge cur¬ 
tains, a table, an armed chair, a bafon and ewer, a large 
earthen pot to hold water, a brafs candleftick, a chamber¬ 
pot, a night-ftoo), a tin goblet, a broom, and a tinder-box 
and matches. For prifoners of high rank there were apart¬ 
ments furnifhed with greater care. Some were permitted 1 
ro fend for things of their own. Madame de Staal in¬ 
forms u9 that fhe was allowed to hang her room with ta- 
peftry ; but, for prifoners in general, the furniture and- 
conveniences are fuch as above deferibed. The doors of 
the rooms were double, and with as many locks and bars 
as tliofe that fluit the entrances to the towers. Many of 
the rooms had double debugs: one of lath and plafter, 
and at fome diftance over that another of oak, which flip- 
ported the tile or ftone floor of the room above it. The 
flairs were lighted from the courts by narrow windows 
with iron-grates like thefe "of the rooms. Each tower had 
its particular name, and each chamber was numbered, by 
which means there was no occafion ever to pronounce the 
name of a prifoner; as, in the cant of the place, he was 
called by the number of his chamber, and the name of 
the tower, where he was confined ; as No. 1, de la Ber- 
taudiere, and fo on. 
Different authors who have written on the Baftile have 
J mentioned 
