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 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 DC 167.5.L75 1884 
 
 Memoirs of the Bastille. 
 
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ICoIIrrtaiiM iaHamaiitira. 
 
 MEMOIRS OF THE BASTILLE. 
 
Of this edition only 75 Inrgi-paper and 275 small-paper 
 copies are printed for suhscrilcrs. 
 
COLLECTANEA ADAMANT/EA,-IV, 
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE BASTILLE. 
 
 ^ranfllateti from tt)£ Jficncb 
 
 OF THE CELEBRATED 
 
 MR. LINGUET, 
 
 WHO WAS IMPRISONED THERE FROM 
 SEPTEMBER 1780, TO MAY 1782. 
 
 EDMUND GOLDSMID, F.R.H.S. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 PRIVATELY PRINTED. 
 
 EDINBURGH. 
 
 tiJU 
 
Hazell, Watson, &■ Viney, Limited, London and Aylesbuyy. 
 
 Llbc^i^ciij 
 
MEMOIRS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 BASTILLE. 
 
 Containing a Full Exposition of the 
 
 MYSTERIOUS POLICY 
 
 AND 
 
 DESPOTIC OPPRESSION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 FRENCH GOVERNMENT, 
 
 In the Interior Administration of 
 
 THAT STATE-PRISON. 
 
 Interspersed with a Variety of 
 
 CURIOUS ANECDOTES. 
 
 Non, niihi si voces centum stni, oraqiie centiaii 
 Omnia pcenan(]7t percurrere nojiiina possiiit. Virg. 
 
 Translated from the French of 
 
 The Celebrated Mr. LINGUET, 
 
 Who was imprisoned there 
 From September^ 1780, to May 1782. 
 
 DUBLIN: 
 PRINTED BY J. A. HUSBAND, 
 
 FOR 
 
 Messrs. H. and W. Whitestonh, Wilson, Moncrieffe, 
 
 Walker, Burnet, White, Exshaw, ByRNE, 
 
 Burton, Cash, Sleater, Junior, 
 
 and Parker. 
 
 M,DCC,LXXXin. 
 
Advertisement 
 
 BY THE 
 
 TRANSLATOR. 
 
 r 
 
 Um'kMHIS work was wanting to the nomen- 
 Pfl gal clature of real State-Crimes; that is, of 
 the sacrifices made by Despotism to the 
 passions of its agents. 
 
 The Author, Mr. Linguet, was for ten years 
 one of the most distinguished Counsellors of the 
 Parliament of Pi.ris. He shone equally in oratory 
 and composition. It has been remarked, that ot 
 a hundred and thirty Causes, all of them im- 
 portant, in which he had engaged during that 
 period, he lost only nine. His enemies attri- 
 buted this unparalleled success to the charms 
 of his eloquence ; his more candid judges, to the 
 delicacy which directed him in the choice of his 
 suits. 
 
 Whilst Mr. Linguet was thus displaying his 
 
4 AD VER TI SEME NT. 
 
 useful and active talents at the Bar, he employed 
 himself likewise in the cultivation of Polite Lite- 
 rature, and Philosophy. The boldness of his 
 principles, the novelty of his views, and too 
 great a freedom in his examination of the sys- 
 tems established and the sects prevailing in 
 France, made him powerful enemies, even in 
 the Ministry, in that Country, where, as it is 
 well known, there is at least as much cabal 
 and party spirit as in our own ; with this dif- 
 ference, that in England the objects are great, 
 and the means public ; whereas in France parties 
 are formed and imbittered for trifles, and mystery 
 presides over intrigue. 
 
 In the revolution which some years ago in- 
 terrupted all judicial order in France, Mr. Linguet, 
 having suffered, on the part of the Parliament of 
 Paris, and, ultimately, on that of Government 
 itself, those shocking injuries of which the par- 
 ticulars may be seen in a work which he pub- 
 lished three years ago, (*) sought an asylum 
 in England. He there undertook a periodical 
 work, intitled Annalcs, Politiqiies, Civiles, ^^ 
 Litteraires du i8""^ Sikle ; which met with a 
 very favourable reception throughout Europe. 
 
 * Appel a la Postcrite, or the first volume of the Col - 
 lection of Mr. Lingnct's Works. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. s 
 
 This had been preceded by a printed Letter 
 to the Count de Vergcnnes, one of the French 
 Ministers, with whom he had most cause to be 
 dissatisfied. This letter has been considered by 
 the critics as a striking monument of energy, 
 eloquence, and candour. It was of such a 
 nature as to leave a deep and lasting impres- 
 sion on the mind ; and it was sufficiently evident 
 that it has not failed of this effect. 
 
 At the approach of the rupture between Eng- 
 land and France, Mr; Linguet, having quitted 
 the former, through a patriotic delicacy which 
 has been regretted, though not censured, by the 
 English ; and having persuaded himself, that on 
 the parole of the Count de Vergennes he might 
 go to Fraiue to prosecute his interests there ; 
 he was arrested, on the 27 th of September 1780, 
 by virtue of a Lettre-de-cachet, and conducted 
 to the Bastille, where he remained full twentyj 
 months. 
 
 This work contains the history of his im- 
 prisonment, that of the proceedings of those 
 Ministers who have been accomplices in it, and 
 a description of the regimen of that infernal 
 mansion, equally celebrated and dreaded, but 
 at the same time as little known as it is 
 formidable. 
 
 1/ 
 
MEMOIRS 
 
 F 
 
 THE BASTILLE 
 
 PART I.* 
 
 London^ Dec. 5, 1782. 
 
 Am now in. En^lmid : it is necessary 
 to prove that my return hither has 
 been a measure absolutely indispen- 
 sable. — I am no longer at the Bastille : 
 it is necessary to prove that I never deserved to be 
 there. It is necessary to do more : to demonstrate 
 that none have ever deserved it : the innocent, be- 
 cause they are innocent ; the guilty, because they 
 ought not to be convicted, judged, and punished, 
 but according to the laws, and because at the 
 
 * I have been obliged to write many Notes, several of 
 which are rather long. I have adopted the method of 
 putting them at the end of the work in the form of Appen- 
 dices, referring to them by corresponding figures. This 
 method is less distracting to the Reader. 
 
MEMOIRS OF THE BASTILLE. 7 
 
 Bastille none of the laws are observed, or rather 
 they are all violated ; because there are no tor- 
 tures, unless perhaps in the infernal regions, which 
 will bear to be set in competition with those of the 
 Bastille ; and because, if the institution itself may 
 in certain cases admit of justification, it is im- 
 possible, in any case whatever, to justify the 
 regimen of it. — It is necessary to shew that this 
 regimen, no less disgraceful than cruel, is equally 
 repugnant to all the principles of justice and 
 humanity, to the manners of the Nation, to the 
 mildness which characterises the Royal House of 
 France, and especially to the goodness, the equity 
 of the Sovereign who at present fills the throne. 
 
 It is by this discussion that I am going to con- 
 secrate the renewal of my toils, my return to my 
 painfiil career. 
 
 The two first articles seem to be merely per- 
 sonal, to concern none but myself. It will be 
 seen however that they are inseparably connected 
 with the third, and that they malie an essential 
 part of it. They form altogether a series of 
 oppressions, a chain of iniquities and grievances, 
 of which most assuredly very few instances are to 
 be found since the History of Job. 
 
 Should I, in a word, be tliought worthy to 
 treat the last article, if I did not begin by clearing 
 up the two others? Were I a mere miserable 
 refugee, thirsting after vengeance, or a wretched 
 criminal branded with the ignominy of a pardon, 
 what weight would my claims, however urgent, 
 carry with them ? 
 
8 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 But, after having seen the proofs of my inno- 
 cence, the world will be more sensibly struck 
 with the picture of those horrors from which that 
 innocence has been insufficient to preserve me : 
 their concern will still increase, when they reflect 
 that there is not a Frenchman, nor even a Foreigner 
 of those who visit the kingdom of France, who can 
 assure himself that he shall not one day, in his 
 own person experience those very horrors. The 
 Bastilles of France have devoured, they are daily 
 devouring, men of all ranks, and of all nations. 
 At the avenues of these abysses (i) might well be 
 engraven that memento which is sometimes seen 
 inscribed to transitory readers on church-yard 
 gates : Hodie inihi, eras tibi '. 
 
 Who, in .short, can promise himself that he 
 shall escape that fate, from which the elevated 
 rank of presumptive Heir to the Crown has not 
 been sufficient to secure a Louis XII. nor their 
 accumulated laurels a Condi, (2) or a Luxemburg; 
 nor virtue, nor science, a Sacy, and so many 
 others ; nor the affected stateliness of the Long 
 Robe, a Pucelle ; nor the most important public 
 services, a La Boiirdonnaie ; nor the right of 
 nations so many English, Germans, Italians, ^c. 
 whose names, engraven in fits of despondent 
 weariness on all parts of those fatal Avails, form 
 a kind of geographic picture equally diversified 
 and alarming, &c. ? It is then, if I may use the 
 expression, the character of an epidemic disease, 
 formidable to all mankind, that I am going here to 
 delineate. Notwithstanding the prodigious number 
 
THE BASTILLE. 9 
 
 of witnesses who have involuntarily visited these 
 dungeons, the tninutia of their interior are very 
 little known : the Memoirs of La Porte, of 
 Gourville, of M""- de Stud, give little or no in- 
 formation ; the whole tending only to prove a 
 fact difficult to be conceived, that in their time 
 this Tartanis, compared to what it is at present, 
 was a kind of Elysium. 
 
 At that time the prisoners received visits, saw 
 each other familiarly, and took their walks toge- 
 ther : the Officers of the Etat-Major talked and 
 eat with them ; they were their comforters, no 
 less than their guardians. La Porte speaks, in 
 express terms, of the Liberties of the Bastille ; 
 that is the name he gives to those alleviations 
 which we have just mentioned, and which he and 
 all his fellow-sufferers enjoyed. 
 
 And La Porte speaks of the reign of the 
 Cardinal de Richelieu : La Porte was, of all men 
 in the kingdom, the man the least to be treated 
 with moderation. The relentless Minister was 
 personally interested either in despotically wrest- 
 ing from him a valuable secret of which he was 
 the confidant, or in vindictively tormenting him. 
 The Bastille had therefore at that time no bitter 
 potions of which he would not have drank, no 
 tortures which he would not have undergone. Let 
 his description be compared with mine. (3) 
 
 How has this increase of barbarities been 
 effected ? This I know not ; but woeful ex- 
 perience has only too well assured me of its 
 reality. Whilst the general manners seem in all 
 
lo MEMOIRS OF 
 
 respects to tend rather to softness than to rigour ; 
 whilst the reigning Prince discovers no views but 
 such as are benevolent ; whilst the sufferings even 
 of criminal convicts have been abated, in the 
 common prisons, by lenient regulations which his 
 orders have produced ; the only solicitude at the 
 Bastille is to multiply tortures for the affliction of 
 the innocent. The atrociousness of cruelty has 
 been enhanced in this, more than it has been 
 diminished in the other prisons. 
 
 To reveal this inconceivable depravity is, 
 under an equitable Prince, to render its reforma- 
 tion indispensable. Thus my last farswell to my 
 country is an additional service which I shall 
 render it ; my last homage to the virtuous King 
 who rules over it, will furnish him with a new 
 occasion of doing that good, which constituting 
 his delight, is the first object of his pursuit. 
 
 But is there no interdict, to prohibit the dis- 
 closure I am about to make? Can I without 
 scruple treat the several subjects which 1 have 
 engaged to discuss? Can I in cmncience let the 
 public into the secret of the terrible mysteries into 
 which the 27th of September 1780 has initiated 
 me? 
 
 The guardians of the Bastille have not indeed 
 at their disposal the waters of Lethe, to cancel in 
 the minds of their victims the remembrance of 
 their cruelties ; but they try to find a substitute 
 for them. Despotism, which makes silence one 
 of the torments of the Bastille during the period 
 of confinement, endeavours to make a religious 
 
THE BASTILLE. ii 
 
 duty of it at the termination of that period. 
 Kvery jfo/tas cast forth from its jaws is compelled 
 to SWEAR, t/iat he will never reveal, either directly 
 or indirectly, a tittle of what he may have learnt 
 or suffered there. 
 
 It is a Magistrate in the habit apparently con- 
 secrated to justice, (4) it is men of the Military 
 order, decorated with the external badge of an 
 honourable service, (5) and of a life devoted to 
 the defence of the citizens, who preside at this 
 last act of an oppression of which they have been 
 the instniments. Shewing the captive, half- 
 revived, the door which alone can completely 
 restore him to life, half-open, and ready instantly 
 to close upon him again if he hesitates ; they 
 leave him no alternative, but those of silence, 
 perjury, or death. 
 
 O ye well-informed of every Nation, rigid 
 casuists who know what honour and delicacy 
 prescribe, pronounce : Because my hands have 
 been unjustly bound, must my pen be restrained 
 too ? Certainly not : with one united voice you 
 decide, that the infraction of that scandalous en- 
 gagement is no perjury ; that it is the exaction, 
 not the violation of it, which constitutes the 
 guilt. 
 
 You have absolved the celebrated Dillon for 
 having snapped the reins that had been fabricated 
 by a religious Inquisition, which, having pre- 
 cisely the same principles as this political one, 
 employs the same resources to bury the disgrace 
 and the scandal of them. You are unanimous in 
 
12 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 renewing, and rendering for ever sacred, that 
 axiom, so dear to society, that axiom, which, 
 once forgotten, would give too unlimited a scope 
 to miscreants armed with power, "That the in- 
 stitution of an oath was intended to give stability 
 to lawful conventions ; to insure the observance of 
 the laws ; and not to defend, or assist in per- 
 petuating, the abuses which infringe them." 
 
 ^ to\ tot toi to* to, toi toi to, to to, to, to to to to to 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 My Return to England a measure of necessity. 
 
 AFTER what had passed in 1777 between the 
 Count de Vergcnnes and me, (6) that Minister 
 was, of all the Politicians in Europe, the one with 
 whom I ought to have had the least concern. 
 However, at the approach of the rupture between 
 France and England, in March 1778, reckoning 
 upon the reputation which he had acquired for 
 personal delicacy and private probity, I thought I 
 might run the risk of writing to him, to communi- 
 cate to him my unwillingness to remain in a 
 countiy which was going to become the enemy 
 of my own : I requested to be informed whether, 
 on changing my residence upon so patriotic a 
 principle, I might not have new persecutions to 
 apprehend from the French Ministry. I concluded 
 with these words : 
 
THE BASTILLE. 13 
 
 " I am perfectly sensible that the present situa- 
 " tion of affairs will not permit me to indulge 
 " the hope of immediate reparation : but my 
 " heart would rest contented with that which the 
 " Public is making me, if, in transplanting myself, 
 " I could reckon on the enjoyment of repose ; and 
 " I should reckon upon '\\. if I hcul your word of 
 " honour as a pledge. 
 
 " You will pardon me, after my innocence has 
 " been well, perhaps too well proved, that I think 
 " it necessary to take this precaution for my 
 ** safety : but such is the misfortune of my posi- 
 " tion ; and I dare believe that you will not be 
 " displeased with me on this account. If I distrust 
 " the Ministry, you see what confidence I place in 
 " the Minister." 
 
 The 20th of the same month, the Count de 
 Vergennes answered me in these terms, "You 
 " communicated to me, Sir, &c. The Count de 
 " Maurepas, to whom I have imparted it, eiitircly 
 " approves the resolution ; and he authorises me 
 " to signify to you, that you may banish all un- 
 " easiness on this head. .... I think. Sir, that 
 " under this assurance you may take such steps as 
 " you shall judge most convenient. / would not 
 ''give it to you, if I did not absolutely consider it, 
 " myself, as very certain." 
 
 The 7th of April following, I asked of the 
 Count de Vergennes a further explanation ; I made 
 a further sacrifice, more painful perhaps, more 
 
14 MEAWIRS OF 
 
 noble I can say with confidence, than even that of 
 my residence. {7) The Count dc Vergentws^ the 
 23d, writes me for answer : " I have received, 
 " Sir, yovu- letter ; upon which I can only confirm 
 " to yon what I have signified in my last, which 
 " announces to you, as well on the part of the 
 " Count de Maurcpas, as on my own, an entire 
 " SAFETY FOR YOUR PERSON in the new habita- 
 " tion which you propose to yourself. I repeat 
 " to you very cordially the assurance of it, and 
 " that o[ leaving it in your option to continue your 
 ' ' literary labours ; being well convinced that 
 "neither the King, Religion, nor the State, will 
 " be attacked therein." 
 
 Upon this safe-guard, solemn as we have just 
 seen it, well authenticated, and totally uncondi- 
 tional, I quitted England. I settled at Brussels. 
 I made several journeys to France in 1778 and 
 1779. I saw the Ministers. The Annals con- 
 tinued to have a circulation not less free than 
 honourable ; and I presume to say, that in no 
 work which Literature has produced, have the 
 King, Religion, and the State, been more scrupu- 
 lously respected. 
 
 The 27th of Sept. 1780, however, having been 
 inveigled to Paris by a series of treacherous arti- 
 fices, some of which I shall instance elsewhere, I 
 found myself arrested in broad day-light, and this 
 with studied and complicated circumstances of 
 ignominy ; (8) plunged into dungeons which in 
 appearance are destined exclusively for the enemies 
 
THE BASTILLE. 75 
 
 of the King, or Rdigion, and of the State ; and 
 given up, in my person, in my honour, and in my 
 fortune, to every indignity in which barbarous 
 jailors, licentious calumniators, greedy prostitutes, 
 and faithless agents, could indulge themselves. 
 
 At the expiration of twenty months, without 
 any kind of mitigation, or explanation, my captivity . 
 apparently ended on the 19th of May 17S2 ; when 
 in reality it only assumed a different form. The 
 Lieutenant-general of the Police of Paris, coming 
 with great parade to announce to me that I was 
 no longer a prisoner, signified to me that I was 
 exiled: he delivered me an order which banished 
 me to a little town at the distance of forty leagues 
 from Paris, with a prohibition to depart from it 
 
 ON PAIN OF DISOBEDIENCE. 
 
 Though they did not deign to be more explicit 
 on the motive of my exile than on that of my 
 imprisonment ; though I had the greatest reason 
 to believe that this recent blow was levelled by 
 the Ministry, not by the King, I submitted to it 
 without demur. I asked only two favours very 
 simple ; the one, permission to stay at Paris, at 
 least till I should have recovered strength sufficient 
 to remove from it. and have drawn what was neces- 
 sary for my subsistence out of hands more than 
 suspicious, which by strange manceuvres were 
 become possessed of almost all my property ; the 
 other, to go to spend some days at Brussels, in 
 order to put an end to the confusion which for two 
 years past had been mouldering away the rest of 
 my fortune. 
 
i6 MEMOIRS 01= 
 
 I ought the rather to have hoped for a com- 
 pliance with these two requests, as the disorder I 
 had to remedy proceeded directly from the Fretuh 
 Ministry. They had caused to be ministerially 
 demanded at Brussels, in the name of the King of 
 France, by the Charge- d'affaires of Fraiice, (9) 
 seconded by an Exempt of the PoUce of Paris, 
 (10) and by a Deputy whom I shall elsewhere 
 name (11) the remittance not only of my papers, 
 but of my money : and what they did not carry 
 away, they dissipated. They paid, at my expence, 
 the travelling expences of the Under-minister, (12) 
 of the Exempt in chief, of the Exempt en second: 
 they paid a guard, whose service consisted in 
 pillaging, under pretence of presemng : they paid 
 the Officers of the country, eager to dispute with 
 the foreign Officers the property of which they were 
 despoiling me ; and French injustice was lavish of 
 my money towards the justice oi Brabant. 
 
 Having, moreover, on the recovery of my 
 existence, a new present to make to my country ; 
 having to give experimental proof of an invention 
 extremely valuable ; to realise, for public utility, 
 a project I had devised for rendering the light 
 subservient to a purpose yet unknown, and that at 
 a time when my eyes w^ere strangers to it ; the 
 confidence with which I expected the modification, 
 nay the revocation of my exile, was certainly not 
 ill-founded. 
 
 Curiosity procured me a short respite on the 
 first point ; and it was not left ungratified. I 
 made the experiment; it succeeded. (13) That 
 
THE BASTILLE. 17 
 
 very day, I received the injunction, Depart for 
 Retliel, and stir net tlunce ; though, in order to 
 obtain permission to go to Brussels. I would have 
 pledged myself, verbally, and in writing, to return 
 immediately ; though for a month past I had 
 incessantly renewed the promise, already offered 
 from the bottom of my tomb, not, as some of the 
 public prints have had the weakness or the 
 malignity to give out, to write only in subserviency 
 to the views of the French Ministry, but 
 absolutely not to write any more, if that were 
 required of me ; to shut myself up in total silence, 
 provided that, in lieu of this sacrifice, the common 
 rights of a Citizen at least were restored to me ; 
 (14) provided that, for consenting to remain 
 useless to society, since that was exacted of me, 
 they would cease to treat me more rigorously than 
 so many men who are a burthen to it. I tempered, 
 in short, these entreaties, and these offers, with a 
 degree of meekness and submission, at which 
 impartial men who were privy to my conduct were 
 almost offended ; and some of them were inclined 
 to think, that at length my heart was subdued, or 
 my understanding had given way, under the excess 
 of misfortune. 
 
 They were mistaken : my conduct at this ■ 
 juncture differed not from that which I had 
 observed on every other occasion of my life : I 
 have never had recourse to measures calculated to 
 attract the public eye, till I had tried every 
 imaginable way of avoiding them. 
 
 And here it was not till I was left without a 
 
 2 
 
1 8 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 shadow of doubt that a plan had been formed to 
 embitter the rest of my days, to complete the 
 destruction of every kind of resource which yet 
 remained to me, in sequestering me alike from my 
 friends and my concerns, that I at length deter- 
 mined on a step become indispensibly necessary. 
 
 Even then I listened to the scruples of a loyal 
 subject, who respects the name of his Prince, in 
 the very abuses which his Ministers dare to make 
 of it. Returning to Brussels, I had at first no 
 idea of seeking any other retreat. Though strack 
 with horror at the devastation of my house, with 
 indignation at the innumerable instances of mean- 
 ness and infidelity committed by the Ministerial 
 Agents who had flocked thither to treat my effects 
 as my person had been treated at Paris ; I 
 contented myself with regretting my losses, and 
 gathering together the wrecks of my fortune. My 
 only wish was, to find some means of diverting 
 my grief. 
 
 I had in contemplation a journey of several 
 years : after having paid my homage at the feet of 
 a Prince who gives such exemplary lessons of real 
 greatness to all other Princes, and who restores to 
 the throne of the Casars a degree of lustre with 
 which it is long since any throne has been graced ; 
 my intention was to travel into Italy, to tiy to 
 forget, in the study of the monuments of past ages, 
 what I have suffered in the present. 
 
 This indirect method of acting in conformity to 
 the views of the French Ministry was not however 
 allowed me. I was informed by some faithful 
 
THE BASTILLE. 19 
 
 friend, that not to have piqued myself on an 
 obedience perfectly literal, was with them no 
 venial offence ; and that by ambuscades prepared 
 on my way, the road to Italy would, to me, 
 infallibly become the road back to the Bastille. 
 
 As I received this intelligence from the same 
 hand which had forewarned me of the first Leltre- 
 de-cachet (for such warning I had received, though 
 I had refused to listen to it) I thought it not 
 prudent to brave a second. Between these 
 Ministerial boons and me I have placed a barrier 
 too wide for them to clear. My real protectors, 
 those who have contributed to my safety, will 
 doubtless not be displeased that I have taken 
 effectual precautions to preserve the fruit of their 
 kindness. If there are others who consider those 
 precautions with resentment, by that very re- 
 sentment they prove their necessity. 
 
 I would ask now of all honest and impartial 
 men, What could I have done, which I have not 
 done ? What have I done, which I have not been 
 obliged to do ? 
 
 Let them deign to reflect a moment on the 
 circumstances which have accompanied and fol" 
 lowed the restitution of my liberty. What ! to 
 the order for my departure from Paris, where I 
 had business of the last emergency, subjoin 
 another, prohibiting me from going to Brussels, 
 where concerns not less important demanded my 
 presence ! The only answer to the prayers, the 
 offers, the very humiliations, by which I hoped to 
 obtain a dispensation from one of those two 
 
20 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 injunctions, is a third, condemning me, after a 
 state of inactivity, to a suspension of existence, of 
 two years duration, to continue to vegetate in the 
 gloomy recess of an obscure borough, in irlssome 
 and fatal indolence. These are the favours, the 
 bounties, that succeed to an oppression un- 
 precedented in all its circumstances ! 
 
 What could be the object of them ? Was it to 
 punish me ? Alas for what ! What was my 
 crime ? Had they ever told me ? Did they even 
 then tell me? The justice they had at length so 
 reluctantly rendered me, sufficiently proved my 
 innocence. Who will believe, that if they could 
 have conjured up the shadow of a pretence for 
 loading me with perpetual chains, they would 
 have broken those to which they had destined me 
 without any pretence? A malefactor convicted 
 and condemned may indeed receive as a favour 
 the migitation of his punishment : but an inno- 
 cent man ! 
 
 Was it my duty to consider this caprice of the 
 Ministry as a mark of paternal attention? They 
 certainly did not affect to treat me as those are 
 treated, who having long been deprived of sus- 
 tenance, are become voracious in their appetite. It is 
 by slow degrees that a skilful Physician prescribes 
 to such patients that nourishment in which too 
 sudden and liberal an indulgence might expose 
 them to suffocation. In all probability it was not 
 the sudden effect of too free an air that was 
 apprehended on my account ; it was not to render 
 the regimen of libei'ty more salutary to me, that 
 
THE BASTILLE. 21 
 
 they had tlie delicacy to restore me to it only by 
 Imperceptible gradations. 
 
 If this political diet had an object, it was not 
 to me that they meant to spare the dangers of it. 
 What it was really designed to prevent, was the 
 explosion of those sighs which had been accumu- 
 lating during two twelve months of despair ; it was 
 the first aspirations of a heart tortured during that 
 period with such cool barbarity, with so composed 
 a neglect of every thing that was just : it was my 
 well-grounded complaint against a species of 
 violence which has cut off two years of my life ; 
 against those outrages, of which the effects will 
 curtail the remainder of it ; against a sort of 
 treatment which ever has been, and perhaps ever 
 ■wiU be, without example, even at the Bastille. 
 This is what they dreaded. 
 
 But, not to have made of this precaution a new 
 outrage, an additional iniquity, it was at least 
 necessary to have reconciled it with the arrange- 
 ment of my personal affairs, with the care of 
 my domestic concerns. I was suing neither for 
 pension, nor indemnity, nor appointment ; I solicited 
 nothing but permission to collect the fragments of 
 my property, wantonly attacked, and still more 
 wantonly dissipated. Without this permission ; 
 pillj^ed by the substitutes of the Fretuh Ministry, 
 of the French Police ; ruined by a perfidious Agent , 
 unable to recover the arrears due to me, to remedy 
 past, or prevent future depredations ; how was I 
 to have subsisted at Retliel Mazarine ? Are these 
 Lettres-de-cachet , then. Letters of exchange ? 
 
22 MEMOIRS, OF 
 
 It has been publickly intimated, that when I was 
 put to the final test, rewards were held out to me ; 
 that, if I had endured with resignation this last act 
 of my martyrdom, coronets were preparing for 
 me ; but that I had rejected all with disdain, 
 preferring the blind expectation of revenge to the 
 peaceable enjoyment of those benefactions which 
 would have been a full indemnity for my mis- 
 fortunes. 
 
 Nothing can be more false. The only re- 
 compence which was announced to me was the 
 chance of learning one day or otJier, after being 
 for a long time very obedient^ THE TRUE CAUSE OF 
 MY CONFINEMENT. It Was by a man in favour 
 that this allurement was offered to me. A man 
 in place contented himself with saying. If you wish 
 to live here, TRY TO BE FORGOTTEN. 
 
 I judged it more easy, more safe, more neces- 
 sary, to try to make my escape ; but I once more 
 declare ; obsequious even in my apparent dis- 
 obedience; still cherishing, and revering, the bands 
 from which however those of the Bastille had but 
 too fully absolved me ; it was in the vicinity of 
 my country, it was in a territory which (if I may 
 so express myself) is a continuation of it, that I 
 should have been content to seek a retreat, if this 
 could have been insured me ; and nothing but the 
 excess of prevarication, and of danger, could have 
 driven me back to the inaccessible asylum where 
 I now am, and which I ought never to have 
 quitted. 
 
 Those who are alarmed, perhaps not without 
 
THE BASTILLE. 23 
 
 cause, at the retreat and the independence which 
 I now enjoy, will not fail to arm themselves with 
 the only specious pretext which could serve the 
 purposes of their malignity. They will accuse me 
 of ingratitude and revolt : they will say, that if no 
 State-crime is to be found in my past conduct, the 
 choice of my present asylum is one : they will 
 paint as a criminal escape the effort which they 
 have rendered indispensible : they will produce, 
 as a proof of the justness of those prepossessions 
 which they opposed to the restitution of my liberty, 
 the use which they have forced me to make of it, 
 and the exercise of a faculty which, they will say, 
 it was in their pmver to with-hold from me. 
 
 That it was in their power to with-hold it, is 
 not to be doubted. Men possessed of force have 
 it always in their option to retain, without limita- 
 tion of time, what they have seized without colour 
 of right : nothing is more clear. But that is not 
 the point in agitation. 
 
 The question is only, on the one hand, whether, 
 because a grovmdless captivity has not been an 
 endless one too, I ought blindly to have submitted 
 to the continuation of that rigour which originated 
 in iniquity ; and on the other hand, whether 
 having estimated the validity of a prohibition 
 repugnant to reason and justice, and in which it 
 is impossible to suppose the King had any partici . 
 pation, I could have thought myself secure, any 
 where else but in England, against that Ministerial 
 despotism which had not respected even its own 
 solemn protection ? 
 
24 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 The engagement, totally useless, but very 
 authentic, which was signed in the name of the 
 Count de Maurepas, who no longer exists, by the 
 Count de Vergetmes, who is still in existence, must 
 not be forgotten : by this engagement, as hath 
 been seen above, the safety of my person was 
 guaranteed, not, as is pretended, for a limited 
 time, but for ever, and without any restriction, 
 or at least without any other restriction, even 
 implied, than that, with which most assuredly I 
 have not failed in my compliance, of continuing to 
 respect the King, Religion, and the State. 
 
 Has the King been left unapprised of this basis 
 of my security in his dominions? or rather, in 
 traducing me to him in order to destroy the 
 esteem with which he honoured me, in order 
 to determine him to that rigour to which the 
 truth would certainly not have induced him, have 
 they persuaded him that this barrier ought to 
 be no obstacle to that rigour ? Of this 1 know 
 nothing. 
 
 What I do know is, that with my protection 
 and my innocence, under a mild and an equitable 
 reign, I have been treated, during two years, not 
 as a person accused, pre-admonished of some 
 offence ; (for against such a man an action is 
 commenced ; he is informed of the accusation on 
 which it is grounded ; he is allowed to make his 
 defence ;) but as a delinquent convicted of High 
 Treason, with every concomitant aggravation. 
 Now, the parole of the Ministers of france, and 
 the rectitude of my conduct, having failed me as 
 
THE BASTILLE. 25 
 
 guarantee for the past, when their vindictive 
 perfidy was left without a pretext ; what had I 
 to expect in future, whilst I remained in the vicinity 
 of France, after having, by a measure lawful 
 indeed, and necessary, but contrary to their will, 
 furnished, according to the rules of their im- 
 placable despotism, a specious pretext for some 
 further oppression ? I could not flatter myself 
 that I should be less reprehensible : could I 
 expect that they would become more religiously 
 scrupulous ? 
 
 Circumstanced as I then was, had I a free 
 choice of my retreat ? Could, I or ought I to 
 have hesitated between the Bastille and Great 
 Britain ? After having quitted without disgrace, 
 perhaps with glory, this generous Nation, might I 
 not without remorse come back to implore its 
 protection ? 
 
 to, to> tov ^ ^ ^ tot toi to to to to to to to. to to 
 
 ^r ^r ^r ^r ^K ^S ^9 ^r ^r ^S ^ff ^ff ^ff ^r ^r ^9 ^B 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 My Confinement hail no just Motive. 
 
 FAIRLY acquitted of the charge of ingratitude 
 or revolt in the use I have made of the liberty 
 restored to me, I think I ought not to suffer a 
 
26 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 shadow of doubt to subsist with regard to the 
 causes which deprived me of it, or rather with 
 regard to the real fact, which is, that there has 
 been no cause which could be rationally assigned 
 for the abuse of power, of which that privation 
 has been the result. A summary discussion of 
 this matter is what I owe to myself, to my 
 friends, to the confidence of those honest men, 
 who, judging of my disposition by their own, 
 have, on the sole presumption of my innocence, 
 constantly engaged in my defence. To them I 
 must demonstrate, that in this prepossession they 
 have not been mistaken. 
 
 My reputation has been too long consigned to 
 the fury of my enemies, who were then under 
 no apprehensions of being refuted ; and to the 
 licentiousness of news-writers, justified, it is true, 
 by the parade and the rigour of my imprisonment. 
 How indeed could they imagine, that under a 
 government not absolutely atrocious, and parti- 
 cularly under a King whose good designs are 
 sufficiently evident, a degree of treatment so 
 severe should be without an adequate cause ? 
 
 A foreign Minister, who interested himself 
 warmly in my behalf, as well from his own 
 inclination, as by the special command of his 
 sovereign, told me, at the time of my release, 
 that no State-Affair had ever been more gravely 
 discussed than mine was ; and that in .spite of his 
 propensity to believe me innocent, he had con- 
 cluded, from the manner in which he was silenced 
 whenever he renewed his solicitations, that I was 
 
THE BASTILLE. 27 
 
 guilty of some treasonable offence, of which it was 
 a mark of great lenity in government not to preci- 
 pitate the chastisement. 
 
 All those, indeed, who made any efforts in my 
 favour, found a like reception. At one time a 
 chilling silence ; at another, some tokens of pity 
 and regret ; now encomiums, even, which seemed 
 to indicate a friendly disposition towards me, 
 rendered ineffectual by causes exceedingly ter- 
 rible ; then half-words, which left a boundless 
 and very melancholy scope to the imagination, on 
 the enormity of the offence, and on the duration 
 as well as justice of the punishment ; — that is 
 what my friends experienced from men in place ; 
 from those, at least, to whom it could not be 
 supposed the real motives of my confinement 
 were unknown. 
 
 It is inconceivable, I confess, not only that the 
 object of a system of intrigue like this, should in 
 the issue prove absolutely innocent, but that he 
 should never have been even arraigned : it is no 
 less so, that in giving up his person to such 
 treatment as crimes of the greatest magnitude, 
 established on the clearest evidence, would hardly 
 have justified, they should with an unfeeling dis- 
 regard sacrifice his honour likewise to public 
 wantonness and malignity ; that they should au- 
 thorise that malignity to consider, to give out, 
 as a proof of his delinquency, the iniquitous 
 rigour with which he was overwhelmed ; that 
 the authors of those perfidious insinuations should 
 be those very men who best knew the iniquity. 
 
28 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 and the danger of them ; in a word, that this 
 danger and this iniquity should constitute a part 
 of their vindictive schemes, of the selfish plan to 
 which they meant to render these injurious false- 
 hoods subservient. 
 
 It is inconceivable that a Ministry capable of 
 cmelties so refined, so uniformly persevered in, 
 and of such profound hypocrisy, should exist ; that 
 men engaged, or supposed to be engaged, in the 
 most important public affairs, should find time to 
 concert so scandalous an imposition ; that they 
 should thus colleague to deceive at once the 
 Prince who honours them with his confidence, 
 and the Public who are witnesses of their conduct ; 
 that they should enter into a confederacy to effect, 
 by such machinations, the destruction — of whom ? 
 Of a private individual, an irreproachable character, 
 whose only fault has been to have too tenderly 
 loved his country, and to have had too implicit a 
 confidence in their plighted word. This, however, 
 is a fact no less true than astonishing. 
 
 I know not (I must say it again) what may 
 have been told to the King ; what calumnies may 
 have been employed to make the apparent 
 necessity of crushing me, as if by a thunder-clap, 
 preponderate in his mind against the pleasure he 
 appeared to take in reading my works, and the 
 propensity he had to protect me. Not a word of 
 this has ever been communicated to me : during 
 my twenty months confinement, I have never 
 undergone the shadow of an interrogatory, not the 
 least appearance of an examination. And here 
 
THE BASTILLE. 29 
 
 in the face of all Europe, I solemnly defy the 
 French Ministers to produce one single act, to 
 prove that in their proceedings against me they 
 have regarded the least formahty. 
 
 My enlargement, as hath already been shewn, 
 was accompanied with the same mystery : in the 
 order of exile the same silence has been observed : 
 so that I know not precisely against what to 
 justify myself ; since I am absolutely ignorant of 
 what they might have laid to my charge. 
 
 This very silence, observed towards a man who 
 was languishing under every species of aggravated 
 cruelty, in which a full and striking conviction is 
 implied, bespeaks, doubtless, a strong prepossession 
 in his favour. It is what all laws universally 
 proscribe ; what is no where allowed but at the 
 Bastille ; and what perhaps, even there, except in 
 my case alone, they have never dared to venture 
 upon. The nullity or the falsehood of accusation 
 would need no other proof. 
 
 But what is more, what will effectually remove 
 the last degree of doubt, is, that I have been 
 incessantly told at the Bastille, that my confine- 
 ment originated in the immediate and direct will 
 of the King ; that I was not a man so obscure, so 
 insignificant, that such a stroke of authority would 
 have been hazarded against me without his 
 consent. This is the sacred barrier that has been 
 constantly opposed to my endeavours to attain, if 
 not the full discovery, at least a partial glimpse, 
 of the ground, so cautiously concealed, of my 
 imprisonment. It is, then, on some kind of 
 
30 MEMOIRS OB 
 
 delinquency, on some express and positive accusa- 
 tion, that this will, this consent, have been founded. 
 
 Ah, ye audacious calumniators ! whose attempt 
 to rob me of the esteem of that Protector whom 
 nature and providence had given me, might have 
 prevailed, it is before his footstool that I summon 
 you : it is in the presence of Him whose honest 
 and liberal soul you have abused, that I impeach 
 \ you. If you have said any thing to him, which 
 could for a moment bring in question my loyalty 
 to his person, my devotion to his interests, my 
 horror for every kind of intrigue in general, and 
 especially for such as might have had an opposite 
 tendency ; I declare to you in formal terms, that 
 every word you have uttered has been a lye. 
 
 Do not flatter yourselves that you will be able 
 to shrink from my representations, under the veil, 
 so often profaned, of respect due to Secrets of 
 State : do not deceive yourselves in the vain hope 
 that this will conceal the springs of your fraudu- 
 lent despotism, as the Bastille conceals its opera- 
 tions. No ; I will pursue you into that asylum 
 which you pollute : I will there resound, without 
 ceasing, these words, so terrible to you, and to 
 which perhaps the equitable Monarch, in whose 
 presence I address them to you, will not be 
 insensible : "You have basely imposed upon him. 
 "My conduct and my writings have always been 
 " incorrupt as my heart." 
 
 You have suffered it to be said, to be affirmed, 
 to be printed in all the public papers, ' ' That I 
 " had composed and communicated Memoirs 
 
THE BASTILLE. 31 
 
 ' ' calculated to draw embarassing claims upon 
 " France, or at least to awaken the desire of 
 ■ ** asserting them." This is the rumour which I 
 found to have most generally obtained, on my 
 resurrection from my grave ; this is the opprobrium 
 to which you had devoted my ashes, if, in spite of 
 your endeavours, an all-powerful hand had not 
 snatched me out of it. 
 
 Perhaps your view in opposing yourselves to 
 my return to Brussels^ was still to confirm, to 
 give additional credit to that falsehood, so criminal, 
 and so absurd. Perhaps, after having had the 
 cunning to render it'probable in the eyes of those 
 whom you wished to deceive, you have had that 
 too of retarding an eclaircissement between the two 
 Sovereigns whom it concerned, and of preventing 
 an explanation by which I should have been 
 justified. 
 
 Nay, perhaps dreading the protection with 
 which I was honoured by the august and virtuous 
 Princess who is the band of their union, you have 
 forged this calumny merely to reduce her to silence 
 when my affair should be the object of discussion. 
 Consort of the one, and sister of the other, till 
 facts were cleared up, she must have been cautious 
 of appearing to interest herself for a man suspected 
 of having failed of his duty alike towards them 
 both : and how were those facts to be cleared, 
 when on the delicate subject, on which you had 
 raised suspicions, it was so easy to elude an eclair- 
 cissevient. 
 
 Your interest, however, will not enable you to 
 
32 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 stifle this my solemn protestation. Exclusively 
 limited in my literary toils, I have indulged myself 
 in no other political speculations whatever, but 
 those I have published in the Annals : and, for 
 the sake of refuting the falsehood which you have 
 either invented, or tolerated, I here presume to 
 invoke that august Sovereign whose name is called 
 in question. Far from giving myself up to that 
 unaccountable madness which would have disposed 
 me to foretell and to justify the dismemberment 
 ol France., it is in her bosom that with unceasing 
 views I have been preparing myself a retreat : it 
 is on her prosperity that I have perpetually rested 
 the dependance of my own, till the very moment 
 in which you have requited the tenderest attach- 
 ment with torments scarcely reserved for her most 
 implacable enemies ; till that moment, of all her 
 children none has been more affectionately obedient, 
 of all her subjects none more scrupulously faithful. 
 If I had ever conceived the idea of a sentiment 
 different from those I here unfold, some traces of 
 it must doubtless still exist. Ah ! dare then to 
 disclose them ; bring forth into open day : ransack 
 your bureaux ; put in motion the priviledged spies 
 whose clandestine zeal you have so dearly paid. 
 If at length I am found guilty, the boldness of my 
 denial will ultimately excite, in those with whom 
 the proofs of my perfidy are deposited, a degree 
 of indignation proportioned to the contempt with 
 which my original treachery would have inspired 
 them in the beginning : they will be eager to assist 
 you in bringing to confusion an hypocritical im- 
 
THE BASTILLE. 33 
 
 postor, who should dare to flatter himself that he 
 could impose on your indulgence, who should so 
 strenuously endeavour to reconcile the appearance 
 of virtue with the stratagems of iniquity. There 
 is neither State-concern^ nor State-secret^ which can 
 possibly be an obstacle to discoveries that would 
 be so dear to you. 
 
 But far, very far, am I from fearing, them ! 
 My conduct, as my works in general, without the 
 least exception, has constantly borne the stamp of 
 one uniform sentiment ; J mean, that of a patriotic 
 enthusiasm, a delicacy on this point, carried to the 
 extreme. Here, my tongue, my pen, and my 
 heart, have been invariably in unison. Here I 
 have left no alternative, but those of refuting me 
 upon facts, or of acknowledging how odious, how 
 criminal, have been those artifices which could for 
 a moment render my innocence problematical. 
 
 But has my private correspondence been equally 
 unexceptionable as my public conduct ? Have I not 
 been guilty of some internal act of imprudence, 
 some secret indiscretion, sufficient to justify the 
 animadversion of government? Have I not 
 shocked some man in power, to whose rank some 
 reparation may have been judged due ? This is 
 the last resource of my persecutors : it is also the 
 last stroke of that fatality which has destined me 
 to be a model of passive oppression in every possible 
 way. 
 
 Is it not strange, after what I have suffered 
 from the fury of Corporations, from the prevarica- 
 tion of men in place,, that I sliould be obliged to 
 
 3 
 
3+ MEMOIRS OF 
 
 vindicate myself on such an occasion as this ; to 
 give an account of every sigh which indignation 
 has extorted from me, of all the convulsions which 
 grief has thrown me into ? I must not however 
 decline the enumeration ; both because it is neces- 
 sary, and because it will complete the discovery of 
 all those enormities, of all that cowardice, of which 
 I have been the victim. 
 
 The only complaint, of the kind last mentioned, 
 which has been communicated to me, that which 
 has been presented to me as the sole cause of my 
 confinement, is a letter to the Marshal de Duras. 
 I pretend not to justify it, and its discussion would 
 be useless ; but it was a private letter, which 
 concerned him only in his private character ; a 
 letter, which had been challenged, and even 
 necessitated by a sort of conduct more reprehen- 
 sible than the letter itself was violent ; a secret 
 letter, which I have never exposed ; a letter which 
 I have never denied to have written, because I am 
 not capable of a lye, but which the Marshal de 
 jDuras, at least in public, has always denied to 
 have received ; a letter of which he constantly 
 averred he had made no complaint ; of which he 
 had in fact made so little, that, notwithstanding 
 my requisitions, they could not produce me the 
 original ; and which, consequently, could by no 
 means constitute the ground of any suit or punish- 
 ment whatsoever ; a letter, in short, upon which 
 ray answer, when I was asked if I had written it, 
 ought to have put Hatred to the blush, and made 
 Vengeance drop her arms. (17) 
 
THE BASTILLE. 35 
 
 Whatever it was, it is evident that the exposure 
 of it could alone render it criminal ; and it had not 
 been exposed. Whatever it was, though it had 
 even been published with as much scandal as that 
 which accompanied my confinement, it was no 
 State-crime. Whatever it was certainly it could 
 not have justified twenty months imprisonment in 
 the Bastille, with a continuance of the most 
 atrocious treatment of which that infernal precinct 
 had even been the theatre. 
 
 I am well aware that my readers will be curious 
 to know the tenour of this piece, so fatal, and so 
 mysterious ; and, were I sensible to the thirst of 
 vengeance alone, I should certainly make it public. 
 But, here again I am tenacious of my respect even 
 for the intentions of the King : my letter no sooner 
 appears to move his displeasure, than I abandon 
 it ; I sacrifice it to the opinion which he entertains 
 of it, setting no higher value on this last homage, 
 than the satisfaction of having paid it. (18) 
 
 But in the cabinet of the French Ministers there 
 exists another letter, which has contributed, perhaps 
 in a greater degree than the former, to my mis- 
 fortune. This, however, they have taken effectual 
 care to keep back from the eyes of the King : if, 
 indeed, it had been laid before him, it would have 
 secured me against all I have suffered. I was 
 never so much as once reminded of it : but, as 
 I have not a doubt that it had much greater 
 influence, than the other, on the resolution of 
 the Ministry; as it is evident, that in making 
 use of the former to irritate the mind of the 
 
36 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 King, they had the discretion to conceal from 
 him the latter, which could only alarm and ex- 
 asperate his Ministers, I am of opinion that I 
 ought to give it a place here. 
 
 This letter was dated on the morrow after that 
 to the Marshal de JDuras : it was addressed to 
 M. Le Noi>\ Lieutenant of the Police, through 
 whose hands the Annates regularly passed, in 
 order to be delivered to the distributor. 
 
 It is necessary to recollect, that in March, 1770, 
 the 59th and 60th Numbers had been successively 
 stopped, at the solicitation of the Marshal de 
 Duras, and the Parliament of Paris. The first 
 suppression I had patiently submitted to ; on the 
 second, I wrote, the 7th of April, 1780, to the 
 Marshal de Duras, the letter which he does not 
 hand about, nor I neither ; and on the morrow, to 
 M. Le Noir, that which follows. 
 
 Brussels, April 8, 1 780. 
 " Sir, 
 
 " After having, in my letter of yesterday, given 
 " way, to an indignation too well founded, I am 
 ' ' go'"g to make some further efforts in the name 
 "of justice and reason; though I have learnt, 
 '* to my cost, how little weight they have in 
 *' Fra7ice against interest and intrigue. The fol- 
 " lowing is a short memorial, which I entreat 
 " you to lay before the eyes of the Ministers : 
 " they will not fail to impute it, still, to my 
 " obstinacy ; but I presume it should be ascriiied 
 " to the goodness of my cause. 
 
THE BASTILLE. 37 
 
 ' ' I cannot conceive that the Marshal de Duras 
 " would wish to iigiive any longer in public. I 
 " confess, that nothing can be added to what the 
 " Count Desgrie has told him : however, it is 
 "something to repeat it, and to remark to the 
 " Public, that the Marshal has obtained no 
 " satisfaction for it. It appears to me, that in 
 " his situation, he ought, of all things, to avoid 
 " making a noise in the world ; and he is going 
 " to make more than he has ever done in his 
 " life. 
 
 " Be this as it may, I can only repeat to you 
 " what I have already had the honour of saying 
 " to you several times, on my aversion to be 
 ** again involved in the bickerings of past times, 
 *' on the ardent desire I have of being no more 
 " exposed to them ; but, at the same time, on the 
 " courage with which I shall support myself under 
 " them. It will cost me my fortune ; but I am 
 ** accustomed to sacrifices. 
 
 " The sale of the N»^ LIX. and LX. of the 
 " AnnaUs has been stopped at Paris : they are 
 * * published and circulated in Eiigland^ in Holland, 
 " in Germany, in the Lmv-Countries ; and even in 
 " France by the pirates who counterfeit them. To 
 " suppress in Paris only the genuine edition, 
 " whilst all the others are tolerated, and even 
 " encouraged, is to do an act of injustice at once 
 " very shocking, and totally useless : it will not 
 "hinder the prohibited Numbers from finding 
 " their way into Paris ; it will only render them 
 " more noted, more sought for, and more valuable : 
 
38 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 ' the desire of them will be only the more lively, 
 ' and of longer continuance. I don't see what the 
 ' parties concerned have to gain by it. 
 
 "These Numbers contain nothing censurable ; 
 ' far from it : the 59th might have been infinitely 
 
 * more severe. I do not imagine that the interests 
 ' of the very ridiculous Nephew of M. de Lcyrit 
 ' (19) have the least weight in this suppression. 
 ' The only object, then, is to spare the Marshal 
 ' de Duras the disagreeable circumstances of a 
 ' mortifying reflection on his affair. But is that 
 ' peculiar to this Number ? or rather, is it not 
 ' there that it is softened, at least to the ad- 
 ' vantage of the commandant ? 
 
 " When two men, destined by their birth and 
 condition to give an example of probity in their 
 ' actions, and of delicacy in their words, mutually 
 ' accuse each other, in the face of all Europe of 
 ' every kind of knavery, and larce7ty, making use 
 ' of those very terms ; and when they have 
 ' recourse to a regular Tribunal to obtain re- 
 ' paration and justice ; if that Tribunal leaves 
 
 * the affair undecided, it commits at least one 
 ' act of prevarication, and perhaps two. If one 
 ' of the parties is guilty, it is scandalous that he 
 ' is not punished : if neither of them is so, it is 
 
 * yet more scandalous, that the decree of the 
 ' Court should encrease suspicions, instead of 
 
 * destroying them ; should stigmatise two innocent 
 
 * men, instead of acquitting them. This is all 
 ' that I have said ; and it is upon the judges 
 ' that my reficctiun falls. The X^ublic is not 
 
THE BASTILLE. 
 
 39 
 
 " so indulgent : it is the Writer of Castellan 
 " whom it points out as the man really guilty ; 
 "and the supplicated suppression of the 59th 
 " Number will not reinstate him. 
 
 " As to the contents of N". LX. they are facts. ,- 
 " The vexations of the Parliaments ; their secret 
 " tyrannies ; the support which the Members all 
 " think they owe one to the other, and in reality 
 " afford one another on occasions where they 
 " ought the least to allow themselves to con- 
 " found their legal character with their private 
 " interests ; — the corruptness of the Secretaries ; 
 " their intrigues, their perfidies, their custom of 
 " extorting fees on both sides, are notorious 
 " matters. As authority does not deign either 
 " to punish, or repress these abuses, it is necessary 
 ** at least that the certainty of not being able to 
 " screen them from public censure, should put 
 " some kind of restraint upon them : it is the 
 "interest of Government; it is the interest of 
 " those very Companies who are degraded by so 
 " many excesses. 
 
 " Whilst I wrote from ENGLAND, I was exposed 
 ' ' to none of these broils ; (20) and I wrote things 
 " much more forcible. It is however upon the 
 ' ' plan conceived, digested, and executed in Eng- 
 ' ' land, and well known in France, that the 
 " agi-eements took place between the Public in 
 " France, the Posts of France, and myself. It 
 " was in conformity to that plan that subscrip- 
 " tions were opened and received ; that the 
 " circulation of the work was authorised ; and 
 
40 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 *' that the King accepted the copies which I 
 " addressed immediately to him. It was not 
 " stipulated as a condition, that I should respect 
 " the cowardice of the Marshals of France, if 
 " either of them should be guilty of any, or the 
 " prevarication of the Tribunals. No such terms 
 "were proposed to me; none such should I 
 " have accepted. 
 
 "I never meant to subject myself to any 
 *' Censorial power : on the contrary, I have loudly 
 "protested, I have more than once declared in 
 "print, that I would never have any other Censor 
 ' ' than my own delicacy. I have not said one 
 "word which might subject that to be called in 
 "question. Whence then those trammels in 
 "which they take upon them to confine me ? 
 
 ' ' Repassing the sea, I have changed my 
 "situation, but not my heart: I have without 
 "reluctance sacrificed my fortune; I will never 
 ''sacrifice my independence, nor the prerogatives 
 "to which a solemn obligation has entitled me. 
 "I may suffer for my passionate regard for France, 
 " for my confidence in the Ministry of France, for 
 " my absolute devotion to my Country : I may be 
 "determined, by downright disgust, to leave off" 
 "writing; but I shall never be reduced to write 
 " like a slave. Of all the indemnities due to me 
 "from the Government of France, that which I 
 " believe to be the least costly, and I am sure is 
 "the most useful to her, is the freedom of my 
 " pen ! " 
 
THE BASTILLE. 41 
 
 This letter I do not doubt, I never have 
 doubted, though I have never spoken of it, as the 
 real cause of my misfortunes : this is what has 
 determined the Ministry of France to seize the 
 opportunity of revenge. At the time of my 
 departure from England, they could not refuse to 
 the firmness, the integrity of my conduct, the 
 solemn protection of which I have spoken ; and 
 since that time they have not been able to find 
 any pretence to violate it. 
 
 Further, I owe this justice to the memory 
 of the Count de Manrepas : he was neither 
 vindictive, nor inplacable: entirely taken up in 
 perpetuating his ease, and his influence, he sought 
 no other enjoyment. What was lively in the 
 Annales, amused him ; what was serious, gave 
 him no uneasiness. Perhaps he found a pleasure 
 even in the idea that it was himself who had the 
 credit of protecting me. 
 
 His agents in administration were not altogether 
 of the same way of thinking ; some of them still 
 bore in mind the letter to the Count de Vcrgennes, 
 and the portraits that were drawn in it : others 
 dreaded the unreserved frankness of the Annalcs, 
 Pick-pockets, says a certain intelligent man, shun 
 the light of the lamps. The great success of that 
 work, the very respectable suffrages united in its 
 favour, the friendly zeal of all those who had 
 nothing to fear from it, that, is of all virtuous and 
 impartial men, had held Malevolence in chains. 
 
 But when, for the purpose of extorting the 
 consent of the old Minister, they had the letter of 
 
42 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 the 8th of April, which was shewn only to him, 
 and which he might without difficulty be led to 
 construe into a menace ; when, to prejudice the 
 mind of the young King, they had the other letter 
 of the 7th, which likewise was produced only to 
 Him, with additions which he alone was to hear ; 
 it was easy to fabricate the order which till then 
 they had perhaps despaired of obtaining. It will 
 not be doubted that the business was transacted in 
 the manner I have here suggested, when it is 
 considered that the letter to M. Le Noir is of the 
 Vlllth OF APRIL, 1780, and the Letter-de-cachet of 
 the xvith of the same month. But from this 
 same date another kind of inference is to be 
 drawn. My hand yet starts at the veiy idea of it ; 
 and it is with equal horror, and depression of 
 spirits, that I am going to disclose it. 
 
 The 1 6th of April 1780, I was not in France. 
 V I had it in my option never to have returned 
 thither : and, if my blind fanaticism for my 
 Country ; if my confidence, yet more extrava- 
 gant than blind, in a promise of the French 
 Ministers, joined to a thousand treacheries, of 
 which a specimen will presently be seen, had 
 not made me neglect intelligence but too well 
 grounded, I never should have returned thither. 
 The Lettre-de-cachet, therefore, might never have 
 been put in force. This thunder-bolt, then, was 
 forged at a venture, without any knowledge 
 whether it would ever produce its effect. The 
 French Ministiy, it seems, keep these murderous 
 weapons in reserve ; they have magazines where 
 
THE BASTILLE. 43 
 
 these instruments of its vengeance are deposited ; 
 and they can peaceably wait, like the sportsman 
 in ambuih, till the game presents itself of its own 
 accord, to receive the shot which he is ready to 
 aim for its destruction. 
 
 Nor is this all ; for they imitate the cunning of 
 this sportsman no less with respect to the 
 preliminaries than to the object. A variety of 
 perfidious tricks, some of them more cowardly 
 than others, have been successively multiplied to 
 conceal from me the snare which had been just 
 laid in my way. Is not even the currency 
 restored to the Annales in their distribution, im- 
 mediately after the l6th of April, one of the most 
 criminal kind ! 
 
 What ! continue to circulate in public, under 
 guarantee of the Royal authority, a work, of 
 which the Author had been secretly proscribed, 
 and devoted by the Ministers to that disgrace, to 
 that severity, which are reserved for the enemies 
 of the King and the State ! continue to receive it, 
 in order to deliver it to the King, and actually 
 deliver it to him ; affect to applaud the marks of 
 satisfaction with which he did not cease to honour 
 it ; and take special care that I should be ac- 
 quainted with this ! 
 
 The same engine by which the news of an 
 approbation so flattering was conveyed to me, 
 was employed to entice me to Paris. That spy, 
 under the mask of a friend, who had been pen- 
 sioned by the Police, at my expence, for five 
 years past to penetrate into my secrets, having.. 
 
44 
 
 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 learnt that I was not unacquainted with this cir- 
 cumstance, laboured incessantly to dissipate the 
 terror with which it had inspired me, by this 
 consideration, that they would not have restored 
 liberty to the Afinales, if they had wished to 
 deprive the Author of that of his person ; and 
 that I might go into France without any appre- 
 hensions, as my works were so favourably received 
 at Versailles. Thus the saci'ed name of the King 
 was made use of to facilitate the success of an 
 iniquity, of which that very name was to be the 
 instrument ! 
 
 This iniquity was not perpetrated till the end of 
 six months ; but at the end of six years, of twenty, 
 the Lettre-de-cathet which authorised it, would 
 have had the same efficacy. I was devoted, then, 
 for the rest of my life, to undergo, at some time 
 or other, the stab of this poignard ; and in extreme 
 old-age, when, borne down by calamity, and 
 exhausted by toils, I might have come to ask my 
 country, as a recompence for so many exertions 
 and sacrifices, permission to die there in peace, 
 I should have found no gates open to receive 
 me but the Bastille, no other sepulchre but its 
 dungeons ! 
 
 After these reflections, what, in God's name, 
 can we style the Lettre-de-cacliet of the 1 6th of 
 April 1780 ! how describe that eagerness to fabri- 
 cate it, and that patience in waiting the moment 
 of its execution ! 
 
 Let it now be considered, that an imprisonment 
 thus instigated, thus prepared, and thus cunsum- 
 
THE BASTILLE. 45 
 
 mated, has lasted near Two years ; that it has 
 done me an injury, almost equally irreparable, 
 in my property, and in my health ; that, if it has 
 not totally ruined me in my civil capacity, and 
 closed my life at an untimely period, I owe this 
 to a peculiar favour of Providence, which, having 
 apparently destined me to the task I am now 
 performing, I mean, making public the horrors of 
 the Bastille, has endued me with an organisation 
 expressly calculated to support them. 
 
 If it is to the Marshal de Duras that so ample a 
 satisfaction has been thought due, one should 
 hardly be able to forbear repeating what was said 
 on this occasion by one of the greatest Monarchs 
 in Europe : *' This Monsieur de Duras then must 
 " be a very great Personage !" 
 
 Examples on this subject would amount to 
 nothing : in a matter where all is caprice and 
 despotism, authorities and comparisons are very 
 useless. I cannot however help citing one. 
 
 Among the numberless Imbastillemcnts^ which 
 have been designed as a satisfaction to powerful 
 Personages, may be reckoned that of Za Beaumelle. 
 This writer, more than indiscreet, had dared to 
 insert, in his Memoirs of Madame de Alaintenon, 
 the following phrase : " The Court of Vienna, 
 ' ' long accused of keeping in pay, people ready to 
 *' administer poison " The offence was cer- 
 tainly heinous, as well as public : the punishment 
 might therefore justly be severe, and reparation 
 exemplary. 
 
 However, Five months in the Bastille appeared 
 
46 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 sufficient. La Beaumelle found an effectual pro- 
 tection in the generosity of the very Court which 
 he had insulted : it was at the solicitation of that 
 Court that he was enlarged — and without being 
 exiled. 
 
 However mighty the iVIarshal de Daras as a 
 man of arms ; however accomplished the Marshal 
 de Duras as a man of letters ; however refined 
 the Marshal de Dtiras as a man of wit ; however 
 great the Marshal de Duras as an Academician ; 
 notwithstanding all these titles, it is not probable 
 that he has appeared to the French Ministry, 
 Himself, all alone, a personage more important 
 than the House oi Aiisiria all together. However 
 violent my six unknown lines to the Marshal de 
 Duras may be supposed, it cannot be imagined 
 they were comparable to the public calumniation, 
 equally atrocious as false, in the romance just 
 mentioned. 
 
 If then the Marshal de Duras has condescended 
 to serve as Sponsor to the Lettre-de-cachet against 
 me in the time of its infancy, it is clear that I am 
 not to impute to him the guilt of its protracted 
 existence : he could not have asked, nor would 
 they have offered him, so tedious an atonement 
 (21). If it has not been believed that this atone- 
 ment was demanded by a terrestrial divinity some- 
 what more respectable, it is not the fault of that 
 indiscretion, or rather that malignity, which was 
 every where busied in seeking matter of censure 
 against me, and of exculpation in favour of the 
 French Ministry. That malignity has not been 
 
THP. BASTILLE. 47 
 
 contented with calling in question the name of 
 a single sovereign on my account. After having 
 given out my pretended connection with one, as 
 the motive of the iniquity of the 27th of Sep- 
 tember 1780, they have endeavoured to make 
 another a direct accomplice in it. It has been 
 circulated abroad, that the Lettre-de-cachet had 
 been granted at the instance of his Prussian 
 Majesty. The rumour was spread and still sub- 
 sists, that that Monarch, piqued at the Epistle 
 to M. (tAlembert* and at the particulars which 
 I thought proper to publish of the famous affair of 
 the Miller, \ and further stimulated by the en- 
 treaties of the little Platos of Paris, had been 
 earnest, at Versailles, in soliciting my imprison- 
 ment ; that the French Ministry could not refuse 
 tliis mark of condescension to a Philosopher of 
 such importance ; and that the gates of my prison 
 could not possibly be opened without the consent 
 of him by whose order they had been shut. 
 
 But is it probable, that a Legislator so equitable, 
 so beneficent in his own dominions, would have 
 sunk so low as to solicit an act of injustice and 
 oppression, on his behalf in the dominions of 
 another? Is it probable, that having lately done 
 the Author of the Annates the honour of adopting 
 his very expressions in one of his laws, J he would 
 have indulged himself in a caprice of this kind 
 
 * See Annates PoUtiijues, &c. Vol. ix. p. 79. 
 
 i Ibid. p. 4, &C. 
 
 t See the Annates, Vol. vii. p. 434. 
 
48 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 against that same writer, who had never offended 
 him? Is it probable, besides, that Versailles 
 would have thought she owed so cruel an homage 
 to Potzdam ; that they would have dared to propose 
 to the King of France to become an instrument of 
 vengeance to the King of Prussia? With regard 
 to such pubHc offences as tend to blast the honour 
 of a Crown, like that of La Beaumelle, of whom 
 I have just now spoken, Princes may undoubtedly 
 render each other the service of repressing them, 
 although not personally interested : but in all other 
 respects they carry their jealousy of power so high, 
 as to protect, and that sometimes to the prejudice 
 of public order, even persons who are criminal. 
 How is it possible then to suspect them of acting 
 in concert to proscribe one who was innocent ? 
 
 In short, what completes the justification of his 
 Prussian Majesty, and clearly proves that I have 
 not been the Callisthenes of this Alexander of the 
 A^orlh, is the date of the Letter -de-cachet in question. 
 The l6th of April, 1780, is considerably prior to 
 the pretended wrongs with which they would have 
 connected it. It is evident then, that that Prince 
 has not tarnished his philosophical career, in 
 persecuting with such animosity, a writer who 
 has not indeed courted his favour, but from whom 
 he certainly could not with-hold his esteem. 
 
 The particulars of the treatment I underwent, 
 and the very duration of my imprisonment, are so 
 many additional proofs that he took no part in the 
 affair. If he had been the real author of it, would 
 not the loss of my liberty have appeared to liim an 
 
THE BASTILLE. 49 
 
 ample satisfaction ? Would he have required of 
 the Ministers of Versailles those refinements of 
 revensje of which I am presently to treat? or 
 could they have mistaken him so far, so grossly 
 insulted him, as to mean by such measures to 
 conciliate his good-will ? Far from wishing to 
 protract my distress would not his generosity have 
 ui-ged him to imitate the example of the Court of 
 Vien7ia towards La Beaitmdle ? Having infinitely 
 less cause of complaint, would he have given way 
 to a greater degree of implacability ? Would he 
 have prescribed for a Frenchman^ at the Bastille, 
 those severities which one of his own subjects, 
 really criminal, would not have had to fear at 
 Spandaw t 
 
 It is vei-y astonishing that the names of two 
 Princes so illustrious should have been thus 
 blended with the misfortunes of a priv-atc indi- 
 vidual ; of him, who, on account of his personal 
 simplicity, his dislike to all sorts of parade, his 
 abhorrence of every kind of intrigue, his indifference 
 to fortune and every ambitious pursuit, ought 
 perhaps, of all men who cultivate literature, to 
 have been the least exposed to the dangers attend- 
 ing the honour of being known to Sovereigns : but 
 it is at least equally evident, that neither of those 
 whom I have here mentioned' could possibly have 
 contributed to what I have undergone. My im- 
 prisonment has no more owed its origin, or its 
 duration, to the pretended requisitions sent from 
 Berlin, than to the pretended communications 
 dispatched to Vitnna. 
 
 4 
 
50 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 What then has been the motive, the object of 
 this duress ? That indeed has not been con- 
 cealed from me : it is the only marls of confidence 
 ever shown me at the Bastille ; the only answer 
 with which my supplications have been honoured. 
 
 At the expiration of a fortnight I was plainly 
 told that the Marshal de Duras was now cjuite out 
 of the question. — If not the M. de Duras, pray 
 what is it then ? — Oh, they are afraid that yon 
 " will seek opportunities of revenge : the doors 
 ** would presently be opened to you, if they were 
 " sure that you would not flourish away against 
 " them." For in speaking to me of the Deities of 
 this Tartarus they always made use of the collective 
 word THEY. This is what was constantly told 
 me during Twenty /nont/is, and what the public 
 knew very well without my telling them. 
 
 Putting himself now in my place, let the leader 
 judge with what terror, with what heavy indig- 
 nation, these cowardly confessions must have 
 filled my soul. It was, then, a future and 
 uncertain eclat which determined my present 
 servitude ! After I had been sacrificed to vin- 
 dictive injustice, its effects were perpetuated 
 against me merely for the tranquillity of my 
 oppressors ! According to their political ritual I 
 ought to have been detained so long as I was to 
 be dreaded 'j that is. till my soul should have been 
 debased, or my organs deranged, or at least my 
 feeble talents destroyed by the frigidity of age, 
 and the convulsions of despair. 
 
 What an unaccountable destiny ! When the 
 
THE BASTILLE. 51 
 
 point in debate was, to rob me of my civil 
 establishment, in complaisance to a band of 
 enrobed assassins, an Advocate-geiia'oly theii" ac- 
 complice, devoid of all shame, said in open court, 
 in full audience, that I could not possibly be lefl 
 in possession of it, because of the troubles / should 
 not fail Otit, DAY* to excite, in — I know not what 
 order of men : and here, where my person was to 
 be disposed of, it was coldly consigned to endless 
 slavei-y, on account of the resentment which / 
 should not fail ONE DAY to entertain .' 
 
 Thus, ever peaceable in reality, and formidable 
 in idea ; always blameless at the present, and 
 criminal in the future ; it is for the hereafter that I 
 haye been punished. My enemies have never 
 been able to excuse their iniquities but by presages 
 yet more iniquitous. They have always assigned, 
 as a motive for their cruelties of to-day, my 
 infallible resentment of to- morrow ! They have 
 never vouchsafed to make the trial whether it was 
 not their presages, dictated by a stupid degree of 
 timidity, or a cunning kind of hatred, that were 
 void of foundation. 
 
 Here, a very fair opportunity, doubtless, pre- 
 sented itself. The uncon-upt and feeling heart of 
 the King was moved at the remembrance of my 
 distress. Whilst intrigue was bustling to dazzle 
 his integrity, and calumny loquacious to mislead 
 it ; it was watchful, it was eloquent in my favour : 
 he was sensible that the punishment of those faults. 
 
 ■ See AppelA la. PosUritr, page 35. 
 
52 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 whatever they might be, of which he at that time 
 believed me guilty, ought not to be eternal. A 
 secret prepossession, in favour of my innocence, 
 had perhaps, even before this, rendered the 
 virulence of his Counsellors suspicious : and, in 
 spite of their efforts, he pronounced the all- 
 powerful Surge if ambula, which put an end to 
 my misfortunes. 
 
 Was not this the moment, if reason at least, for 
 want of justice, if an enlightened policy had had 
 any effect on the mind of the Ministers, to try 
 what indulgence might have had upon mine; upon 
 that untameable spirit, whose extravagant sallies 
 they pretended to have been obliged to check by 
 so exemplary a punishment? I have unceasingly 
 repeated, in the thousand and one memorials 
 which I breathed in siglis from the depths of the 
 Basiille, that I knew my Country only by her 
 rigours ; and that I adored her. What would 
 have been my idolatiy, at that juncture when, re- 
 nouncing every unjust prejudice, every cruel 
 caprice, her sons should have met me with open 
 arms ; when to those sentiments, which her 
 severities had not changed, I could have added 
 that of gratitude for the earnest of one single act 
 of kindness ; * when, reinstated in the common 
 privileges of the family, I might have said to 
 myself: I have hitherto suffered from vexa- 
 
 * 'I'hese words require an explanation that I cannot 
 place amongst the Notes : it concerns me so nearly, that I 
 would not have it go unnoticed. 
 
 Amongst the innumerable absurdities and falsehoods ot 
 
THE BASTILLE. 53 
 
 tious prejudices ; let us endeavour to destroy 
 them. I have been accused of obstinacy, and too 
 much vehemence of temper ; let us carry meekness 
 
 which my misfortunes, as usual, has rendered me the 
 object, one has gone abroad, which I cannot pass by with 
 neglect : it has been said, it has been written, it has been 
 printed, that the claims of the Fretick Ministry upon me 
 were so much the stronger, as I had received from them a 
 pension of two thoitsand cromns. 
 
 I am obliged to declare, that there never was a more 
 impudent falsehood. It is unaccountable that it should 
 have been hazarded, at any time posterior to the 27th of 
 September, 1780, after what I had said in the preceding 
 August, N"^. LIX. p. 296 in the Annales : 
 
 "There is only one of the Kings of Europe towards 
 " whom respect, attachment, and fidelity, on my part, can 
 " be considered as duties ; one alone, from whom I might 
 " HAVE accepted benefactions without a blush, and wilh- 
 "out a scruple. Now, even of Him, I never asked, I 
 "never will ask, any thing but justice." 
 
 It is immaterial here what was the answer made to this 
 demand : but it is clear that the man who held this 
 language publickly, in a printed work, was r\ot. pensioned. 
 
 The only marks of attention which I have received from 
 the FrcTtch M inistry during my life have been three Icttrcs- 
 de-cachet ; one for the Bastille^ and two of Exile ; of 
 which the first was my punishment for ha\'ing as Counsel 
 defended RI. de Bellcgarde, who was at first solemnly 
 condemned as guilty, and three years after, as solemnly 
 acknowledged Innocent. 
 
 The other affairs which I have treated, either as a 
 Civilian, or merely as a Man of Letters, have not all been 
 found worthy of such flattering distinctions : but there is 
 not one of them, of which the success, so far as it respected 
 me, was not embittered by the ingratitude of the Clients 
 whom I saved, the prevarications of the Tribunals which 1 
 compelled to be just, the stupidity or the corruption of the 
 men in place whom I unmasked. It cannot be imputed 
 to self-sufficiency, when I declare, that neither the Bar, 
 nor the Republic of Letters, have produced a man whose 
 
54 MEMOIRS OP 
 
 and patience even to the extreme : let us try to 
 dissipate fear, disarm hatred, and take away 
 every pretext of uneasiness. 
 
 Rising from my sepidchre, my first movements 
 tended to confirm these dispositions. Like another 
 Lazarus, disencumbered of the gi-ave-clothes which 
 for twenty months had intercepted every motion of 
 my tongue, and my heart, it was sensibility, it was 
 the love of peace, it ws^gj-atitude that I announced. 
 For five whole weeks I have not ceased to tender 
 to these cowardly and implacable despots, my 
 hands yet bleeding from the chains with which 
 they had so long been loaded. I asked of them 
 only the favoui;> to tiy me, and I was not able to 
 
 life has been interspersed with anecdotes more incredible 
 of this kind, from the Defence of the Due d Aiguillon, 
 down to my Reflections on that of M. dc Lally. 
 
 I will dare to go further, even though the charge of 
 self-sufficiency should be brought against me, and the old 
 cry oi egotism revived : There has not been a writer whose 
 zeal was more pure, whose soul more inaccessible to intrigue 
 and personal influence, whose talents more exclusively de- 
 voted to the protection of justice, and the manifestation of 
 truth : and this is sufficiently evident from the fruits they 
 have yielded me. 
 
 Having spoken of the exile occasioned by the defence of 
 M. dc Bcllci^ardc, I must render due homage to the 
 generosity shewn by the Marshal de Biron on that cocasion. 
 He was chief of the Council of War which the Lcttfc-dc- 
 cachct seemed to avenge : he was extremely active in 
 accelerating its revocation ; and on my return, a very 
 polite, a very flattering reception was the balm he poured 
 into my wound. 
 
 0/ Gallic Knights cz'cti such is the renown. 
 But this is apparently not the character of the Literary 
 Knights, nor of the Academic Marshals. 
 
THE BASTILLE. S5 
 
 obtain it ! they did not dare to believe my words 
 were sincere. Unworthy to form a judgement of 
 my heart, they imagined their Lettres-de-cachet a 
 more powerful check than my delicacy : and while 
 the enjoyment of a state of freedom, henceforward 
 inviolably secured to me, is hardly a consolation 
 for the price it costs me, they are congratulating 
 themselves perhaps on the sagacity which enabled 
 them to foretell the use / should not fail to make 
 of it. 
 
 Away with these unseasonable retrospects and 
 regrets ! Having been refused permission to con^ 
 vince the French Ministry of my resigned dis- ' 
 position, let us make use of the faculty they have 
 forced me to assume, to unmask their injustice, 
 and divulge their barbarity. The former is already 
 sufficiently obvious : let us proceed to the detail of 
 the latter ; and, if on the perusal of these Memoirs, 
 some readers are tempted to say that no oppression 
 has ever been upbraided with equal energy, let us 
 force them in like manner to confess that none has 
 ever been attended with equal cruelty. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
I Cc>[lcct;incn HCiamaiita'a] 
 
 MEMOIRS OF THE BASTILLE. 
 
[COLLECTANEA ADAMANTyEA. IV.] 
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE BASTILLE. 
 
 Cranslatclr from t^r ,ifrt\nf) 
 
 OF THE CELEBRATED 
 
 Mr LINGUET, 
 
 who was imprisoned there from 
 september 1780 to may 1782. 
 
 «?ltitra tg 
 EDMUND GOLDSMID, F.R.H.S. 
 
 VOL II. 
 
 PRIVATliLV PRINTED. 
 
 EDINBURGH. 
 
 1S85. 
 
This edition is liiiuled lo 275 small-paper copies, 
 and 75 large- paper copies. 
 
MEMOIRS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE BASTILLE. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 Of the Regimen of the Bastille. 
 
 T SHALL not at present touch on that tender 
 question, of which the discussion would be 
 more difficult than the solution could be useful ; I 
 shall not examine whether State-Prisons be neces- 
 sary appendages to a Government ; whether every 
 Administration requires these fastnesses, removed 
 without the pale, and withdrawn from the inspec- 
 tion, of the Laws ; whether this spring, for the 
 most part violent, and always dangerous, may be 
 considered as an indispensible requisite in 
 
6 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 machines which for their preservation sometimes 
 stand in need of an extiaordinary impulse ; 
 "whether, in fine, what is in France known by the 
 strange appellation of a Lettre-de cachet, be an 
 evil peculiar to that kingdom, like the plague in 
 Egypt, the small-pox in Arabia, and those inunda- 
 tions of liquid fire in the countries infested by 
 burning mountains? This problem is best resolved 
 by facts j and although such solution may not be 
 admitted by humane philosophy, it is nevertheless 
 adopted by universal policy. 
 
 We are unacquainted with a nation among whom 
 this resource, or else some equivalent, has not 
 been an engine in the hands of power. In the 
 purest era of her liberty, Rome had her 
 Dictators. The orders of this supreme magis- 
 trate bore an authority not inferior to that of a 
 Lettre-de-cachet, since he disposed without appeal, 
 and without responsit)ility, not only of the liberty, 
 but even of the lives of the citizens. 
 
 In Sparta we may observe how State-policy 
 extended still farther the bounds of despotism. 
 The Kings themselves, that is to say, the Chiefs 
 of the nation, bowed before it. The Epiiori had 
 power to commit them to prison ; and though 
 their warrant varied somewhat from a Letlr^-de- 
 cachet, yet, in its principle, it may be considered 
 as essentially the same. 
 
 Nay, in that part of the world where the Govern- 
 
THE B.-iSriLLE. 7 
 
 ment is most closely watched and restrained, 
 where the privileges of individuals are most effect- 
 ually secured from the encroachments of arbitrary 
 power ; in London itself, we behold a Tower 
 destined for the reception of State-Criminals. 
 The Parliament, that guardian of private, no less 
 than of public freedom, not only sees without 
 terror, a citadel that seems to threaten destruction 
 to both, but even goes so far sometimes as to use it ; 
 and in so doing they are not thought to violate, 
 nor yet to hazard the liberty of the People. 
 (22.) 
 
 But a similar institution may appear to be far 
 more excusable in France ; where, the characters 
 of men being more impetuous, the pretensions of 
 diflferent powers continually jarring with each 
 other less circumscribed, and the regal authority 
 neither limited nor ascertained, we may easily 
 conceive, that on some occasions, it will be 
 necessary to have a check, or kind of scare-crow 
 to defend the prerogative of the Crown, if not of 
 the Kingdom. But I once more observe, that 
 this is a point which I do not pretend to examine : 
 I am not to consider the legality of the institution, 
 but the regimen, of the Bastille ; I mean the 
 exercise of its authority. Now its regimen is 
 dreadful ; it resembles nothing practised hereto- 
 fore, or at this moment practised, in the known 
 world. (23.) 
 
8 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 If in one of those relations, which the ebullitions 
 of imaginary travellers have multiplied of late 
 years, we should read, that in an island of the 
 southern hemisphere, which nature seems to have 
 concealed from the rest of the globe, there exists 
 a people, gay, mild, and frivolous, not only in 
 their manners, but also in their most essential 
 qualities, with a Government far from sanguinary; 
 where the most serious affairs ever assume an air 
 of pleasantry ; and in whose capital notwithstand- 
 ing, is kept with infinite care, an abyss, into 
 which every citizen, without exception, is each 
 moment liable to be hurled, and into which some 
 are actually precipitated every day, in consequence 
 of orders inevitable, as they are inexplicable ; for 
 which it is often impossible to divine the motive 
 or the pretext : 
 
 That the unfortunate wretch thus vanished, 
 finds himself detached from all the rest of man- 
 kind ; farther removed from his relations, from 
 his friends, and, what is worse than all, from 
 justice, than if he had been transferred into another 
 planet ; that his cries and supplications are stifled 
 in their passage, or at least, that only one channel 
 is allowed for their issue ; and that precisely the 
 one most interested in suppressing them; a motive 
 that must be prevalent, in proportion as the 
 oppression is palpable and enormous : 
 
 That he is abandoned, at least for a consider- 
 
THE BASTILLE. 9 
 
 able length of time, without books, without paper, 
 to the torturing suspence of being entirely ignorant 
 of what passes in the world, of the fate of his 
 family, his fortune, his honour ; of what he has 
 been, and of what he is to be accused ; torments 
 which a perpetual solitude, undiverted by any 
 kind of avocation, renders more intolerable : 
 
 That he has no other security for his life but the 
 tenderness of his keepers, who notwithstanding 
 the mark of honour attached to their habit, being 
 capable of such meanness as to become for hire 
 the base satellites of arbitrary power, would 
 doubtless feel but little repugnance in undertaking 
 an office still more base and barbarous, if it was 
 required of them on the same terms : that he has 
 therefore grounds to be apprehensive of poison in 
 every dish that is served up to him : that every 
 time his door is opened, the melancholy clang of 
 the bolts and bars with which it is loaded, may 
 seem to announce his death-warrant, or to notify 
 the arrival of the mutes destined to perform the 
 fatal office; whilst he cannot derive the least 
 motive to tranquility either from the consciousness 
 of his innocence, or from the equity of the 
 Sovereign; since the first attack on the former, 
 may be followed by a second; since they have the 
 same power over his life, as they exercise over his 
 liberty ; since the same persons, who a thousand 
 times a day lend their hands to his execution in a 
 
 
10 MEMOIRH OF 
 
 moral sense, by virtue of a Lettre-de-Cachet, 
 could not be sujiiposed to refuse their assistance 
 to accomplish the same purpose in a literal sense, 
 when once commissioned by the same authority ; 
 and lastly, since in a place where all is mystery 
 and sorrow, there is no enormity so atrocious, 
 but may with as much ease be concealed as com- 
 mitted : 
 
 That, if he preserves his health, it is but an 
 additional grievance, sensibility being then most 
 exquisite, and privation more painful ; that if it 
 gives way, as is generally the case, to the miseries 
 of his situation, he is allowed neither relief nor 
 comfort ; but must remain in that helpless and 
 wretched condition ; perpetually agonised by re- 
 flecting on the impossibility of an escape, on the 
 misfortunes that may happen to his family, the 
 oblivion to which his name is in danger of being 
 consigned ; by considering, that his ashes will be 
 deprived of the last sad tribute of tenderness and 
 affection ; that his end will perhaps be unknown ; 
 and that his mistaken wife and children may be 
 offering ujd vows and making efforts for his deliver- 
 ance, long after the sepulchre, in which he was 
 buried alive will contain no remains of him but 
 his bones ! 
 
 Should we find such a picture in the voyages of 
 Cook, or Anson, what sort of impression would it 
 make upon our minds ? Might we not take the 
 
THE BASTILLE. ji 
 
 hor for an impostor ; or in felicitating cur- 
 ves on being natives of a country exempt from 
 ;h a wretched servitude, should we not conceive 
 egree of contempt, mingled with horror, for a 
 vernment so barbarous, and a People so 
 based ? 
 
 But alas ! it is the picture of no other than the 
 STILLE, and that far from overcharged ! How 
 akly does it represent those tortures and 
 gthened convulsions of the mind ; those 
 rpetual agonies that eternise the pains of death, 
 •hout affording its repose ; in short, all the 
 ments which the jailers of the Bastille can 
 lict, and which no stretch of human art can 
 libit ! 
 
 The first article of their code is the impene- 
 ble mystery with which all their operations are 
 'eloped ; a mystery that goes so far, as not only 
 leave people in doubt with regard to the place 
 residence, but even with regard to the life, of 
 ; unfortunate person who has slipped into their 
 nds ; a mystery that is not confined to the 
 erdiction of all communication, whence he 
 ght derive either comfort or amusement, but is 
 Tied to such extent, as to prevent it from 
 ,ng known with certainty where he is, or even 
 iCther he is still in existence. 
 \. prisoner, whom an officer of the Bastille 
 s every day, will, when spoken of in the world. 
 
I J MEMOIRS OF 
 
 be denied with consuinmate effrontery ever to have 
 been seen or known by him. When some of my 
 faithful friends sollicited of the Minister who pre- 
 sides over these dungeons, permission to visit me, 
 he asked, as it were, with astonishment, how they 
 could suppose me to be in the Bastille? The 
 Governor has often sworn to several of them, on 
 his word and honour as a Gentleman, that I was 
 no longer confined there, and that I had not been 
 detained there above eight days; for the public 
 notoriety of my apprehension, and the care they 
 had taken to have it executed by broad day-light 
 and in the open street, would not permit him to 
 maintain, as without doubt he otherwise would 
 have done, that I had never entered the walls of 
 the prison. 
 
 Thus a porter will often declare a falsehood at 
 his master's gate, in obedience to his orders : but 
 this is merely to prevent importunate visits ; his 
 falsehoods have an end, either of utility or con- 
 venience ; he neither maintains (hem with an 
 affected air of sincerity, nor with oaths : and, 
 notwithstanding, his employ is thought a vile one. 
 What then must be that of a Minister, of a 
 Governor of the Bastille, who deceives but to 
 torment, and whose falsehoods are productive of 
 nothing but affliction ? 
 
 I should be glad to be informed, what can be 
 the design of all this affectation of mystery, in 
 
THE BASTILLE. 
 
 13 
 
 leaving the public at large, friends, relations 
 doubtful of the very being of a man whom they 
 have ravished from them ? it cannot be to facili- 
 tate the means of convicting him, and to render 
 his punishment the more certain : for, first, this 
 clandestine custody can be of no avail to those 
 who are employed against him elsewhere, either 
 to carry on the prosecution, or to execute the 
 sentence pronounced upon him : secondly, my 
 example proves, that the Bastille often contains 
 prisoners whom they not only never intend to 
 prosecute, but whom they have not wherewithal 
 to arraign ; and it is precisely these, whom they 
 are most assiduous to cover with a veil of dark- 
 ness. I repeat it once more, what can the 
 design be ? 
 
 The express institution of this prison being to 
 distract the mind, and to render life itself 
 miserable, (as one of my tormentors ingenuously 
 acknowledged ; a man, who, though honoured 
 with the order of St. Louis, had not virtue enough 
 to shudder at the idea of so horrid a function;) 
 I conceive that this dreary solitude, this absolute 
 ignorance in which they keep a prisoner with 
 respect to what has been done, is actually doing, 
 or is about to be done, either for or against him, 
 are means admirably adapted to the end proposed. 
 Nothing can be contrived orimagined more effectual 
 to lead a man through each gradation of despair ; 
 
14 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 particularly, if he has the misfortune to be 
 endowed with one of those lofty and active souls, 
 which are apt to be shocked with a virtuous in- 
 dignation at injustice, to which employment is 
 a want, and suspence a punishment. But why 
 make partakers of his torments, friends and rela- 
 tions, whom they pretend not to associate in his 
 aflflictions ? 
 
 When a process is established, there is at least 
 this alleviation ; that the nature and extent of the 
 accusation is known, the progress of the proceed- 
 ings regular and open ; the victim is not lost to 
 view, till his sacrifice, or his triumph. Disquiet 
 has its bounds, and grief its consolation. 
 
 But here, whilst the wretch removed from every 
 eye accuses hisfamilyand friends of neglecting him, 
 they are trembling lest their remembrance of him 
 should be imputed to them as a crime : his 
 captivity depending on caprice, and his chains 
 being liable to be knocked off every moment, or 
 to be perpetuated without end, each day is to 
 those who lung to see him, as it is to the unfortu- 
 nate man himself, a complete period, in which 
 they exhaust all the anguish of suspence, all the 
 horrors of privation : in the morning their tears 
 flow on the recollection of his sufferings, and in 
 the evening on the anticipation of what he is yet 
 to suffer ; while it is impossible for them to con- 
 ceive when they will terminate ; or, if the imagina- 
 
THE BytSTILLE. 15 
 
 tion should attempt to fix their bounds, it is but a 
 preparation of renovated niiserj'. 
 
 The Tyrant, who first founded this prison, had 
 his view in so horrid an institution ; which was 
 to get rid, with all possible privacy, of such per- 
 sons as the executioners themselves would refuse 
 to assassinate. When he had once prescribed an 
 innocent person, for the innocent only are pro- 
 scribed, whilst the guilty are judged, he wished 
 to have the epoch of his death unknown, that he 
 might fix it precisely at the very moment most 
 agreeable to his interest or his vengeance. 
 
 But Lewis XVI. is not Lewis XL the one is as 
 humane, as the other was barbarous : the one 
 respects as much justice and the laws, recommends 
 and enjoins as urgently the observation of them, 
 as the other took dehght in having them trampled 
 on, and giving himself the example of the viola- 
 tion. Whence then does it arrive, that the 
 humanity of Lewis XVL connives at the con- 
 tinuance of an institution invented by the tyranny 
 of Lewis XI ? How comes it, that under a Prince 
 to whom law is sacred, and the blood of mankind 
 precious, his subjects are liable to the same 
 catastrophe, as they were under a Sovereign, to 
 whom an execution was a favourite amusement, 
 who called the executioner his Cousin, and never 
 went abroad but under the escort of a Satellite, 
 another of his cousins, but more savage and 
 
i6 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 more sanguinary than all the executioners to- 
 gether ? 
 
 Further, if it was the enormity of the crime, or 
 the rank of the delinquent, that should require 
 this strange and perilous concealment ; if this 
 funeral veil was thrown only over those whom the 
 magnitude of their offences had devoted to 
 immediate punishment, or over those w^ho, given 
 to intrigue and cabal, might be formidable from 
 their birth, their riches or their connexions ; there 
 would be some excuse, or at least some pretext 
 for it. 
 
 But the Bastille, like death, brings to an equality 
 all whom it swallows up : the sacrilegious villain, 
 who has plotted the destruction of his Country ; 
 the undaunted Patriot, guilty of no other crime 
 but that of maintaining her rights with too much 
 ardour ; the wretch, who has betrayed for gold 
 the secrets of the cabinet, and he who has dared 
 to speak truths to Ministers, useful to the State, 
 but repugnant to their interest : as well he who is 
 confine! lest he should become a dishonour to his 
 family, as he who is only obnoxious on account of 
 his talents, are all overwhelmed alike in uniform 
 darkness. 
 
 And, let it be considered well ; this darkness is 
 double : it prevents them from seeing, no less 
 than from being seen : it not only deprives the 
 prisoner of the knowledge of everything that 
 
THE BASTILLE. 17 
 
 personally interests him, of the power of inspecting 
 the state of his private affairs of preventing either 
 by definitive or provisional arrangements his own 
 ruin, and sometimes that of his correspondents ; 
 and, above all, that of informing his friends, and 
 confuting his enemies ; in short, of every kind of 
 useful occupation : but it also covers from his 
 sight the view of public affairs, and every thing 
 else that might have a tendency to amuse or divert 
 his solitude. Become an outcast from society he 
 is not permited even to know what is going 
 forward in the world. There may perhaps be in 
 these dungeons, a man, who is daily solliciting 
 with his prayers Lewis XV. and the Duke de la 
 ViUilre ; he thinks them still the living forgers of 
 his chains : he is incessantly on his knees before 
 the images of those two persons, of whom nothing 
 remains at present but the memory ; and the 
 officers of the prison, witnesses of his error, are so 
 stupidly reserved, or so cruelly scrupulous, as not 
 to acquaint him with it. 
 
 From this total ignorance of what is, and what 
 is not, there results an infinity of effects calamit- 
 ous to the deceived and unfortunate prisoner. 
 For example, if he has been sacrificed to the 
 personal vengeance of a man in power, he has not 
 the consolation of beholding the fall of a colossus, 
 whose elevation has been fatal to him. Neither 
 can he take the advantage of it, since it is a 
 li 
 
ig MEMOIRS OF 
 
 circumstance which he is entirely uninformed of : 
 and, if he has not very zealous friends ; if his 
 family is timid or obscure, indifferent or disaffected 
 to him ; the oppression still subsists, although the 
 oppressor is no more. The successor turns his 
 thoughts rather to the exertion of the same 
 authority, than to remove the evils it has occa- 
 sioned. The prisoner continues immured in the 
 Bastille, not because it is intended that he should 
 remain there ; but because he is there, because he 
 is forgotten ; because interest is not made at the 
 proper offices ; and because nothing equnls the 
 difficulty of getting out of that murderous pit, 
 except the facility of falling into it. 
 
 I can produce an example, besides my own, and 
 that without calling any one into question. 
 Whilst I was in the Bastille there was a native of 
 Geneva, by name Pellhseri, confined there. His 
 sole crime was, having made some remarks on 
 Mr. Necker's operations in the finance depart- 
 ment. When I was by a very extraordinary 
 accident informed of it, he had already been three 
 years in the prison. Probably he is there still ; 
 and knows neither of the ruin of his Country, nor 
 that of the Minister, whom he justly accuses of 
 his own. There too perhaps he will continue, 
 till chance, or possibly the mention I now make 
 of him, may recall his memory to the minds of 
 tliosp niuvcalilc nuslcr^, who can ovcr-riilc the 
 
THE BASTILLE. 19 
 
 immobility of the Bastille : perhaps they will at 
 length be sensible how shocking it is to humanity 
 and justice, that the name of the State should 
 give a sanction to perpetuate the personal 
 vengeance of a temporary Minister ; that a 
 stranger, an honest man, should be punished, for 
 having been so enlightened, as to foresee what the 
 Government should before have been well apprised 
 of. For after all, what remains of the operations 
 of Mr. Necker? If Mr. Pelisseri has been 
 culpable in censuring them, what must those be 
 who have destroyed them? (24) 
 
 Can one reflect without shuddering, that the 
 horrors I am now tracing have been the reward 
 of an indiscretion, which a few months later would 
 have been an action, not only of prudence, but of 
 necessity? The panegyrist of Mr. Necker would, 
 doubtless, in the present state of affairs, soon be 
 made a fellow -captive with his accuser ; thus, whilst 
 a despotism unrestrained by shame, multiplies at its 
 discretion the victims of these dangerous and 
 inconclusive speculations, their cries and suppli- 
 cations die away in the inaccessible avenues of 
 the prison. 
 
 Again, let it be observed, that, as nothing can 
 get admission, so nothing can find its way out of 
 it : the very attempts which a prisoner may 
 hazard, to procure, by means of his friends or 
 patrons, either a pardon or a trial are intercepted 
 
20 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 and smothered : should he be so indiscreet as to 
 hint the quarter from which he may look for 
 succour, the blood-hounds of the Police hasten to 
 block up the passage, and to obstruct the efforts 
 that be undertaken in his favour. They never 
 leave it in his power to solicit those who are in a 
 capacity to make interest for him, until he has 
 exhausted, to the last drop, the bitter draught 
 which despotism and hatred have prepared for 
 him. 
 
 His letters, when he is allowed the means of 
 writing, pass open to the Police, or are there 
 broke open. The doleful lamentations of the 
 captives afford no small amusement to the persons 
 appointed to inspect them: they divert themselves 
 for a short time with the various notes of the 
 different birds they have in their cage, and then 
 tie up carefully in a bundle together the several 
 epistolary productions of the day ; not to be 
 applied to any use, but either to deposit them in 
 some hidden magazine, or to burn them : and 
 neither the persons who wrote them, nor those to 
 whom they are addressed, ever see them or hear 
 of them afterwards. 
 
 In the commencement of my captivity I resolved 
 on imploring the favour of the Princes of the 
 Blood Royal. Having been beforehand informed, 
 that Monsieur and the Count cT Artois honoured 
 me with their esteem, I flattered myself that they 
 
THE BASTILLE. 21 
 
 would extend their bounty to me in my misfor- 
 tunes. I consequently wrote to them, and sealed 
 up the letters. Some time after, I was informed 
 by the Lieutenant of the Folice, that he had read 
 my letters, but had not dehvered them ; that he 
 had rot authority to do it. On which I observed, 
 that, as he knew the substance, he might make 
 those noble Princes, from whom they were with- 
 held, acquainted with it. To this he replied, that 
 he had not access to men of their high rank. So 
 a person not deemed worthy of approaching these 
 great men, was allowed the liberty of opening 
 their letters, of suppressing them, of rendering 
 their good intentions and those of the Ivjng futile ; 
 in fine, of raising around me ramparts more 
 insurmountable than all the magic castles, with 
 which imagination has filled the regions of 
 romance ! 
 
 Let us now enter inlo the inside of these 
 ramparts ; let us now examine how those three- 
 headed monsters, who guard them, act in the 
 accomplishment of their abominable office, to 
 render life an insupportable burthen. 
 
 The prelude to their operations, when a fresh 
 victim is brought to them, is the Search. Their 
 mode of taking possession of a prisoner's person, 
 and their manner of shewing him the infernal 
 property in which he will be held, is first to strip 
 him of all his own. He is no less astonished, than 
 
zi MEMOIRS OF 
 
 alarmed, to find himself delivered up to the search- 
 ing and groping of four men, whose appearance is 
 enough to belye their functions, and yet does but 
 add to their infamy ; of four men decorated with 
 a uniform, which must give one cause to expect 
 decency of conduct, with insignia, I repeat once 
 more, which one would suppose to denote an 
 honourable service. 
 
 They take away his money, least it should 
 afford the means of corruption amongst them ; his 
 jewels, on the very same consideration ; his 
 papers, lest they should furnish him with a 
 resource against the weariness and vexation to 
 which he is doomed ; his knives, scissors, &c. 
 least he should cut his own throat, say they, or 
 assassinate his jailors : lor they explain to him 
 coolly the motives for all their depredations. 
 After this ceremony, which is long, and often 
 interrupted by pleasantries and remarks on every 
 article in the inventory, they drag him to the cell 
 destined for his reception. 
 
 These cells are all contained in Towers, of 
 which the walls are at least twelve, and at the 
 bottom thirty or forty feet thick. Each has a 
 vent-hole made in the wall ; but crossed by three 
 grates of iron, one within, another in the middle, 
 and a third on the outside. The bars cross each 
 other, and are an inch in thickness ; and by a 
 refinement of invention in the persons who con- 
 
THE BASTILLE. 23 
 
 trived them, the solid part of each of these 
 meshes answers exactly to the vacuity in another ; 
 so that a passage is left to the sight, of scarcely 
 two inches, though the intervals are near four 
 inches square. 
 
 Formerly each of these caves had three or four 
 openings, small indeed, and ornamented with the 
 same gratings. But this multiplicity of holes was 
 soon found to promote the circulation of their air ; 
 they prevented humidity, infection, &c. A 
 humane Governor therefore had them stopped up; 
 and at present there remains but one, which on 
 very fine days just admits light enough into the 
 cell to make " darkness visible." 
 
 So in winter these dungeons are perfect ice- 
 houses, because they are lofty enough for the frost 
 to penetrate ; in summer they are moist, suffocat- 
 ing stoves, to the walls being too thick for the 
 heat to dry them. 
 
 Several of the cells, and mine was of the 
 number, are situated upon the ditch into which 
 the common sewer of the Rue Si. Antoine empties 
 itself; so that whenever it is cleared out, or in 
 summer after a few days continuance of the hot 
 weather, or after an inundation, which is frequent 
 enough both spring and autumn in ditches sunk 
 below the level of the river, there exhales a most 
 infectious, pestilential vapour ; and when it has 
 once entered those pidgeon-holes they call rooms, 
 
2+ MEMOIRS OF 
 
 it is a considerable sime before they are cleared 
 of it. 
 
 Such is the atmosphere a prisoner breathes : 
 there in order to prevent a total suffocation, is 
 he obliged to pass his days, and often his nights, 
 stuck up against the interior grate, which keeps 
 him from spproaching, as described above, too 
 close to the hole cut in the form of a window ; the 
 only orifice through which he can draw his scanty 
 portion of air and of light. His efforts to suck a 
 little fresh through this narrow tube serve often 
 but to encrease around him the fetid odour, with 
 which he is on the point of being suffocated. 
 
 But iwoe to the unfortunate wretch, who in 
 winter cannot procure money to pay for the firing, 
 which they distribute in the King's 7iame! 
 Formerly a proper quantity was supplied for 
 the consumption of each prisoner, without equiv- 
 alent, and without measure. They were not used 
 to cavil with men in every other respect deprived 
 of all, and subjected to so cruel a privation of 
 exercise, on the quantity of fire requisite to rarefy 
 their blood coaguelated by inaction, and to volatise 
 the vapours condensed upon their walls. It was 
 the will of the Sovereign, that they should enjoy 
 the benefit of this solace, or this refreshment, 
 unrestrained as to the expence. 
 
 The intention, without doubt, is still the same : 
 yet is the custom altered. The present Governor 
 
THE BASTILLE. z; 
 
 has limited the proportion for each prisoner to six 
 billets of wood, great or small. It is well known, 
 that in Paris the logs for chamber use are but 
 half the market size, being sawed through the 
 middle : they are no more than eighteen inches in 
 length. The oeconimical purveyor is careful to 
 pick out in the timber-merchants' yards the very 
 smallest he can find, and, what is as incredible as 
 it is true, the very worst. He chuses in prefer- 
 ence those at the bottom of the piles, which are 
 exhausted by time and moisture of all their salts, 
 and for that reason thrown aside to be sold at an 
 inferior price to the brewers, bakers, and such 
 other trades as require a fire rather clear than 
 substantial. Six of those logs, or rather sticks, 
 make the allowance of four and twenty hours for 
 an inhabitant of the Bastille. 
 
 It may be asked, what they do when this 
 allowance is exhausted ? They do as the honour- 
 able Governor advises them ; they put up with 
 their sufferings. (25) 
 
 The articles of furniture are worthy of the light 
 by which they are exhibited, and the apartments 
 they serve to decorate. I must first observe, that 
 the Governor contracts with the Ministry to supply 
 them ; and this is one of the trifling perquisites 
 attached to his immense revenue, which I shall 
 take notice of presently. He may frame excuses 
 for himself, with regard to the inconveniences of 
 
26 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 the prison, because he cannot change the situation 
 of places ; he may palliate the niggardly distribu- 
 tion ot wood, under the pretext of saving the 
 King's money. But on the head of furniture, 
 which is entirely his own affair, and for which he 
 is paid, he can have neither excuse nor palliation : 
 his parsimony in this particular is at the same 
 time both cruel and dishonest. 
 
 Two mattrasses half eaten by the worms, a 
 matted elbow chair, the bottom of which was 
 kept together by pack-thread, a tottering table, a 
 water pitcher, two pots of Dutch ware, one of 
 which served to drink out of, and two flag-stones 
 to support the fire, composed the inventory of 
 mine. I was indebted only to the commiseration 
 of the turnkey, after several months confinement, 
 for a pair of tongs and a fire-shovel. I could not 
 possibly procure dog-irons ; and whether it may 
 be considered as the effect of policy, or want of 
 feeling, what the Governor does not think proper 
 to furnish, he will not suffer the prisoner to 
 provide at his own expence. It was eight months 
 ere I could gain permission to purchase a tea-pot ; 
 twelve before I could procure a chair tolerably 
 steady and convenient ; and fifteen ere I was 
 allowed to replace, by a vessel of common ware, 
 the clumsy and disgusting pewter machine they 
 had assigned me. 
 
 The sole article I was allowed to purchast in 
 
THE BASTILLE. 27 
 
 the beginning of my imprisonment, Was a new 
 blanket ; and the manner by which I obtained 
 this privilege was as follows. 
 
 It is well known that in the month of September 
 the moths which prey upon woollen stuffs are 
 transformed into butterflies. On the opening of 
 the cave into which I was introduced, there arose 
 from the bed, I will not say a number, or a cloud, 
 but a large thick column, of these insects, which 
 instantly overspread the whole chamber. The 
 sight caused me to start back with horror ; when 
 I was consoled by one of my conductors with the 
 assurance, t/ial bejore I had lain there t-uo nights, 
 there would not be one left. 
 
 In the evening the Lieutenant of the Police 
 came according to custom, to bid me welcome ; 
 when I expressed such a violent dislike to a flock- 
 bed so full of incumbents, that they were graciously 
 pleased to permit me to put on a new covering, 
 and to have the mattrass beaten, all at wy own 
 expence. As feather-beds are entirely prohibited 
 in the Bastille, doubtless because they are con- 
 sidered as too great a luxury for persons to whom 
 the Ministry wish to give a lesson of mortification, 
 I was very desirous that every three months my 
 miserable mattrass should be suffered to undergo 
 the same kind of renovation. Yet the proprietary 
 Governor opposed it with all his might notwith- 
 standing it would h^ve cost him nothing) "for," 
 
28 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 said he, "we must not use them to too much 
 indulgence." 
 
 Madam de Staal informs us, that she got her 
 room lined with tapestry. Whether she owed 
 this condescension to her quality as the favourite 
 of a great Princess, or to the manners of the age, 
 which retained even in the Bastille some tincture 
 of humanity, as may be inferred from other 
 circumstances in her relation, I shall not take 
 upon me to determine. Thus much is certain ; 
 that all these indulgences are now considered as 
 abuses, which were to be retrenched by the stern 
 regularity of modern times. My urgent applica- 
 tions, to obtain at my own expence either some 
 cloth to absorb the moisture of the walls, or 
 paper, whence I might have derived the same 
 benefit, with the further amusement of pasting 
 it on myself, were made and repeated to no 
 effect. 
 
 In my chamber these walls had a most dismal 
 appearance. One of my predecessors, whether 
 a painter by profession, or one who cultivated 
 the art for his amusement, got leave to daub 
 over the apartment, after a manner ; and he 
 at any rate had the satisfaction not to be so totally 
 excluded from every thing to employ his hands, 
 or occupy his attention. The chamber is an 
 octagon, with four large and four small sides : 
 they are all lined with pictures very suitable to 
 
THE BASTILLE. 29 
 
 the place ; namely, the representation of our 
 Saviour's sufferings. 
 
 But whether through choice, or because they 
 would allow him but the one colour adapted to 
 the subject and the apartment, he had done them 
 all in oker ; whence their gloomy uniformity 
 may be easliy imagined. After the flight of the 
 butterflies, when I cast my eyes on those pannels, 
 which the obscurity of the chamber rendered still 
 more dismal, and could discern nothing but figures 
 of grief, punishment and execution, without dis- 
 tinguishing the particular subject ; what we have 
 heard of the Oubliettes, what we know of the 
 Sambenilos, instantly recurred to my imagination : 
 and I firmly believed, that those figures were so 
 many emblems of the lot which awaited me, and 
 that they had put me in this dungeon to prepare 
 me for it. I commended myself to the mercy of 
 the Almighty. Souls endued with sensibility ! 
 judge of the horrors of the moment. 
 
 Thus provided as to furniture and lodging, if 
 the captives were but allowed the privilege granted 
 to the convicts in such prisons as are under the 
 direction of Justice alone, that is to say, an inter- 
 course with each other, the means of conversing 
 and forming connexions, which the necessity of 
 other situations may excuse, even between the 
 honest man and one of an opposite character, 
 but which in the Bastille might often be founded 
 
30 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 on reciprocal esteem ; though they would still be 
 sensible of their distress, yet would they become 
 the more capable of supporting it. There arc 
 certain liquors, which when separately taken are 
 disgusting, but when mixed are rendered more 
 agreeable to the palate. It is the same with 
 misfortunes. But it is precisely this amalgamation 
 of sighs, that the officers of the Bastille are so 
 assiduous to prevent ; whEt a prisoner might 
 contrive to diminish of his sorrows, would be so 
 much retrenched from their enjoyments. They 
 might aptly take for a device, Caligula's address 
 to the executioners whom he employed : Strike so 
 as to make him feel his death ! 
 
 From the morinent a man is delivered into their 
 h.ands, he is lost, as I observed before, to the 
 whole universe : he exists only for them ; for they 
 are no less careful to prevent all correspondedce 
 within among their victims, than they are to 
 exclude all communication from without. La 
 forte, and others, speak of an intercourse which 
 they had with each other, by means of chimnies, 
 &c. 
 
 Again let me observe, that it might have been 
 the case in their time ; but at present the tunnels 
 of the chimnies are traversed, like the windows, 
 by three iron grates, one above another ; the first 
 of which is at the distance of three feet from the 
 hearth ; and the mouths of the chimnies are raised 
 
THE BASTILLE. 31 
 
 several feet above the roof: the privies, a very 
 rare accomodation, for I believe there are only 
 two rooms in the whole prison provided with 
 them, are secured with the same kind of grating : 
 many of the rooms are vaulted ; the others are 
 covered with a double cieling. 
 
 When they think proper to order a prisoner 
 down stairs, whether for an interrogatory, if he be 
 so forunate as to obtain one ; or to attend the 
 Physician, if not so ill as to be under the necessity 
 of being visited in his cell ; or for the sham 
 exercise of a walk, which I shall notice presently; 
 or merely through the caprice of the Governor ; 
 he finds all silent, desert and obscure. The 
 dismal croaking of the turn-key, by whom he is 
 guided, serves as a signal for all to disappear, who 
 might either see, or be seen by him. The windows 
 of that p.irt of the building where the principal 
 officers hold their latent residence, of the kitchens, 
 and of those parts where strangers are admitted, 
 shield themselves instantly with curtains, lattices 
 and blinds ; and they have the cruelty not to 
 proceed to this operation till he is in a situation 
 10 perceive it. Everything is thus calculated to 
 remind him, that within a few paces of him there 
 are men ; such perhaps as it would be the highest 
 gratification for him to see, since th are so 
 extremely anxious to conceal them ; so that the 
 torture is increasing in proportion to his curiosity ; 
 
23 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 his agonies are multiplied in proportion to his 
 attachments. 
 
 For a long time I imagined, that I had for a 
 fellow-prisoner, a Person whose safety alone would 
 have been a solace sufficient to counterbalance all 
 my other misfortunes, and whose apprehension, 
 had they been able to effect it, would have been 
 the completion of them. The answers that my 
 interrogatories on this iead extorted, were calcu- 
 lated only to confirm my suspicions : for these 
 refiners on the art of tormenting, never fail, when 
 they can find an opportunity, to blend an habitual 
 silence, which puzzles and distracts you, with a 
 simulated sincerity, which drives you to despair ; 
 whether they speak or are silent, you are sure to 
 suffer no less from their freedom than from 
 their reserve. 
 
 It is by these manoeuvres that father and son, 
 husband and wife, nay a whole parentage, may at 
 once be inhabitants of the Bastille, without so 
 much as suspecting themselves to be surrounded 
 by objects so dear to them ; or may languish there 
 in the persuasion, that one common distress in- 
 velops the whole race, though a part may have 
 been fortunate enough to escape it. When a 
 Governor of St. Domingo took in his head, a few 
 years back, to rid himself one morning of the 
 Courts of justice, and to pack all the officers 
 together in a vessel for France, immediately on 
 
THE Bj^STILLE. 3J 
 
 their arrival, this whole American Parliament 
 were lodged in the Bastille. 
 
 There these poor men found the servitude more 
 oppressive than that of their own negroes : their 
 confinement lasted eight months; during which 
 not one knew what was become of the others. 
 At length they were tried, and declared innocent : 
 and all the indemnification they got, was per- 
 mission to return, and resume their employments ! 
 
 But if they are so careful to hinder the captives 
 from having the slightest intercourse, or even the 
 most distant knowledge of each other, they are 
 not so scrupulous of making them acquainted that 
 they are not alone in misfortune. Those double 
 floors, those vaulted roofs, impervious to consola- 
 tion, are sure indexes to point out to the wretched 
 prisoner, that there is, above or below him, 
 another wretch, whose condition is no less lament- 
 able than his own. The doors, the keys, the 
 bolts, are not silent : the creaking of the first, the 
 clattering of the second, and the hollow jarring of 
 the last, resound from afar along those flights of 
 stone that form the stair -case, and echo dreadfully 
 in the vast vacuity of the towers. Hence it was 
 easy for me to compute the number of my neigh- 
 bours ; and this was a fresh source of sorrowful 
 reflexion. 
 
 To be sensible that you have over your head, or 
 under your feet, an afflicted being, on whom you 
 
3+ MEMOIRS OF 
 
 might confer, or with whom yon might participate, 
 comfort ; to hear him walk, sigh ; to reflect that 
 he is but three feet distant : to consider the 
 pleasure there would be in breaking through that 
 narrow space, together with the impossibility of 
 effecting it ; to have cause for affliction, no less 
 from the bustle that announces the arrival of a 
 new comer, who is to partake of, without 
 alleviating your bondage, than from the silence 
 of the dungeons, that gives you notice of the 
 happier lot of your former companions in misery, 
 are punishments beyond what the imagination can 
 conceive : they are those of Tantalus, Ixion, and 
 Sisyphus, united. 
 
 But this anxiety is sometimes still more horrible. 
 I am convinced that my fellow-captive in the 
 chamber below mine died during my imprison- 
 ment ; though I cannot say whether his death was 
 natural, or inflicted. It happened, one morning 
 about two o'clock, that I heard a prodigious 
 uproar upon the stair-case : a vast number of 
 people were ascending the stairs in a tumultuous 
 manner, and advanced no farther than the door of 
 that chamber : they seemed there to be engaged 
 in much bustle aud dispute, and to be running 
 frequently backwards and forward^ : I heard very 
 distinctly repeated struggles and groans. 
 
 Now was this an act of succour, or an assassina- 
 tion ? Was it the introduction of a Physician, or 
 
THE BviSriLLE. 35 
 
 an Executioner ? I know not : but three days 
 after, about the same hour in the morning, I 
 heard, at the same door, a noise less violent : I 
 I thought I could distinguish the carrying up, the 
 setting down, the filling, and the shutting of a 
 coffin : these ceremonies were succeeded by a 
 strong smell of juniper. In another place these 
 proceedings would not have caused so much 
 alarm : but judge what an impression must they 
 not have made, in the Bastille ; at such an hour, 
 and at so small a distance ! 
 
 Whilst the regimen of the Bastille places by 
 these means, and by others which I shall advert to 
 presently, the life of every one thrown into it, in 
 the hands of his keepers ; it will also have his fate 
 dependent on them alone. They are conscious, and 
 it is one of their principal enjoyments, that their 
 regimen is productive of nothing but despair : they 
 are well aware, that there are moments, when 
 such in particular of their victims, as have not had 
 their courage awed by crimes, or their sensibility 
 enervated by habitual slavery, would be tempted 
 to put an end, by a transitory pang, to so tedious 
 a succession of agonies : and that is precisely 
 what they labour to prevent. They are even 
 more apprehensive lest one of their captives should 
 evade the torments they inflict on him, by death, 
 than by any escape. This Phalaris of a Governor 
 is, above all, anxious that his prisoners may feel 
 
36 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 to the utmost the fiery tortures of his biili ; and, 
 by an art peculiar to the Bastille, the multifarious 
 precautions, which they adopt in order to obviate 
 this pretended danger, are no less humiliating than 
 painful ; are as fit to foment a desire of the catas- 
 trophe, which they are calculated to prevent, as 
 they are to hinder the execution of it. 
 
 I observed that a prisoner was not permitted to 
 have scissors, knife, or razors. Thus, when they 
 Eerve him with provision, repelled by his sighs and 
 watered by his tears, it is necessary that the Turn- 
 key cut every morsel for him. For this purpose 
 he makes use of a knife rounded at the point, 
 which he is careful to put up in his pocket, after 
 each dissection. 
 
 One cannot prevent the nails from shooting out, 
 or the hair from growing. But a prisoner has no 
 means of getting rid of these incumbrances without 
 undergoing a fresh humiliation : he must request 
 the loan of a pair of scissors ; the Turn-key stands 
 by while he is using them, and carries them oft 
 immediately after. 
 
 As to the beard, it is the Surgeon's business to 
 shave ; and this office he performs twice a week. 
 He and the Turn-key, Agent, or Super-intendant 
 to all that passes in the Tower, carefully watch 
 that the hand of the prisoner does not approach 
 too near the formidable instrument : like the axe 
 of the Executioner, it is developed only at the 
 
THE B^XTILLE. 37 
 
 moment of using it. They still remember, in the 
 Bastille, the disturbance occasioned there by the 
 temerity of Mr. Latly ; though at a time when he 
 little suspected his impending fate. He one day 
 got hold of a razor, and in a jocular manner refused 
 to give it up. That did not indicate any very 
 desperate design ; nevertheless the alarm-bell 
 resounded throughout the castle. The guard was 
 put under arms, and twenty bayonets pointed 
 towards the chamber : perhaps they were even 
 preparing the cannon ; when peace was restored 
 by the return of the dreadful tool into its case. 
 
 It is futile and ridiculous to urge the pretence, 
 tliat this circumspection of theirs has for its object 
 the security of the keepers, no less than that of 
 the captives. What can be dreaded from a man 
 loaded with such heavy chains, hemmed in by so 
 many walls, encompassed by so many guards, and 
 watched with so much attention? But whatever 
 their motive for being afraid to leave him so 
 miserable a resource, it is evident that it is despair 
 they are the most apprehensive of. Now they 
 know that this depair is the consequence only of 
 their own re-iteiated tortures ; and they disarm 
 his hands, merely to have it in their power to 
 rend his heart with impunity. 
 
 I have often mentioned the Turn-keys, without 
 explaining the nature of their office. They are 
 the subaltern officers of the castle, and have charge 
 
33 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 of all that relates to the service of the prisoners. 
 This indeed is but trifling ; for all they have to do 
 is, to distribute the provisions throughout the 
 cages within their respective districts. They visit 
 them thrice a day, at seven o'clock in the morn- 
 ing, at eleven, and at six in the afternoon : those 
 are the hours of breakfast, of dinner and supper. 
 They are closely watched, lest they should make 
 a longer stay than is requisite to deposit their 
 burthen : thus in the twenty-four ages that com- 
 pose a day, or rather a night, in the Bastille, a 
 prisoner has but these three short reliefs. 
 
 The turn-keys are not even required to make 
 the beds, or to sweep out the rooms. The reason 
 assigned for it, is, that in the execution of this 
 business they might be ill-treated, or perhaps 
 assassinated. The justice of this prete.xt admits 
 an enquiry ; the thing itself is certain. Neither 
 age, nor infirmity, nor delicacy of sex, can exempt 
 the prisoners from this necessity ; the man of 
 letters, unaccustomed to these operations, and the 
 opulent man no less unacquainted with them, are 
 equally obliged to submit to the same etiquette. 
 
 The turn-keys indeed do not invariably conform 
 to it : they sometimes render services that cannot 
 be exacted of them. But they must do it with as 
 much secrecy, as i( they were holding an illicit 
 correspondence with an enemy : the Fury dis- 
 <;uiscd in the form of a Governor, who will take 
 
THE BASTILLE. 39 
 
 the alarm if he cannot hear, as he passes by the 
 dungeons, the groans or lamentations of his 
 captives, would quickly punish them for their ill- 
 timed lenity. 
 
 It is in this total silence, I must again repeat it, 
 in this general desolation, in this void existence 
 more cruel than death, since it does not exclude 
 grief, but rather engenders every kind of grief ; it 
 is in this universal abstraction, it cannot be 
 repeated too often, that what is called a Prisoner 
 of State in the Bastille, that is, a man who has 
 displeased a Minister, a Clerk in office, or a Valet, 
 is given up without resource, without any other 
 diversion but his own thoughts or his alarms, to 
 the most bitter sentiment that can agitate a heart 
 yet undegraded by criminality, to that of oppressed 
 innocence, which ioresees its destruction without 
 the possibility of a vindication : it is thence that 
 he may fruitlessly implore the succour of the laws, 
 the communication of what he is accused of, the 
 interference of his friends : his prayers, his suppli- 
 cations, his groans are not only uttered in vain ; 
 but they are even acknowledged by his tyrants to 
 be useless : and this is the only information they 
 vouchsafe him. Abandoned to all the horror of 
 listlessness, of inaction, he is daily sensible of the 
 approaching close of his existence ; and he is at 
 the same time sensible, that they prolong it only to 
 prolong his punishment. Derision and insult are 
 
40 
 
 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 added to cruelty, in order to increase the bitter- 
 ness of privation. 
 
 For instance, at the end of about eight months, 
 I conceived the idea of eluding the tedious hours 
 of my confinement by a recollection of my past 
 mathematical studies. I accordingly applied for 
 a case of instruments ; and took care to limit the 
 size to i/iree inches^ in order to obviate all pretext 
 for a refusal. This favour I was obliged to sollicit 
 for the space of two months ; perhaps a Cabinet 
 Council, was convened to consider of it. It was 
 at length granted : the case arrived — but without 
 compass. On signifying my disappointment at it, 
 they informed me coolly, that arms are prohibited 
 in the Bastille. 
 
 I had to sollicit afresh, to petition, to memoria- 
 lise, to discuss seriously the difference between a 
 mathematical case ot instruments and a cannon. 
 After another month, thanks to the charity and to 
 the invention of the Commissary, the compasses 
 
 were brought. But in what fashion? made of 
 
 bone. Of such substsnce had they fabricated, at 
 my expence, all that in a case of instruments 
 should be made of steel. 
 
 I still preserve this new-fashioned piece of 
 geometrical apparatus. After having kept it as 
 the ornament of my study whilst I live, I shall be 
 careful that after my death it shall be consigned 
 to some magazine, or museum, where it may not 
 
THE BASTILLE. 41 
 
 be at a loss for spectators. It will there hold a 
 distinguished place amidst the monuments of 
 barbarian industry, of which travellers sometimes 
 favour us with a sample. No invention of the 
 most ingenious among the savage tribes can be 
 more deservedly an object of public curiosity. 
 
 In consequence of that principle, that the man, 
 on whom the King, or rather the Minister, has 
 thus laid his hand, must become invisable without 
 redemption, they have resolved that the existence 
 of the prisoners should be confided in the hands 
 of those who are employed to secrete them ; in 
 order to render their underhand, clandestine 
 practices consistent. The Governor finds them in 
 provisions by contract, and gains an immense 
 profit by a kind of regal sixpenny ordinary. 
 
 Government has founded fifteen places in the 
 Bastille, the salaries of which are paid, whether 
 they are occupied or not at the rate of ten French 
 livres, or eight shillings English /irro'ww. Hence 
 the Governor of the castle draws a revenue of 
 near 2500I. J>er annum. 
 
 But that is not all : in drawing up a Lettre-de 
 cachet, which gives him a new Boarder, they add 
 to the primitive foundation so much per head, 
 proportioned to the quality of each respective 
 rank. Thus, a Plebeian, or one of the lowest order, 
 brings to the general mess, over and above the 
 pistole allowed on the establishment, half a crown 
 
42 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 extraordinary per diem ; a Tradesman, or Civilian 
 of the ordinary class, four shillings ; a Priest, a 
 Financier, or a common Judge, eight shillings ; a 
 Counsellor in Parliament, twelve shillings ; a 
 Lieutenant-General in the army, a Guinea ; and 
 a Marshal of France, a Guinea and a half. In 
 this Ministerial cadastre (27) I know not the rate 
 allotted for a Prince of the Blood Royal, 
 
 They have, besides, granted to the Governor 
 the privilege of stowing in his vaults near an 
 hundred buts of wine free of all duties. This is 
 no inconsiderable object, and, it should seem, 
 would render it the easier for him to provide for 
 his lodgers in a handsome manner. 
 
 But let us see how far it is attended with such 
 effect. He sells this indemnity to a Publican of 
 Paris, named Joli, for two hundred and fifty 
 pounds sterling ; and takes in e.xchange the very 
 worst kind of wines, for the prisoners' consump- 
 tion ; which wine we may justly suppose, is no 
 better than vinegar. He considers the establish- 
 ment of eight shillings per day as part of the 
 income attached to his office, which he is to give 
 no account of, and which has nothing to do with 
 the reckoning on the head of subsistence. On 
 this he employs only the extraordinary surplus, 
 which the liberality of the Sovereign destined 
 merely to augment it ; and this very surplus he is 
 careful not entirely to expend. The detail of 
 
THE BASTILLE. 43 
 
 these particulars is rather ignoble : nevertheless, 
 it is extremely requisite they be made known. 
 There are prisoners in the Bastille, who at a meal 
 are not allowed above four ounces of meat. 
 These portions have been weighed more than 
 once. The inferior Officers know the fact, and 
 lament it. (28) Nothing could be more easily 
 verified, if the Minister would shield from the 
 resentment of their chief, the Subalterns who 
 might disclose his sordid peculation. 
 
 There were some tables, indeed, better supplied ; 
 and mine, I allow was of the number. But is 
 this abundance a good, or an evil, to those whom 
 it is granted ? This is a question I cannot answer 
 with precision. Though it carries, a more honour- 
 able appearance, perhaps it may conceal some 
 dangerous artifice. I have known several who 
 during their confinement in the Bastille have 
 lived on milk alone : others, as Mr. De !a 
 Bourdonnaie, have soUicited and obtained permis- 
 sion to be served with provisions from their own 
 houses. They constantly refused me this privilege, 
 and even, for the first eight months, that of buy- 
 ing any article whatever, as I have already 
 observed, although I had money deposited in the 
 hands of the Officers. 
 
 I made amends for this, by the most scrupulous 
 attention to eat but little of every dish ; to wash 
 several times whatever had a suspicious appear- 
 
44 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 ance : yet, notwithstanding all these precautions, 
 I could not entirely escape what I dreaded with 
 too much reason. The eighth day of my con- 
 finement I was seized with a cholic and a vomit- 
 ing of blood, to which I was afterwards ever 
 subject ; a disorder, of which the re-iterated 
 attacks indicated the frequent renewal of the 
 cause. 
 
 On this subject I was neither doubtful nor 
 silent. I wrote an hundred times to the Lieu- 
 tenant-General of the Police, that they were giving 
 me poison. I declared the same thing verbally to 
 his substitute ; I declared it to the Physician, to 
 the Surgeon, to the officers themselves of the 
 Castle: all the answer I could ever get was an 
 insulting laugh. 
 
 " If they wished to poison you, how comes it 
 "that you are still alive?" many persons have 
 said, when I recounted these extraordinary 
 symptoms; and the same objections may now 
 perhaps be suggested by my readers : but a little 
 reflection will quickly do it away. No, most 
 assuredly ; I never could have survived the 
 murderers design, had it been that of Government, 
 of the Minister : but my present existence, which 
 I impute to the strength of my constitution justifies 
 him alone. Can we suppose that hands, which 
 would be ready to execute so base a villainy, if he 
 was capable of requiring it, would have virtue 
 
THE BASTILLE. 45 
 
 to resist a lucrative solicitation from another 
 quarter ? 
 
 By the unaccountable regimen, of which we 
 are speaking, nothing that may serve either to 
 amuse or to console a prisoner is allowed to 
 approach him ; but whatever may contribute 
 either to afflict his mind, or to injure his health, 
 finds no such difficulty of admittance. There are 
 four officers of the higher order; the inferior 
 order consists of four Turn-keys ; and the kitchen 
 is provided with the same number of Cooks or 
 Scullions. These twelve persons are well informed 
 whom they serve, notwithstanding the ridiculous 
 affectation, with which it is pretended to keep 
 them in ignorance of it : they are all permitted 
 to go out, and to mix every day with the inhabit- 
 ants of the city : there they have houses, wives, 
 friends, acquaintance. Is it so difficult a matter, 
 then, to find a single villain in a society whose 
 office is but a tissue of flagitious actions? or is it 
 more so for him, who is once suborned, to discern 
 what part he is to give the mortal blow to, since 
 he is not denied access to any ? But we cannot 
 suppose them capable of such horrible barbarity ! 
 Could we suppose them capable of those already 
 described ? 
 
 So far is this danger from being imaginary, 
 that they formerly posted in the kitchen a centinel, 
 whose business it was to examine, and keep 
 
46 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 account of all who approached the fire-places, or 
 the stoves. This precaution, still more salutary 
 than offensive, has for some years back been 
 omitted : are the evil designs, the practibility of 
 which it clearly indicated, become more difficult 
 to perpetrate? 
 
 That, of which I was the object, was not 
 consummated ; but the loudness of my complaints 
 might have disconcerted the plan, and my cares 
 in part may have rendered it fruitless. I do not 
 mean to suggest, that all those to whom I 
 revealed my suspicions on this head, were accom- 
 plices in the crimes by which they were occasioned. 
 The real guilty person was perhaps afraid to verify 
 too quickly my apprehensions, lest an enquiry 
 should be the result of it. The habitual weakness 
 under which I languished, the imminent danger I 
 was in at the close of 1781, my death being then 
 considered as inevitable, might have induced them 
 to relax in their endeavours, and to think all 
 attempts of that tendency superfluous. 
 
 But even supposing I was mistaken in the caiise 
 I assigned for events, the ill effects of which I still 
 carry about me ; allowing these apprehensions and 
 symptoms to have been merely the product of an 
 imagination disordered through too much sus- 
 ceptibility ; is it not shocking that the confine- 
 ment of the Bastille should be calculated to 
 produce fears of that nature, by rendering it 
 
THE BASTILLE. 47 
 
 impossible for a prisoner to avoid those secret 
 machinations which give rise to the dread he 
 labours under ? 
 
 After all, this dispute is merely verbal. I wrill 
 admit, that in a place, where the Italian Exili (29) 
 kept about a century ago a school for poisoning, 
 they have not preserved any one of his receipts ; 
 and that a single additional cruelty may be 
 repugnant to men, whose office, I repeat again, is 
 the continual perpetration of cruelties : but will 
 not a residence of twenty months, with all its 
 concomitant evils, in a place where existence is 
 but a repetition of tortures worse than death, 
 essentially impair the source of life ? Will near 
 two years passed in these dungeons, without air, 
 without exercise, in all the horrors of listlessness, 
 in all the anguish of suspence, or rather of despair, 
 make less impression on the vital organs, than the 
 most efiScacious poison ? It may be slower : but 
 is it less certain ? Between these two methods of 
 destroying, what difference is there but the 
 time? 
 
 But are they totally deprived of air and exer- 
 cise, say they who have read the ancient accounts 
 of the Bastille, and even they whose curiosity has 
 led them to visit it ? for it is not withdrawn from 
 the inspection of the curious. The Governor, 
 although his mansion is without, often enters the 
 prison to receive his visitors ; and in the prison all 
 
48 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 his colleagues, from the King's Lieutenant down 
 to the very lowest Scullion, receive their's. On 
 days of rejoicing, when there is a display of fire- 
 works or illuminations, the public are permitted 
 even in crowds to ascend the Towers, that they 
 may thence behold the sight to advantage. On 
 such occasions they reflect the very image of peace 
 and tranquility. All these gaping strangers are 
 in perfect ignorance of what passes, and of what 
 is shut up, within those impenetrable vaults, the 
 outsides of which they gaze on with admiretion. 
 Some one amongst them perhaps may tread on the 
 sepulchre of his friend, his relation, his father; 
 who thinks him two hundred leagues distant 
 employed in his business, or engaged in his 
 pleasures. 
 
 All, in short, who are favoured with this 
 exterior examination, seeing a garden pretty large, 
 platforms raised to a considerable elevation, 
 where in consequence the air is pure and the view 
 picturesque, and being assured that all this is in 
 common allotted to the use of the prisoners, leave 
 the Castle, fully persuaded, though the life in the 
 Bastille may not be agreeable, yet that these 
 alleviations render it supportable. This might 
 have been the case formerly : I shall mention a 
 fact that has happened lately. 
 
 The present Governor, named De Launay, is 
 an ingenious man, and knows how to turn every 
 
THE B.-JSTILLF.. 49 
 
 thing to the best advantage ; he considered, that 
 the garden might afford a handsome addition 
 to his income ; and for this purpose let it out for 
 a certain annual stipend to a Gardener, who sells 
 the roots and fruit that it produces : but, in order 
 to make the better bargain, he thought it necessary 
 to exclude the prisoners. A letter was therefore 
 expedited, signed Amelot, which prohibited the 
 prisoners from entering the garden. 
 
 With regard to the platforms of the Towers, 
 though from their great elevation, it is impossible 
 for any one to be recognized on them, or for him 
 to recognize any one below ; yet as they directly 
 overlook the Rue St. Antoine, from which the 
 public are not yet banished, prisoners were never 
 permitted heretofore to walk there, unless escorted 
 by one of the jailors, either an officer or turn-key. 
 It was, however, discovered of late, that is, 
 within these three years, that this talk was both 
 unprofitable and toilsome ; besides, that it afforded 
 the prisoners an opportunity of conversing with 
 the sentry. The vigilance of Mr. De Launay 
 took the alarm : and partly in consideration of 
 the ease of his colleagues, partly on account of the 
 dangers he apprehended, a letter was dispatched, 
 signed Amelot, which forbad the use of the plat- 
 forms, as well as the garden. 
 
 All that remains then for walking in, is the 
 Court of the castle. This is an oblong square, 
 n 
 
50 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 ninety-six feet by sixty. The walls, by which it 
 is surrounded, are one hundred feet high, without 
 any aperture : so that it is in fact a large pit, where 
 the cold is insupportable in winter, because the 
 North wind rushes into it ; in summer it is no less 
 so, because, there being no circulation of the air, 
 the heat of the Sun makes it a very oven. Such 
 is the sole Lyceum, where those among the 
 prisoners, who are indulged with the privilege of 
 walking, a privilege that is not granted to all, 
 may for a few moments of the day disgorge the 
 infected air of their habitations. 
 
 But it must not be supposed, that the act of 
 tormenting, with which they keep their captives 
 in misery, is suffered to relax during this transitory 
 interval : for it may easily be conceived, how little 
 they can enjoy walking in a place so circumscribed; 
 where there is no shelter from the rain ; where 
 nothing but the inconveniences of the weather is 
 experienced ; where with the appearance of a 
 shadow of liberty, the centinels that surround 
 them, the universal silence that prevails, and the 
 sight of the clock, which is alone allowed to break 
 that silence, present them with but too certain 
 marks of slavery. 
 
 This particular may be worthy of a remark. 
 The Clock of the Castle looks into the Court. It 
 is covered with a handsome dial-plate : but, who 
 would imagine the ornaments with which they 
 
THE S^SriLLE. 51 
 
 have thought proper to decorate it ? Chains 
 carved with much exactness, and highly finished. 
 It is supported by two figures, bound by the 
 hands, the feet and the waist : the two ends of 
 this curious garland, after being carried all round 
 the plate, return to form a prodigious knot in 
 front ; and, to signify that they menace both sexes 
 alike, the Artist either inspired by the genius of 
 the place, or else in pursuance of precise direc- 
 tions, has carefully made the distinction of a »ia/e 
 and a female. Such is the spectacle, with which 
 the eyes of a prisoner are regaled during his walk : 
 a large inscription in letters of gold engraved on 
 black marble informs him, that he is indebted for 
 it to M. Raymond Gualbert de Sartines. (30) 
 
 Yet do not imagine, that he enjoys as much of 
 this as he could desire. The portion of time, 
 that is allotted to each prisoner to view the sky, 
 which he can do but in part, is measured out with 
 the most oeconomical exactness. This measure 
 depends on the number of the confined. As one 
 never enters till another is gone out, and as, 
 thanks to the letters signed Avtelot, this is the 
 only funnel they are allowed to partake of, when 
 the Bastille is full, the portion is very small. I 
 perceived the arrival of a new guest, or of a new 
 walker, by what was deducted from mine to conr 
 tribute to his recreation. 
 
 But observe that you are not carried away with 
 
52' MEMOIRS OF 
 
 the erroneous idea, that the enjoyment of this 
 relief, thus modified, is peaceable and complete. 
 This Court is the only passage to the kitchen, and 
 to those parts where the Officers of the Castle 
 receive their visitors ; through it the purveyors of 
 every kind, the workmen, &c. are obliged to 
 pass. Now, as it is requisite, above all things, 
 that a prisoner neither see, nor be seen ; when- 
 ever a stranger approaches, he is obliged to fly 
 into what is called the closet. This is an opening 
 of twelve feet in length, and two wide, made in an 
 antient vault. To this hole, which they term the 
 closet, a prisoner must betake himself with precipi- 
 tation, on the approach of so much as a man with 
 a bundle of herbs ; and he must be scrupulously 
 careful to shut and fasten the door ; for the smallest 
 suspicion of curiosity would at least be punished 
 with close imprisonment. This alternative will 
 frequently occur : I have often reckoned in an 
 hour, the term of duration for the very longest 
 walk, three quarters of the hour consumed in that 
 inactive and humiliating situation in the closet. 
 
 I know not whether thisVegulation is established 
 by a letter signed Ameloi ; but sure I am, that it 
 is of a recent date. Till of late years, no stranger 
 was admitted into the Court after nine in the 
 morning, without the most indispensable necessity: 
 the provisions were ready prepared ; visits were 
 paid without ; and the mancruvres of the cloKt 
 
THE B.iSTILLE. 53 
 
 took place only on such occasions as might from 
 their urgency seem to excuse it. 
 
 But that is not all : this walk itself, so insuffi- 
 cient, and so cruelly modified, as to be rendered 
 rather an additional mortification, than a comfort, 
 is suspended daily ; and that by the arbitrary will 
 of the Governor. If a curious person has obtained 
 permission to visit the prison ; if any repairs 
 require the passage backward and forward of the 
 workmen ; if the Governor gives a grand dinner, 
 which must occasion the frequent passage of his 
 servants, his kitchen being within, and his dwell- 
 ing without ; for any one of these reasons the 
 walk is prohibited. 
 
 END OF VOL. II. 
 
SSfH!