Scenes from a Courtesan's Life [152]
as soon as I see him the mistake will be cleared up----"
As an universal rule every criminal talks of a mistake. Go to the hulks and question the convicts; they are almost all victims of a miscarriage of justice. So this speech raises a faint smile in all who come into contact with the suspected, accused, or condemned criminal.
"I will mention your request to the examining judge," replied the Governor.
"And I shall bless you, monsieur!" replied the false Abbe, raising his eyes to heaven.
As soon as his name was entered on the calendar, Carlos Herrera, supported under each arm by a man of the municipal guard, and followed by a turnkey instructed by the Governor as to the number of the cell in which the prisoner was to be placed, was led through the subterranean maze of the Conciergerie into a perfectly wholesome room, whatever certain philanthropists may say to the contrary, but cut off from all possible communication with the outer world.
As soon as he was removed, the warders, the Governor, and his clerk looked at each other as though asking each other's opinion, and suspicion was legible on every face; but at the appearance of the second man in custody the spectators relapsed into their usual doubting frame of mind, concealed under the air of indifference. Only in very extraordinary cases do the functionaries of the Conciergerie feel any curiosity; the prisoners are no more to them than a barber's customers are to him. Hence all the formalities which appall the imagination are carried out with less fuss than a money transaction at a banker's, and often with greater civility.
Lucien's expression was that of a dejected criminal. He submitted to everything, and obeyed like a machine. All the way from Fontainebleau the poet had been facing his ruin, and telling himself that the hour of expiation had tolled. Pale and exhausted, knowing nothing of what had happened at Esther's house during his absence, he only knew that he was the intimate ally of an escaped convict, a situation which enabled him to guess at disaster worse than death. When his mind could command a thought, it was that of suicide. He must, at any cost, escape the ignominy that loomed before him like the phantasm of a dreadful dream.
Jacques Collin, as the more dangerous of the two culprits, was placed in a cell of solid masonry, deriving its light from one of the narrow yards, of which there are several in the interior of the Palace, in the wing where the public prosecutor's chambers are. This little yard is the airing-ground for the female prisoners. Lucien was taken to the same part of the building, to a cell adjoining the rooms let to misdemeanants; for, by orders from the examining judge, the Governor treated him with some consideration.
Persons who have never had anything to do with the action of the law usually have the darkest notions as to the meaning of solitary or secret confinement. Ideas as to the treatment of criminals have not yet become disentangled from the old pictures of torture chambers, of the unhealthiness of a prison, the chill of stone walls sweating tears, the coarseness of the jailers and of the food--inevitable accessories of the drama; but it is not unnecessary to explain here that these exaggerations exist only on the stage, and only make lawyers and judges smile, as well as those who visit prisons out of curiosity, or who come to study them.
For a long time, no doubt, they were terrible. In the days of the old Parlement, of Louis XIII. and Louis XIV., the accused were, no doubt, flung pell-mell into a low room underneath the old gateway. The prisons were among the crimes of 1789, and it is enough only to see the cells where the Queen and Madame Elizabeth were incarcerated to conceive a horror of old judicial proceedings.
In our day, though philanthropy has brought incalculable mischief on society, it has produced some good for the individual. It is to Napoleon that we owe our Criminal Code; and this, even more than the Civil Code--which still urgently needs reform on some points--will remain one of the
As an universal rule every criminal talks of a mistake. Go to the hulks and question the convicts; they are almost all victims of a miscarriage of justice. So this speech raises a faint smile in all who come into contact with the suspected, accused, or condemned criminal.
"I will mention your request to the examining judge," replied the Governor.
"And I shall bless you, monsieur!" replied the false Abbe, raising his eyes to heaven.
As soon as his name was entered on the calendar, Carlos Herrera, supported under each arm by a man of the municipal guard, and followed by a turnkey instructed by the Governor as to the number of the cell in which the prisoner was to be placed, was led through the subterranean maze of the Conciergerie into a perfectly wholesome room, whatever certain philanthropists may say to the contrary, but cut off from all possible communication with the outer world.
As soon as he was removed, the warders, the Governor, and his clerk looked at each other as though asking each other's opinion, and suspicion was legible on every face; but at the appearance of the second man in custody the spectators relapsed into their usual doubting frame of mind, concealed under the air of indifference. Only in very extraordinary cases do the functionaries of the Conciergerie feel any curiosity; the prisoners are no more to them than a barber's customers are to him. Hence all the formalities which appall the imagination are carried out with less fuss than a money transaction at a banker's, and often with greater civility.
Lucien's expression was that of a dejected criminal. He submitted to everything, and obeyed like a machine. All the way from Fontainebleau the poet had been facing his ruin, and telling himself that the hour of expiation had tolled. Pale and exhausted, knowing nothing of what had happened at Esther's house during his absence, he only knew that he was the intimate ally of an escaped convict, a situation which enabled him to guess at disaster worse than death. When his mind could command a thought, it was that of suicide. He must, at any cost, escape the ignominy that loomed before him like the phantasm of a dreadful dream.
Jacques Collin, as the more dangerous of the two culprits, was placed in a cell of solid masonry, deriving its light from one of the narrow yards, of which there are several in the interior of the Palace, in the wing where the public prosecutor's chambers are. This little yard is the airing-ground for the female prisoners. Lucien was taken to the same part of the building, to a cell adjoining the rooms let to misdemeanants; for, by orders from the examining judge, the Governor treated him with some consideration.
Persons who have never had anything to do with the action of the law usually have the darkest notions as to the meaning of solitary or secret confinement. Ideas as to the treatment of criminals have not yet become disentangled from the old pictures of torture chambers, of the unhealthiness of a prison, the chill of stone walls sweating tears, the coarseness of the jailers and of the food--inevitable accessories of the drama; but it is not unnecessary to explain here that these exaggerations exist only on the stage, and only make lawyers and judges smile, as well as those who visit prisons out of curiosity, or who come to study them.
For a long time, no doubt, they were terrible. In the days of the old Parlement, of Louis XIII. and Louis XIV., the accused were, no doubt, flung pell-mell into a low room underneath the old gateway. The prisons were among the crimes of 1789, and it is enough only to see the cells where the Queen and Madame Elizabeth were incarcerated to conceive a horror of old judicial proceedings.
In our day, though philanthropy has brought incalculable mischief on society, it has produced some good for the individual. It is to Napoleon that we owe our Criminal Code; and this, even more than the Civil Code--which still urgently needs reform on some points--will remain one of the