It is time now, however, to cast a glance into the Prisons.  When Desmoulins moved for his Committee of Mercy, these Twelve Houses of Arrest held five thousand persons.  Continually arriving since then, there have now accumulated twelve thousand.  They are Ci-devants, Royalists; in far greater part, they are Republicans, of various Girondin, Fayettish, Un-Jacobin colour.  Perhaps no human Habitation or Prison ever equalled in squalor, in noisome horror, these Twelve Houses of Arrest.  There exist records of personal experience in them Memoires sur les Prisons; one of the strangest Chapters in the Biography of Man.

Very singular to look into it:  how a kind of order rises up in all conditions of human existence; and wherever two or three are gathered together, there are formed modes of existing together, habitudes, observances, nay gracefulnesses, joys!  Citoyen Coitant will explain fully how our lean dinner, of herbs and carrion, was consumed not without politeness and place-aux-dames:  how Seigneur and Shoeblack, Duchess and Doll-Tearsheet, flung pellmell into a heap, ranked themselves according to method:  at what hour ’the Citoyennes took to their needlework;’ and we, yielding the chairs to them, endeavoured to talk gallantly in a standing posture, or even to sing and harp more or less.  Jealousies, enmities are not wanting; nor flirtations, of an effective character.

Alas, by degrees, even needlework must cease:  Plot in the Prison rises, by Citoyen Laflotte and Preternatural Suspicion.  Suspicious Municipality snatches from us all implements; all money and possession, of means or metal, is ruthlessly searched for, in pocket, in pillow and paillasse, and snatched away; red-capped Commissaries entering every cell!  Indignation, temporary desperation, at robbery of its very thimble, fills the gentle heart.  Old Nuns shriek shrill discord; demand to be killed forthwith.  No help from shrieking!  Better was that of the two shifty male Citizens, who, eager to preserve an implement or two, were it but a pipe-picker, or needle to darn hose with, determined to defend themselves:  by tobacco.  Swift then, as your fell Red Caps are heard in the Corridor rummaging and slamming, the two Citoyens light their pipes and begin smoking.  Thick darkness envelops them.  The Red Nightcaps, opening the cell, breathe but one mouthful; burst forth into chorus of barking and coughing.  “Quoi, Messieurs,” cry the two Citoyens, “You don’t smoke?  Is the pipe disagreeable!  Est-ce que vous ne fumez pas?” But the Red Nightcaps have fled, with slight search:  “Vous n’aimez pas la pipe?” cry the Citoyens, as their door slams-to again. (Maison d’Arret de Port-Libre, par Coittant, &c.  Memoires sur les Prisons, ii.) My poor brother Citoyens, O surely, in a reign of Brotherhood, you are not the two I would guillotine!