Enterprise and Adventure/Linguet and the Bastille
LINGUET AND THE BASTILLE.
In the year 1783, only six years before the destruction of the Bastille in Paris, Linguet, an author and journalist, who had been confined there, had the rare good fortune to be set at liberty on condition of banishment from France; and he was thus enabled to publish to the world an account of his adventures, including a narrative of his experiences in that mysterious fortress, which he entitled, "Memoirs of the Bastille, containing a Full Exposition of the Secret Policy and Despotic Oppression of the French Government in the Interior, and Administration of that State Prison, interspersed with a Variety of Curious Anecdotes." In this book we get a glimpse of the interior of the Bastille in the last days of its infamous history, and while under the government of that Delaunay whose miserable ending has been so often told in histories of the French Revolution.
Having given offence to the Court of France by his political writings, Linguet took up his residence in London, from which safe asylum, and occasionally from Brussels, he continued to edit his objectionable paper, which was entitled, "The Annals." In September, 1780, he tells us, having been inveigled to Paris by a series of treacherous artifices, which led him to believe that the French Government intended him no harm, he was suddenly arrested in broad daylight, and carried to the dreaded Bastille. The Lieutenant of Police had appointed him to be at his house on that evening, to talk over the subject of his "Annals;" but this was evidently a ruse to lull his suspicions. No time was permitted him to communicate with friends, who were left to remain in entire ignorance of his fate. Arrived at the prison, the officers and their victim crossed the fatal drawbridge which was to separate Linguet, he knew not for how long, from the outer world. Here they conducted him into a little room, where he was stripped and searched, and all articles of value, including pocket-knife, etc., were taken from him, and he was conducted to the dismal cell provided for him. The articles of furniture in the room were two mattresses, half eaten by worms, an old matted chair, the bottom of which was only kept together by packthread, a tottering table, a water-pitcher, a Dutch earthenware drinking pot, and two flagstones which composed the hearth. On opening the bed there arose from it, he says, a great number of moths, which prey on woollen stuff. The prisoner, starting back in horror at the sight, was gruffly told by his conductor, that before he had been there two nights the moths would have disappeared.
Linguet's cell, like that of several others, was situated immediately over the moat, into which the common sewer of the Rue St. Antoine emptied itself. The exhalations from this moat were disgusting; but in order to prevent suffocation, the prisoner was often glad to pass his days and even his nights leaning against the grating which served the purpose of preventing him from coming too close to the hole, cut deep in the enormously thick wall of his dungeon—the only orifice through which he could draw his scanty portion of air and light. As the winter came on, the poor prisoner found his room intolerably cold, being only allowed six small pieces of wood to maintain a fire during the twenty-four hours of each day. These pieces of wood were lighted on the two flagstones before mentioned. He was indebted only to the commiseration of the turnkey, after several months' confinement, for a pair of tongs and a fire-shovel. It was eight months before he could obtain permission even to purchase a teapot, and twelve before he could procure a chair on which he could sit easily. The sole article he was allowed to purchase in the beginning of his imprisonment was a new blanket.
When his jailers thought proper to order him downstairs, whether for an interrogatory, or to attend the physician, or merely through the caprice of the governor, he found all dark, silent, and deserted. The dismal croaking of the turnkey by whom he was guided served as a signal for all to disappear who might either see or be seen by him. Who might be his fellow-prisoners there he knew not; for so perfect was this system of isolation, that "father and son," says Linguet, "husband and wife—nay, a whole family—might st once be inhabitants of the Bastille, without so much as suspecting themselves to be surrounded by objects so dear to them." But though they were so careful to prevent the captives having the slightest intercourse or knowledge of each other, the doors, keys, and bolts were not silent. Their creaking, clattering, and hollow jarring resounded from afar along the flights of stone stairs, and echoed dismally from time to time in the vast space of the towers. Hence, it became easy to him to compute the number of his fellow-sufferers, a fresh source of sorrowful reflection. Sometimes these things filled his mind with strange anxieties. Listening hourly to these noises, and devising such interpretations as he could, he became convinced that the fellow-captive in the chamber below his own died during his imprisonment; but under what circumstances he could not conjecture.
It happened one morning, about two o'clock, that he heard a great noise upon the staircase, as from a number of persons ascending the stairs in a tumultuous manner. They seemed to advance no further than the chamber below, and to be there engaged in much bustle and dispute, in the midst of which the poor prisoner could hear very distinctly repeated struggles and groans. Three days after, at about the same late hour, he heard, apparently at the same spot, a noise less violent, and he thought he could distinguish the setting down and shutting of a coffin. In this way Linguet passed his time, until a serious illness overtook him, during which he vomited blood, and became so weak that he regarded his end as approaching. During this time, he remained in ignorance of all that passed, whether of a public or private nature, outside his prison walls. His oppressors told him, with a sneer, that it was unnecessary for him to concern himself about what passed in the world, because he was there supposed to be dead.
After nearly two years spent in this way, the authorities, from some unexplained caprice, determined to set Linguet at liberty, delivering to him an order banishing him from France. Before he departed, they compelled him to swear that he would never reveal, either directly or indirectly, a tittle of what he might have learnt or suffered within the walls of his prison. Whether Linguet was justified in breaking this oath, on the ground of its being extorted from him by violence, is a question which he himself meets and decides in the affirmative. Six years after Linguet's release, the hated Bastille was captured by the infuriated populace, the wretched Delaunay, its governor, brutally murdered; and shortly afterwards, every vestige of the once famous prison was removed by order of the Evolutionary Government.