conveyed us to the fatal Conciergerie. The entrance therein (at that period) and death were nearly synonymous. From the compliments we met with upon the road, I never thought we should have got so far, or that we should have lived to have died honourable deaths. Our conductors never attempted to quell the populace except when they cried out, "Rascals and conspirators;" they then answered that there was but one.
However, after so long and fatiguing a journey I comforted myself with the hope of one good night's rest, but was sadly disappointed when the concierge told us there was no private room vacant, and that we must sleep in the straw-room; but, added he, "take care of your pocket-book and watches, for you will be among a den of thieves, who will rob you of all you have." With such consolation we entered into the prison court, where there were some hundreds of unfortunate people of all denominations. Being tired and hungry, we employed a commissary of the prison to get us something to eat. When it came we were obliged to make use of a low parapet wall for a table (as the straw-rooms are kept shut during the day, and those that inhabit them are obliged to stay in the open air all the day long, be the weather what it may). The people in the court took compassion upon us and lent us knives and forks, and informed us, also, that by applying to the superior turnkey in a prevailing manner we might possibly obtain a place in a room. That business was presently undertaken, and two of us procured the seventeenth part of a small apartment. The beds were placed so near together that one was obliged to get in at the feet; and though we paid for them apart, I was three weeks before I could get any sheets; and when at length I had them, I could with great facility have crept through them. But the room being very small, and the ceiling so very low,
