How much of terror had not that name conjured up within me; and now visions of dungeons and of sufferings inconceivable came vaguely before me, as I was requested, with cold politeness, to 'step _this way_,' and mechanically I followed, my heart sinking lower at every step, along passages, vaulted, dark, and strong, on the slimy or cold and whitewashed walls of which the torches of the gaolors flared and gleamed; and a horror came over me, that if I did not reach a pestilential vault at the end of these devious corridors, some secret plank or paving-stone might suddenly sink beneath my feet, and precipitate me, crushed and mangled, into some hideous oubliette or subterranean tributary of the Seine, where, among the festering bones of former victims, mine would rot, unburied and forgotten. I had often heard of such things; and was there aught too horrible to be associated with that edifice? Bastille meant simply an ancient castle; but that of Paris alone retained the name; though we in some manner adopted it in Scotland by designating our fortified mansions _Bastel-houses_. The terrible Bastille of Paris, begun by order of Charles V. in 1383 for the defence of the city, was completed by his successor, Charles the Well-beloved; and since then it had been the infernal abode of misery and of tears, dedicated solely to the secret purposes of despotism and tyranny. As we advanced into the interior of its vast and gloomy keep, I was deeply impressed by the number and complication of low-browed doorways, steep staircases, and narrow corridors by which its enormous walls were perforated; and by the number of huge iron locks, bolts, bars, and chains by which all the entrances were secured. At last we crossed a high and spacious hall, having a roof and floor of stone. In the centre stood a square mass of stone-work, having one little orifice or window, but all cramped and bound together by bars of iron run into the stone with lead. It was one of those terrible cages made by the decrepit tyrant, Louis XI., for the confinement of great state-prisoners--a notable invention of the Cardinal de Baluc, who was the first to experience the comforts of them. The Most Christian King was charmed by the invention, however, and had several made; thus they were styled by the lively French, 'the King's little daughters.' Each had a door of stone--a slab like the lid of a coffin; and none on whom that dreadful door was closed ever came out again--alive, at least. In this vast sepulchral-looking hall the torches flared and gleamed with a red and smoking light. Rage and hatred began to mingle with my alarm as we passed from thence along a corridor beyond the hall, and I was ushered through a Gothic doorway into an apartment. Then the Captain of the Bastille turned to me, and said-- 'M. Blane, this is your chamber and sleeping-place.'