"Moreover, in France there was not only one Bastille; there were twenty other Bastilles, which were called Fort l'Evêque, St. Lazare, the Châtelet, the Conciergerie, Vincennes, the Castle of La Roche, the Castle of If, the Isles of St. Marguerite, Pignerolles, etc. "Only the fortress at the Gate St. Antoine was called _the Bastille_, as _Rome_ was called _the_ city.... "During nearly a whole century the governorship of the Bastille had continued in one and the same family. "The grandfather of this elect race was M. de Chateauneuf; his son Lavrillière succeeded him, who, in turn, was succeeded by his grandson, St. Florentin. The dynasty became extinct in 1777.... "Among the prisoners, it will be recollected, the following were of the greatest note: "The Iron Mask, Lauzun, Latude. "The Jesuits were connoisseurs; for greater security they confessed the prisoners. "For greater security still, the prisoners were buried under supposititious names. "The Iron Mask, it will be remembered, was buried under the name of Marchiali. He had remained forty-five years in prison. "Lauzun remained there fourteen years. "Latude, thirty years.... "But, at all events, the Iron Mask and Lauzun had committed heinous crimes. "The Iron Mask, whether brother or not of Louis XIV., it is asserted, resembled King Louis XIV. so strongly, that it was almost impossible to distinguish the one from the other. "It is exceedingly imprudent to dare to resemble a king. "Lauzun had been very near marrying, or did actually marry, the Grande Mademoiselle. "It is exceedingly imprudent to dare to marry the niece of King Louis XIII., the granddaughter of Henri IV. "But Latude, poor devil, what had he done? "He had dared to fall in love with Mlle. Poisson, Dame de Pompadour, the king's mistress. "He had written a note to her. "This note, which a respectable woman would have sent back to the man who wrote it, was handed by Madame de Pompadour to M. de Sartines, the lieutenant-general of police." "To the Bastille!" was the cry upon which Dumas built up his story. "'To the Bastille!' "Only that it was a senseless idea, as the soldiers had remarked, that the Bastille could be taken. "The Bastille had provisions, a garrison, artillery. "The Bastille had walls, which were fifteen feet thick at their summit, and forty at their base. "The Bastille had a governor, whose name was De Launay, who had stored thirty thousand pounds of gunpowder in his cellars, and who had sworn, in case of being surprised by a _coup de main_, to blow up the Bastille, and with it half the Faubourg St. Antoine." Dumas was never more chary of tiresome description than in the opening chapters of this book. Chapter XVI. opens as follows: "We will not describe the Bastille--it would be useless. "It lives as an eternal image, both in the memory of the old and in the imagination of the young.