Beyond this, a three-sided cocked hat, with a small figure coarsely done beneath, and the words, “Vive l’Empereur!” On the opposite wall is the name of “Papavoine.” The capital _P_ is worked in arabesques and embellished with care. A verse of a popular drinking-song. A Cap of Liberty, cut rather deeply into the stone, with the words beneath of “Bories, La Republique!” Poor young man! he was one of the four subaltern officers of La Rochelle. How horrible is the idea of their (fancied) political necessity, to give the frightful reality of the guillotine for an opinion, a reverie, an abstraction!--And I! _I_ have complained of its severity!--I who have really committed crime-- Ah, what have I seen! I can go no farther in my research! I have just discovered, drawn with chalk in the corner of the wall, that dreadful image, the representation of that scaffold, which even at this moment is perhaps being put up for my execution! The lamp had nearly fallen out of my trembling hands! TWELFTH PAPER. I returned precipitately to sit on my straw bed; my head sunk on my knees. After a time, my childish fear was dissipated, and a wild curiosity forced me to continue the examination of my walls. Beside the name of Papavoine, I tore away an enormous cobweb, thick with dust, and filling the angle of the wall. Under this web there were four or five names perfectly legible, among others of which nothing remained but a smear on the wall,--DAUTAN, 1815. POULAIN, 1818. JEAN MARTIN, 1821. CASTAING, 1823. As I read these names, frightful recollections crowded on me. _Dautan_ was the man who cut his brother in quarters, and who went at night to Paris and threw the head into a fountain, and the body into a sewer. _Poulain_ assassinated his wife. _Jean Martin_ shot his father with a pistol as the old man opened a window. And _Castaing_ was the physician who poisoned his friend; and while attending the illness he had caused, instead of an antidote, gave him more poison. Then, next to these names, was Papavoine, the horrible madman who stabbed children to death in his phrenzy. “These,” I exclaimed, as a shudder passed over me, “these, then, have been my predecessors in this cell. Here, on the same pavement where I am, they conceived their last thoughts,--these fearful homicides! Within these walls, in this narrow square, their last steps turned and re-turned, like those of a caged wild-beast. They succeeded each other at short intervals; it seems that this dungeon does not remain empty. They have left the place warm,--and it is to me they have left it. In my turn I shall join them in the felons’ cemetery of Clamart, where the grass grows so well!” * * * * *