It may go without saying that Lafayette's prison days were now far easier to bear, except that to see Madame de Lafayette grow more and more broken in health as days went on, in their close, unlighted, and malodorous cells, must have caused an added sorrow. After a time she was obliged to ask the emperor to allow her to go to Vienna for medical attendance. He granted the request, but with the proviso that she should never return. Then she decided to remain with her husband, even at the risk of her life. Shall the miseries of their prison life be dwelt upon? Their jailers were the coarsest of human beings. They surpassed in brutality the slave drivers of Constantinople. The food, which the family bought for themselves, was coarse and miserably cooked. Tobacco floated in the coffee. Lafayette's clothes were in tatters. When his shoes had been soled fifteen times and resented the indignity any further, his daughter Anastasie took it upon herself to make shoes for him out of an old coat. Lafayette's dingy cell was, however, now brightened by companionship and by inspiring conversation. Even work was going on, for Madame de Lafayette prepared a life of her mother while she was at Olmuetz. It was written with a toothpick and a little lampblack on the margins of a copy of Buffon which she succeeded in obtaining. One of the daughters amused the family by making pencil sketches; one of the burly old turnkey, with his sword, candle, and keys, and his hair in a comical queue behind, amused the family very much and was carried with them when they left their dismal abode.