The government of Louis XV. did not punish with such rigour as this. The fugitive was simply put in the cells for a time. At the Bastille the cells were damp and chilly dungeons. Danry has left in his _Memoirs_ an account of the forty months spent in this dismal place,--an account which makes one's hair stand on end; but it is packed full of exaggeration. He says that he spent three years with irons on his hands and feet: in November, 1756, Berryer offered to remove the irons from either hands or feet at his choice, and we see from a marginal note by Major Chevalier that he chose the feet. Danry adds that he lay all through the winter on straw without any coverlet: he was actually so well supplied with coverlets that he applied to Berryer for some others. To believe him you would think that when the Seine was in flood the water rose as high as his waist: as a fact, when the water threatened to invade the cell, the prisoner was removed. Again, he says that he passed there forty months in absolute darkness: the light of his prison was certainly not very brilliant, but it was sufficient to enable him to read and write, and we learn from letters he sent to the lieutenant of police that he saw from his cell all that went on in the courtyard of the Bastille. Finally, he tells us of a variety of diseases he contracted at the time, and cites in this connection the opinion of an oculist who came to attend him. But this very report was forged by Danry himself, and the rest he invented to match. In this cell, where he professes to have been treated in so barbarous a manner, Danry, however, proved difficult enough to deal with, as we judge from the reports of Chevalier. "Danry has a thoroughly nasty temper; he sends for us at eight o'clock in the morning, and asks us to send warders to the market to buy him fish, saying that he never eats eggs, artichokes, or spinach, and that he insists on eating fish; and when we refuse, he flies into a furious passion." That was on fast days; on ordinary days it was the same. "Danry swore like a trooper, that is, in his usual way, and after the performance said to me: 'Major, when you give me a fowl, at least let it be stuffed!'" He was not one of the vulgar herd, he said, "one of those fellows you send to Bicêtre." And he demanded to be treated in a manner befitting his condition.