"Every day I had a visit from the governor. As he had some smack of literature and even of Latin, he took some interest in following my work, in fact, enjoyed it; but soon, tearing himself away from these little dissipations, he said, 'Adieu, I am going to console men who are more unfortunate than you.'" Such was the imprisonment of Marmontel. It lasted for eleven days. LINGUET. Linguet, advocate and journalist, was arrested for a breach of the press laws and for slander. He was a man of considerable ability, but little character. Attorney-general Cruppi has devoted to the story of Linguet a work as extensive as it is eloquent. He has a wealth of indulgence for his hero; yet, despite the goodwill he shows for him and endeavours to impart to the reader, his book reveals between the lines that Linguet was worthy of little esteem, and that his professional brethren were justified in removing his name from the roll of the advocates of Paris. Linguet's captivity lasted for two years. He has left a description of it in his _Memoirs on the Bastille_, which made a great noise, and of which the success has endured down to our own day. His book, like everything which came from his pen, is written in a fluent style, with spirit and brilliance; the facts cited are for the most part correct, but the author, aiming at making a sensation, has cleverly presented them in a light which distorts their real character. "There are means," says Madame de Staal, "of so distributing light and shade on the facts one is exhibiting, as to alter their appearance without altering the groundwork." Take, for instance, the description that Linguet gives of his belongings while in the Bastille: "Two worm-eaten mattresses, a cane chair the seat of which was only held to it by strings, a folding table, a jug for water, two earthenware pots, one of them for drinking, and two stone slabs to make a fire on." A contemporary could say of Linguet's _Memoirs_, "It is the longest lie that ever was printed." And yet, if we take the facts themselves which are related by the clever journalist, and disengage them from the deceitful mirage in which he has enwrapped them, we do not see that his life in the Bastille was so wretched as he endeavours to make us believe. He is forced to acknowledge that his food was always most abundant, adding, it is true, that that was because they wished to poison him! He owed his life, he is convinced, "only to the obstinate tenacity of his constitution." He marked, nevertheless, on the menu for the day, which was sent up every morning by the Bastille cook, the dishes he fancied; and later on he had his room furnished after his own heart. He still enjoyed, moreover, enough liberty to write during his imprisonment a work entitled, _The Trials of Three Kings, Louis XVI., Charles III., and George III._, which appeared in London in 1781. Let us recall once more the famous saying of Linguet to the wig-maker of