Shut up in the prison of the abbey, she delayed only till the next day to arrange her room, and make plans for her prison life. She asked for books--Plutarch's Lives, Thomson's Seasons, in French, and a few English books, were those she chose. She turned her mind from her sorrows, to occupy herself by her mode of life and duties. She resolved to limit her wants to mere necessities. A whim seized her to try on how little she could subsist. She retrenched the number of her meals, and gave up coffee, and chocolate, and wine: the money she saved by these privations she distributed among the poorer prisoners. At first, at the instigation of friends, she addressed letters to the convention, and to the ministers, appealing against her imprisonment: they met with no notice. She then occupied herself by drawing up notes concerning the revolution, her views and conduct, and the characters of the chiefs--wishing to leave behind a full exculpation of her opinions and actions. On the 24th of June she was exposed to a most cruel deception. She was told that she was free--she left the abbey--but, on alighting at her home, she was again arrested, and carried to the prison of St. Pélagie. The change was greatly for the worse; the prisoners were of the lowest and most infamous class of both sexes. She roused her courage to meet this fresh indignity, for she felt keenly the insolent play exercised on her feelings. Some hours' reflection restored calm to her firm soul. She resolved again to cheat time and anxiety by occupation. "Had I not my books and leisure?" she writes: "was I no longer myself? I was almost angry at having felt disturbed; and thought only of making use of life, and employing my faculties with that independence which a strong mind preserves even in chains, and which disappoints one's most cruel enemies." "Firmness," she continues, "does not only consist in rising above circumstances by an effort of will, but by maintaining the tone of mind by regulations that govern it." And thus, in the midst of terror and death, she schooled herself to fortitude and peace. She portioned out her days in various studies. She never left her cell, for her immediate neighbours were women of that class which is lost to decency and shame; she could not shut her ears to the conversation they held from their windows with the men in the opposite cells. After a time this shocking state of things was altered. The wife of the goaler, compassionating her situation, gave her another room above her own; and she was thus delivered from her unhappy neighbours, the sight of turnkeys, and the depressing routine of prison rules. Madame Bouchaud waited on her herself, and surrounded her with all that could soften imprisonment. Jasmine was trailed round the bars of her window; she had a piano in her room, and every comfort that the narrow space would admit. She could almost forget her captivity, and began to indulge hope.