An interesting contemporary account of La Force and other prisons of Paris in Napoleonic days has been preserved. M. Paul Corneille, Mayor of Gournay-en-Bray, has published in the _Revue Penitentiaire_ the journal of his grandfather, who was an involuntary guest of La Force. The régime in the prison was abominable. Discipline was all a matter of money. Such comfort as the prison afforded was reserved for those only who could pay for it. There were thirty-seven rooms in all. Thirty-four were occupied by those who could pay the rent. The remaining three were for the impecunious. In one case forty-two individuals were crowded into nineteen beds, and in another nineteen persons used eleven beds. The ordinary bedding issued consisted of a mattress, a woollen blanket and a counterpane. A second mattress and sheets might be had for nine francs a month. Prisoners on the “simple pistole” were lodged in the back premises and excluded from the first court. Prisoners on the “double pistole” were somewhat better lodged and served. The “pistole” was the name given to the mode of prison life the prisoner was able to ensure himself by his means, and was so called from the coin of that name. Special small rooms were provided at exorbitant rates; and the gaolers’ fees were considerable from all sources, and, when the prison was full, enormous--each prisoner being good for at least a dozen francs the month. The prison rations were of the most meagre character. A daily loaf of a pound and half of ammunition bread and a spoonful of unpalatable soup would barely have saved the prisoners from starvation, had they not been permitted to buy extra articles at the canteen. The insufficient nourishment and the unsanitary conditions produced many deaths from disease. An abbé, Binet by name, who had been imprisoned for four years as a refractory priest, succumbed, and another was driven by misery to poison himself, which he did by soaking copper covered with verdigris in a liquid, to which he added some mercurial ointment, and then swallowed this disgusting mixture. Prisoners were entirely at the mercy of the gaolers, who had the monopoly of supplies and charged exorbitant prices. Nothing could be sold except at their shops, where a small fowl cost five francs, three eggs, twelve sous, five small potatoes, fifteen sous. It was the same with drink, the prices of which were excessive and the fluid bad. Many small devices were in force to increase the gains of the gaolers, prisoners being allowed to pay twenty sous for the privilege of sitting up two or three hours later than the regular hour of closing. With all this, the police were constantly in the prisons, seeking information against suspected persons or working up proofs to support a new trial. The most rigorous rules existed as to letter writing; prisoners were allowed to write complaints to the ministers and even to the Emperor himself, but their correspondence