The crime of De Choiseul-Praslin occurred at a time when political passion ran high, and the reign of Louis Philippe was approaching its term. The feeling against the aristocracy was greatly embittered; the republican opposition was strongly moved by this atrocious murder committed by a Duke and Peer of France upon an unoffending wife. A report gained ground and could not be discredited, that the authorities had permitted him to evade justice; that the story of his death was quite untrue, and that he had been allowed to escape to England. There were people who afterwards declared that they had met the Duke, walking with Madame Deluzy in a London street, and when the funeral took place an attack was threatened upon the hearse so as to verify the matter. All this increased the popular excitement, and the government was fiercely denounced for daring to shield a titled criminal from the consequence of his acts. No doubt the Praslin murder was a contributory cause of the Revolution of 1848 and the downfall of Louis Philippe. CHAPTER VII THE COURSE OF THE LAW The depot of the Prefecture--Procedure on arrest--Committal to Mazas--Origin of Mazas--First inmates victims of the coup d’état second of December, 1852--Description of Mazas--The régime--The cells--The prisoners and their dietaries--Method of conducting divine service--Escapes from Mazas--Chief Parisian criminals have passed through it--Demeanor of the convicted upon arrival and while waiting the extreme penalty--Abadie and Gilles--How affected. He of whom the law falls foul in Paris finds himself in due course at the depot or prison of the Prefecture. This has been called the universal prison, for it is the portal through which all offenders, all actual or suspected law breakers, must necessarily pass. It receives, examines, rejects and releases, or commits for further proceedings, a whole world of people. The continuous stream passing in and out includes all classes, men and women, old and young, the healthy and the infirm, Parisian and provincial, natives and foreigners of nearly all nationalities. It has well been called a place of deposit, in which all are impounded who have gone astray under suspicious circumstances. Every one is brought here,--the criminal and the degenerate; the luckless and the unfortunate; the vagabond, the lost or abandoned, the weakminded and the unprotected. Three times in every twenty-four hours, the cellular omnibuses lodge all they find in their rounds of the sub-police stations, the _violons_, so called from the well-known musical instrument, and also from an instrument by which prisoners’ feet are bound.