It must be confessed that, although French prison administrators were slow to put their hands to the work, when once it was undertaken they did their best to make the new establishment a success. The best models of the time were adopted and closely followed. The architect of Mazas, if he did not exactly imitate Sir Joshua Jebb, the eminent English engineer who gave the model for prison construction to all the world, was clearly inspired by him. In its main outlines Mazas greatly resembled Pentonville. The ground plan was much the same. There was the same radiation of halls or divisions from a common centre. The same tiers of cells rise story above story. The size of the cells (ten feet by six), the method of ventilation and warming, by means of hot water pipes with extraction flues and furnaces in the roof, are nearly identical in the French and English prisons. Nor was it only in the construction of Mazas that the French authorities sought to secure the perfection of the new arrangements. With a tenderness for the welfare of the occupants of the prison, which contrasted almost violently with their previous apathy as to the treatment of criminals, they tested its sanitary fitness by filling it for a time with paupers, before it was opened for prisoners. No evil effects having appeared among the former it was deemed safe for the latter and presently became the place of detention for all male _prévenus_ or prisoners awaiting trial. Such it long continued, and has only been replaced by Fresnes since 1898. The newly constructed prison of Mazas played its part in the Napoleonic _coup d’état_ of 1853. It became for the time being a political prison. When the Legislative Assembly was invaded and the Chamber forcibly dissolved, two hundred of its members met at the Mayoralty of the Tenth Arrondissement. The place was surrounded by the troops. An order to disperse was issued, with the alternative of a transfer under escort to Mazas. Their leaders were already imprisoned, among the number Generals Cavaignac, Lamoncière and Bedeau; Colonel Charras, MM. Thiers, Broglie, Odillon, Barot and Remusat. It was feared that to commit a larger number to gaol might create a disturbance, and the deputies now arrested were confined in the barracks near the Quai d’Orsay. The only interesting fact connected with this high-handed treatment of political opponents by the founders of the Second Empire was that M. Thiers had been the minister who, in 1849, had decreed the building of Mazas, and was, as we have seen, one of the first to occupy it. History repeats itself. Often before, as in the cases of Hugues d’Aubriot at the Bastile and Cardinal La Balue at Loches, men had been cast into cells of their own creation.