On the 13th of July, 1789, the eve of the taking of the Bastille, the convent of Saint-Lazare was pillaged. Paris was suffering from famine, and the report got abroad that in the immense buildings of the cloister large quantities of wheat and flour were concealed. The popular suspicions proved to be well founded. Enormous supplies of cereals, wines, and victuals of every description were discovered, and the inmates, who had represented themselves as entirely destitute, were ignominiously chased out of doors. Unhappily the famished invaders, once in possession of the booty, abandoned themselves to all kinds of excesses. The barns were set on fire, and the flames for some time threatened the whole quarter with destruction. Converted into a prison, Saint-Lazare received a great number of suspects. Some of its guests were now sufficiently illustrious: the great poet, André Chenier, for instance. Within its walls Chenier wrote, for a female prisoner, one of his most beautiful elegies, as well as some of his famous iambics. After, the Consulate Saint-Lazare became at once a civil prison, an administrative prison, and a house of correction. Amongst other classes of offenders detained there were women sentenced to less than a year’s imprisonment, or in debt to the State, or convicted of adultery, as well as girls under age whose parents had shut them up for correction. This vast and sombre prison, with its decrepit walls and its sinister aspect, consists of five great blocks of buildings surrounding three courtyards planted with trees. A road encircles and isolates the whole. The buildings are four-storeyed, sufficiently well ventilated, and capable of accommodating twelve hundred offenders. The women immured at Saint-Lazare are divided into three categories. The first consists of women convicted of crimes or misdemeanours; the second of girls under age condemned for indiscreet conduct to remain till their majority in a house of correction, as also of girls whose parents have incarcerated them on a judge’s order, and girls below sixteen, detained for vagabondage or prostitution. The third category is composed of abandoned women administratively detained. [Illustration: THE CHAPEL-SCHOOL, LA PETITE ROQUETTE.]