There were well-defined grades of society among the prisoners. The first, called “Les Lords,” consisted of men of good family who were drawing on their bankers or receiving regular remittances from home; “Les Labourers” were those who added to their rations by the manufacture of articles for sale in the market; “Les Indifférents” did nothing but lounge about the yards, and had to content themselves with the Government rations; “Les Missables” were the gamblers and hatchers of mischief. The fifth grade is so remarkable that it deserves a chapter to itself. It was also composed of habitual gamblers, nick-named ironically “Les Kaiserlies” by the other prisoners, but generally known by the title chosen by themselves, “Les Romains,” because the cockloft, to which they were banished in each prison, was called “Le Capitole.” The cock-lofts had been intended by the architect for promenade in wet weather, but they had soon to be put to this baser use. To the sociologist there can be nothing more significant than the fact that a body of civilised men, some of them well educated, will under certain circumstances adopt a savage and bestial mode of life, not as a relapse, but as an organised proceeding for the gratification of their appetites and as a revolt against the trammels of social law. The evolution of the “Romans” was natural enough. The gambling fever seized upon the entire prison, and the losers, having nothing but their clothes and bedding to stake, turned these into money and lost them. Unable to obtain other garments, and feeling themselves shunned by their former companions, they betook themselves to the society of men as unfortunate as themselves, and went to live in the cockloft, because no one who lived in the more desirable floors cared to have them as neighbours. As they grew in numbers they began to feel a pride in their isolation, and to persuade themselves that they had come to it by their own choice. In imitation of the floors below, where a “Commissaire” was chosen by public election, and implicitly obeyed, they elected some genial, devil-may-care rascal to be their “General,” who only held office because he never attempted to enforce his authority in the interests of decency and order. At the end of the first six months the number of admitted “Romans” was 250, and in the later years it exceeded 500, though the number was always fluctuating. In order to qualify for the Order, it was necessary to consent to the sale of every remaining garment and article of bedding to purchase tobacco for the use of the community. The communism was complete. Among the whole 500 there was no kind of private property, except a few filthy rags, donned as a concession to social prejudice. A few old blankets held in common, with a hole in the middle for the head like a poncho, were used by those whose business took them into the yards.