But, M. Ravaisson will tell us, prisoners were frequently visited by the lieutenant of the King or some other high personage. It would be more to the point to say that such visits were occasionally inflicted, for the comfort that prisoners derived from them was slender. Abbé Duvernet receives the visit of the minister Amelot, who tells him that he can have nothing to complain of, since he has had access to the prison library. The Bastille library, by the way, seems to have been founded not by the Government, but by a prisoner who was confined there early in the eighteenth century. Abbé Duvernet had made a catalogue of the collection. "I have catalogued your library," he replied to the minister, "and there are not ten volumes in it which a man of ordinary education would trouble himself to read. Library, indeed! Listen, monsieur: when a man has had the hardihood to expose one of the blunders of you ministers, you will spend any quantity of money to be avenged on him. You will hunt him to Holland, England, or the heart of Germany, if it costs the State two thousand pounds. But to afford a little solace to the poor devils in your Bastille, by buying a few books for them to read—no! I dare be sworn that Government has not spent ten pounds on books for this place since the Bastille was built!" "Well, monsieur l'Abbé," said Amelot, "may I ask why you are here?" "Why am I here! Because you yourself gave some one a _lettre de cachet_, which had your own name and the King's attached to it. I am very sure that his Majesty knows nothing of my detention, or the motive of it; but _you_ can scarcely pretend to the same ignorance. Or, will you have me believe that you set your signature to these _lettres_ without knowing what it is that you are signing?" Then, turning to Lenoir, the Lieutenant of Police, the Abbé asked: "Do _you_, sir, demand _lettres de cachet_ of M. Amelot without giving him a reason? Come, as you are both here together, perhaps one of you will be good enough to tell me what is the excuse for my imprisonment." I have condensed this interview from _Les Prisons de Paris_. It is not likely that ministers and chiefs of police were often faced in this style by prisoners of the Bastille, but it is probable enough that most interviews of the kind ended with the same fruitless inquiry on the part of the prisoner. It may be inferred from this how much protection was afforded to prisoners by the daily reports of the governor or the major to the minister, who was nominally responsible for the Bastille. These reports, in fact, seem to have been merely a part of the system of espionage which was regularly practised there. The governor writes: "I have the honour to inform you that the sieur Billard was engaged with the sieur Perrin yesterday, from six to nine in the evening. "This morning M. de la Monnoye saw and spoke with Abbé Grisel a good half-hour.