But there was one circumstance which, in Mediæval Paris and in the Paris of a much later date, must have gone far to nullify all good intentions and humane precautions of kings and parliaments alike. Under an _ordonnance_ of July, 1319, Philippe le Long decreed that the governorships of gaols should be sold at auction. The purchasers were, of course, to be "respectable persons" (_bonnes gens_), who should pledge their word to deal humanely by (_de bien traiter_) the prisoners; but of what use were such provisos? In no circumstances, indeed, could a saving clause of any description ensure the proper administration of a prison the governor of which had bought the right to make private gain out of his prisoners. For this was what the selling of gaolerships came to. Having paid for his office (having bought it, moreover, over the heads of other bidders), the governor recouped himself by fleecing his wealthy prisoners and by stinting or starving his poorer ones. It was no worse in France than elsewhere; until Howard demanded reform, prisoners in Newgate were plundered right and left under a similar system, and those who could not pay the illegal fees of the governor and his subordinates were lodged in stinking holds, and fed themselves as they could. We shall see what the prisons of the Châtelet and the Fort-l'Évêque were like amid the luxuries and refinements which surrounded them in the eighteenth century. An _ordonnance_ of 1670 had enjoined that the prisons should be kept in a wholesome state, and so administered that the prisoners should suffer nothing in their health. Never, says Desmaze, was a decree so miserably neglected. What are the facts? He quotes from an "anonymous eighteenth-century manuscript" ("by a magistrate") entitled: _Projet concernant l'établissement_ _de nouvelles Prisons dans la Capitale_. The Fort-l'Évêque and the Châtelet are turned inside out for such an inspection as Howard would have made with a gust.