In the court or principal yard of Fort-l'Évêque, thirty feet long by eighteen wide, from four to five hundred prisoners were confined. The prison walls were so high that no air could circulate in the yard; the prisoners were "choked by their own miasma." The cells "were more like holes than lodgings"; and there were some under the steps of the staircase, six feet square, into which five prisoners were thrust. Other cells, in which it was barely possible to stand upright, received no light but from the general yard. The cells in which certain prisoners were kept at their private charge were scarcely better. Worst of all were the dens belowground. These were on a level with the river, water filtered in through the arches the whole year round, and even in the height of summer the sole means of ventilation was a slit above the door three inches in width. Passing before one of the subterranean cells, it was as though one were smitten by fire (_on est frappé comme d'un coup de feu_). They gave only on to the dark and narrow galleries which surrounded them. The whole prison was in a state of dilapidation, threatening an immediate ruin. The Châtelet was "even more horrible and pestilential." The prison buildings, having no external opening, received air only from above; there was thus "no current, but only, as it were, a stationary column of air, which barely allowed the prisoners to breathe." This is far from a realisation of the _ordonnance_ of 1670! Like the Fort-l'Évêque, the Châtelet had its horrors of the pit. Dulaure[12] has a curious passage on the subject. It appears, says one of the best of the historians of Paris, that prisoners were let down into a dungeon called _la fosse_, as a bucket is lowered into a well; here they sat with their feet in water, unable to stand or to lie, "and seldom lived beyond fifteen days." Another of these pits, known as _fin d'aise_ (a name more bodeful than the Little Ease of old Newgate), was "full of filth and reptiles"; and Dulaure adds that the mere names of most of the Châtelet cells were "frightfully significant." Footnote 12: _Histoire de Paris._ ------- The Provost of Paris, rendering justice in the King's name, took cognisance of all ordinary causes, of capital crimes, and of petty offences. His officers arrested and imprisoned "all manner of criminals, vagabonds, and disturbers of the public peace." In the reign of Philippe-Auguste, he was charged with the duty of "bringing to justice the Jews" who at that epoch were "accused of seeking to convert Christians to Judaism, of taking usurious interest, and of profaning the sacred vessels which the churches gave them in pledge." After the King, said Pasquier, the Provost of Paris was the most powerful man in the kingdom.