As a prison, Sainte-Pélagie (which is in existence to-day as a _maison de correction_, or penitentiary) has known many and strange guests. From 1792 to 1795, it held a mixed population of both sexes, political prisoners and others. Between the years 1797 and 1834, debtors of all degrees were confined there, and at one period the debtors shared the gaol with a motley crew of juvenile delinquents. Under the Restoration and under the two Empires Sainte-Pélagie served the uses of a State prison. The first Napoleon had the cells in constant occupation. The Restoration sent there, within the space of a few days, one hundred and thirty-five individuals, arrested by the police of Louis XVIII. for their connection, as officers, with the old Imperial Guard. Innumerable indeed, from 1790 onwards, were the victims who found a lodging, not of their choosing, behind the ample walls which the widow Miramion had consecrated a shelter for tottering virtue or gallantry in mourning for its past. The men of the Revolution found Sainte-Pélagie excellently suited to their needs; Madame de Miramion had housed her Magdalens strongly. In form a vast quadrilateral, the buildings were easily converted to the uses of a prison; and at a later date the prison was arranged in three divisions. On the west side were confined petty offenders under sentences ranging between six months and one year. The debtors' was the second division; and here also were imprisoned young rogues, thieves, and vagabonds, and (up to 1867) "certain men of letters and journalists." The east side seems to have been reserved principally for political offenders. But the divisions were never very strictly observed; and a political prisoner relegated by mischance or for lack of space to the west side of the prison was treated in all respects as a common criminal. Ordinary prisoners were kept at work, and received a small percentage on the profits of their industry. Political prisoners, journalists, and "men of letters" were exempted from labour; and a third class called _pistoliers_, purchased this exemption at a cost of from six to seven francs a fortnight. It was by order of the Convention that Sainte-Pélagie was transformed from a convent-refuge into a prison, and during the revolutionary period a crowd of unknown or little-known suspects passed within its keeping before being summoned to the bar. Not a few quitted it only for the scaffold. Madame Roland was cast there on the 25th of June, 1793. Three years earlier, Carlyle notes her at Lyons, "that queen-like burgher woman; beautiful, Amazonian-graceful to the eye" with "that strong Minerva-face." We shall return to Madame Roland, wife of the "King's Inspector of Manufactures."