Although communication between the prisoners was forbidden, they had invented a sort of club; perhaps the most singular in the annals of clubdom. The "meetings" were at eight in the evening, but no member left his cell. Despite the thickness of the doors, it was found that, by raising his voice, a prisoner could be heard from one end of the corridor to the other; and by this means the members of the club exchanged such news as they had gleaned during the day from the warders on duty. In order that no one might be betrayed or compromised (in the event of the conversation being overheard by the gendarmes posted under the windows), instead of saying "I heard such-and-such a thing to-day," the formula was, "I dreamt last night." [Illustration: A TURNKEY.] When a candidate presented himself (that is to say, when a new prisoner arrived), the president inquired, in behalf of the club, his name, quality, residence, and the reason of his imprisonment; and if the answers were satisfactory he was proclaimed a member of the society in these terms: "Citizen, the patriots imprisoned in this corridor deem you worthy to be their brother and friend. Permit me to send you the _accolade fraternelle_!" Two circumstances excluded from membership of the club,—to have borne false witness at Fouquier-Tinville's bar, and to have been concerned in the fabrication of false _assignats_. The club held its "meetings" regularly, until the date at which the prisoners were allowed to exercise together in the corridors. We saw Madame Roland, "brave, fair Roland," at the men's wicket of Sainte-Pélagie, passionately exhorting them; and Comtesse Dubarry answering her summons to the guillotine by a swoon. Another woman, not famous yet, but destined to fame, was on the women's side of Sainte-Pélagie in 1793: Joséphine de Beauharnais, who was to stand one day with Napoleon on the throne. A tradition of the prison affirmed that Joséphine left her initials carved or traced on a wall of her cell. -------