But his prison was now large beyond his pious needs, and little by little the Abbaye took a more secular character. The cells which the restricted powers of the prior could no longer charge to the full, were set apart for young noblemen and others whose parents or guardians had an interest in narrowing their borders. It was an age when parents and guardians had an almost unlimited authority over sons, daughters, and wards; and when fathers and uncles seldom thought twice about applying for a _lettre de cachet_. Sometimes young rakes were put into temporary seclusion for quite satisfactory reasons; but very often the legal powers of parents and guardians were used with abominable cruelty; and young men were imprisoned for years, suffering the treatment of criminals, merely to gratify the rancour of a near relative; or were even, where there was a fortune in question, confined expressly with the design that they should be secretly got rid of. A father could or did authorise a gaoler to treat his innocent son with a rigour that goes almost beyond belief; to forbid him to petition anyone for release; to keep him in solitary confinement; to feed him on the most meagre rations. The nephew of a General Wurmser, who had designs upon the young man's fortune, had him imprisoned in the Abbaye on some vague charge of dissipation. The young man was only twenty years of age, but he entered the Abbaye with the fixed conviction that his uncle did not intend ever to release him, and this conviction was confirmed by the hint conveyed to him by a turnkey, that he was to be sent to the fortress of Pierre-Encise, or Ham. Within a week, he had committed suicide in his cell. Occasionally, young bloods of the period did penance in the Abbaye for practical jokes of a rather questionable morality. A certain D——, a spend-thrift of the first rank (who, however, rose afterwards to great honour in the army), was at the last pinch to settle his gaming debts. An uncle from whom he expected a goodly legacy lay sick unto death in his Hôtel, and D—— gave out that the patient desired the attendance of a notary. The notary arrived, and the uncle dictated a will entirely in his nephew's favour. This being published, loans were forthcoming. But the sequel was less satisfactory; for D—— presently found himself a prisoner in the Abbaye, and his friend, the Chevalier de C——, in a cell of the Bastille; the former for having personated a moribund uncle, and the latter for having aided and abetted him in the swindle.