“Each prisoner has an allowance of a pound of bread and a bottle of wine per day; but the wine is generally flat and good for nothing. The dessert consists of an apple, a biscuit, a few almonds and raisins, some cherries, gooseberries, or plums; these are commonly served in pewter, though sometimes they are favoured with earthen dishes and a silver spoon and fork. If any one complains of receiving bad provisions, a partial amendment may take place for a few days; but the complainant is sure to meet with some unpleasant effects of resentment. There is no cook’s shop in the kingdom, where you may not get a better dinner for a shilling than what are served in the Bastile. The cookery, in short, is wretchedly bad, the soup tasteless, and the meat of the worst quality, and ill dressed. All this must operate to injure the health of the prisoners; and, added to other grievances, excites frequent imprecations of vengeance from Heaven.” With respect to the badness of the wine, Linguet corroborates the statement of this writer. The governor, it appears, in addition to the diet-money, had the privilege of taking into his cellars near a hundred hogsheads of wine, duty free. “What does he do?” says Linguet. “He sells his privilege to a Parisian tavern keeper, of the name of Joli, who gives him 250_l._ for it, and he takes in exchange from him the very cheapest kind of wine for the use of the prisoners; which wine, as may easily be imagined, is nothing but vinegar.” This was a fraud at once upon the government and the prisoners. The sole mental recreation which the prison afforded was derived from a small library, consisting of about five hundred volumes. This collection is said to have been founded by a foreign prisoner, who died in the Bastile, about the beginning of the eighteenth century, and to have been enlarged by later sufferers. In some cases, prisoners were allowed to read in the library; but, generally, the works were taken to the cells of the captives, and the selection of them depended on the taste of the turnkeys. Few of the books were unmutilated; for the prisoners now and then indulged in writing bitter remarks on the blank spaces. As soon as a book was returned, every leaf was carefully examined, and woe be to the rash offender who had suffered passion to get the better of prudence! An epigram, or a sarcasm, on his persecutors, or on men in office, exposed him to the worst that irresponsible power could inflict. As to the volume, if the writing was on the margin, the piece was cut off; but when it chanced to be inserted between the lines, the page was torn out.