The aspect of captivity in the Bastile, even when stripped of a part of its horrors, is surely hideous enough. But there can be no doubt that, in a multitude of cases, an enormous degree of severity was exercised. Instead of being told, as in this instance, to give up the contents of his pockets, the prisoner was rudely searched by four men, who amused themselves with making vulgar jokes and remarks while they were performing the task; sometimes his own garments were taken from him, and he was clothed in rags. His sufferings from imprisonment might also be frightfully aggravated, by thrusting him into one of the humid and pestilential dungeons, or into a room which was in the vicinity of a nuisance. M. Linguet was confined in a chamber which fronted the mouth of the common sewer of St. Anthony’s street, so that the air which he breathed was never pure; but in hot weather, in the spring and autumnal floods, and whenever the sewer was cleaned, the mephitic vapours, which penetrated into his cell, and accumulated there for want of an outlet, were scarcely to be endured. What were the interior accommodations of this cell the reader has already seen. The prisoner was not left to divine the motive for depriving him of all incisive and pointed instruments; he was bluntly informed that it was done to prevent him from cutting his own throat or the throats of his keepers. The reason assigned for the precaution shows sufficiently, that the officers of the Bastile rightly estimated the capability of exciting despair, which was possessed by their prison. This preventive system was carried to an almost ludicrous extent. Wishing to beguile the tedium of captivity, M. Linguet resolved to resume his geometrical studies, and he accordingly requested to be supplied with a case of mathematical instruments. After much demur, the case was obtained, but it was without a pair of compasses. When he remonstrated respecting the omission, he was told, that “arms were prohibited in the Bastile.” At length, his jailors hit upon the happy idea of having the compasses made of bone. Candour, however, requires the acknowledgment that their fears were not wholly groundless, instances having occurred in which prisoners were driven to desperation. It was with a pair of compasses that the unfortunate Count Lally endeavoured to put an end to his existence. His attempt was made in the year 1766, and, in the following year, a more fatal event took place. A captive, Drohart by name, contrived to secrete a knife, with which he first mortally wounded a turnkey, and then destroyed himself.