his original persecutor had ceased to exist, the victim was left to perish forgotten in his dungeon. There was one object, besides the wish to elicit imprudent speeches or confessions, which had power to open the lips of the jailors; that object was the desire of tormenting, of making the prisoner feel how completely he was insulated from mankind, no less by its own baseness than by his prison walls. “I was daily told with a laugh,” says M. Linguet, “that I ought not to trouble myself any longer about what the world was doing, because I was believed to be dead; the joke was carried so far, as to relate to me circumstances which insane rage or horrible levity added to my pretended exit. I was assured, also, that I had nothing to hope from the warmth and fidelity of my friends; not so much because, like others, they were deceived with respect to my existence, as because they had become treacherous. This double imposture had for its purpose, not merely to torture me, but at once to inspire me with a boundless reliance on the only traitor whom I had reason to fear, and who was perpetually represented as being my only true friend, and to discover, from the manner in which I was affected by these tidings, whether I had really any secrets which could lay me open to a betrayer.” Though the captive was not allowed to live with even a shadow of comfort, or to hasten his own end, a wide opening was left for death to accomplish his deliverance in one of the regular modes. From the evening meal till that of the morning, he was hermetically sealed up by massy, iron-lined double doors; in all that time no human being approached him. The turnkey slept in a distant chamber, where neither voice nor the sound of knocking could reach him. Bells seem to have been thought too great a luxury for the place. If illness suddenly came, there was no resource for the sufferer, but to call to the nearest sentinel, on the other side of the broad moat. If his voice were too weak, if his strength failed to carry him to the window, or if the wind drowned his cries, he must remain unaided. If his disorder were apoplectic, or he broke a blood-vessel, it is manifest that his fate was sealed. But, supposing him to be heard, prompt assistance was by no means to be expected. The sentinels gave the alarm to each other, till it reached the guard-house; the turnkey was then to be called, who, on his part, had to rouse the servant of the king’s lieutenant, that he might awake his master, and procure from him the keys. Two hours were thus spent before the surgeon was drawn from his bed, where, in truth, he might as well have continued, since, interdicted as he was from prescribing by himself, he could only make a report to the governor, and promise that the physician, who resided three miles off, and was overloaded with practice, should be sent to on the morrow.