If the disease was not immediately dangerous, some medicine was brought, and the sick man must help himself as well as he could, and be thankful if his malady were not thought to be simulated. “But when he was reduced to extremity, when he was so far gone that he could not rise from the worm-eaten couch on which he lay, a nurse was given to him. And who was this nurse? a stupid, coarse, brutal invalid soldier, incapable of attentions, little assiduities, every thing which is indispensable for a sick person. But a still worse thing is, that when this soldier is once fastened on you, he can never quit you; he himself becomes a prisoner. It is therefore necessary to begin by purchasing his consent, and prevailing on him to be shut up with you as long as your captivity lasts; and, if you recover, you must make up your mind to bear the bad temper, the discontent, the reproaches, the ennui, of this companion, who takes ample vengeance upon your health for the seeming services which he has lent to your sickness.” There was yet another stab to be inflicted on those who were sinking into the grave, and by this the living could be wounded at the same time. To regulate the manner in which, after his death, his property shall be distributed, and, by so doing, to save a wife and offspring from the perplexity, endless trouble, expense, and perhaps ruin, which may arise out of a disputed succession, or the want of needful formalities, is a duty which every rational being will be anxious to perform. That the person is a captive, only renders more necessary the performance of the duty. But not so thought the myrmidons of the Bastile. It is on record that a prisoner, who was stretched for two months on a bed of sickness, expecting that each hour would be his last, repeatedly and vainly implored a French minister of state to grant him the customary legal aid for executing his will; his prayer was sternly refused, though there was a lawyer who belonged to the prison establishment. That this was a solitary instance it would be folly to imagine. It was not of unfrequent occurrence in the Bastile, for the bodily faculties of a prisoner to survive his mental. Shut out from the beautiful forms of nature, the treasures of intellect, and the delights of social converse, from all that can animate or console; racked by a thousand remembrances, conjectures, passions, and fears; brooding in deep seclusion and silence over the past and the present, and vainly struggling to penetrate the darkness of the future; his mind at length gave way, and idiotism or madness ensued. Yet even that must be deemed a blessing, if it brought with it oblivion of his fate.