When I returned to my room all the other troopers chaffed me unmercifully, but Titi was practical and sympathetic. "Now look here, old man," said he, "let me give you a few tips. First of all, as you've got warm drawers I advise you to put on two or three pairs one on the top of the other, and I also advise you to wear two or three thick vests, because you know you'll have to be searched before you go to the cells, and you are not allowed to wear any regimentals under your canvas trousers and blouse. You'll have to put on your clogs, and all the covering you are allowed is your bread-bag" (a canvas bag I have already described, and called a bread-bag because it is generally used for fetching the loaves of bread from the bakery. It afforded very little covering, being only about four feet by two). At a quarter to eight the trumpeters called "The men under punishment," and I went down with Titi to the guard-room. There were a dozen troopers punished with _Salle de Police_ that evening, and we were drawn up in front of the guard-room. The Sergeant came out with a lantern, and having called out our names he began to search us. He felt us all over to see that we had neither matches, tobacco, candles, nor spirits concealed under our clothes. But he was a good fellow, and did not make as thorough a search as I have seen made by some others. One trooper only, who had his riding trousers under his canvas ones, was ordered to pull them off, getting two days more for wearing them. We were then marched off to the cells. We first reached a huge door which the Sergeant opened with an enormous key. This door led into a passage, on the left of which were five heavily bolted doors leading into the cells reserved to the men punished with solitary confinement. At the end of the corridor stood a solid door reminding one of the traditional prison portal of the old melodrama; it was locked with two gigantic iron bolts, each one closing with a key; when these had been drawn, a key half a foot long and more than an inch thick was inserted in the centre lock, in which it turned with a grating noise. The door itself was at least six inches thick and covered with heavy iron nails. We had to stoop to pass through the doorway, and were immediately greeted by a dreadful stench. The light of the lantern being turned on our faces we could hardly see where we were going, but when we had all marched in the Sergeant gave a look round with his lantern and thus enabled me to get a glance at the place. The room, a kind of cellar, was about twenty feet square. On each side of it ran a sloping wooden platform about seven feet broad, its base standing a couple of feet above the cement floor; at the top of the platform was a raised board about two inches high and one foot broad, which was meant as a pillow; this platform was our bed. The room was about ten feet high, and at the extremity of it, near the ceiling, was a small window, perhaps three