WHEN in 1803 there was a fresh rupture between France and England and a renewal of embittered hostilities, Napoleon took great umbrage at the action of his marine neighbour. He was hot with anger at the sudden seizure, without notice, of all French ships in British ports, on the declaration of war, and decided upon immediate reprisals. He decreed that all British subjects on French soil should be arrested and detained. This arbitrary act was made worse by the plain notice that the prisoners, for the most part non-combatants, need not look for release. No exchanges were to be permitted and imprisonment promised to become permanent or to last at least to the far-off end of the war. Many thousands of luckless, harmless folk were involved by this harsh measure, altogether at variance with the law of nations. At the end of the war the total reached the large number of more than twenty-one thousand. Numbers of English people had but recently taken advantage of the Peace of Amiens to visit Paris or set up their residence in France. Some of the cases were very hard, as that of the young doctor about to establish himself in a practice upon the south coast, who ran over to Paris for a short holiday but was caught by the order of arrest and held prisoner for many years.

Various fortresses and strongholds on the northeastern frontier were constituted places of durance among which the war prisoners were divided. Of these Verdun, Longwy, Givet, Valenciennes, Arras, BrianÇon, Cambray, Sedan and Bitche were chief. At one time Verdun was used as a common centre and placed under the supervision and command of a general officer, Wirion by name, whose cruelties and extortions placed him in the category of the brutal and oppressive gaolers who have inflicted so much suffering on their fellow creatures in all ages and countries. Of Wirion I shall have occasion to speak further. Verdun was the most important of these northeastern places of detention. It is an ancient city of the Gauls and played its part in early ecclesiastical history, the seat of a bishop who kept his state as a count and prince of the Holy Roman Empire. As it grew in wealth and splendour it was fortified and the foundation laid of the strong citadel which survived until the Napoleonic era and has since been worked into the scheme of frontier defence. Its aspect is architecturally imposing with its bishop’s palace, citadel and cathedral. It is situated on the Meuse which divides the town into two parts, flowing through rich meadows under umbrageous trees, past well wooded ramparts. It was made the centre and headquarters of the prisoners’ depots, and was always crowded with the victims of an unrighteous policy, governed by merciless and rapacious tyrants, and may be taken as typical of many similar places that disgraced the Napoleonic regime. It is but fair to add that when the atrocities committed were fully exposed, the Emperor was swift to call the offenders to account, to weed them out and replace them by honourable soldiers of high principle and good repute, who speedily retrieved the character of their cloth. But the evil deeds of their predecessors stand out in the records of the time and will be best appreciated by a brief reference to the just retribution that overtook them. Of a total of eleven French officers employed in the superior administration of the depots of prisoners, three committed suicide to escape punishment, five were tried by court-martial and sentenced to be dismissed from the service, one was condemned to the galleys, and another reduced to the ranks.

The chief culprit was Wirion, a general officer and Inspector General of Imperial Gendarmerie, the Commander in Chief of the war prisoners, who shot himself; next in order of cruelty was Colonel Courcelles, the commandant of Verdun and senior officer in the department of the Meuse, who was cashiered; three others were lieutenants of gendarmerie, two were aides-de-camp to General Wirion, who were both dismissed from the service. The commandant of Bitche only saved himself by a testimonial of his prisoners. There were many more delinquents, mostly insignificant, against whom the evidence was not sufficiently strong.

Verdun at that time was a hot-bed of vice and iniquity. The collection within the narrow limits of a second class provincial town of persons of rank and affluence,—for the English dÉtenus were largely people of good social pretensions,—for the most part idle and at all times horribly bored and with no legitimate outlets for their energies, or useful means of employing their time, tended to general demoralisation. Detention long protracted, with small hope of enlargement, drove the weak and self-indulgent without mental resources to the solace of the bottle, and numbers became confirmed sots. Well meant efforts to reform them seldom succeeded; deaths from delirium tremens or by felo de se were frequent. The argument often used was that when a man could get drunk twice a day for fourpence, he made the best use of his time. Life otherwise was not worth having. A French peasant who had dragged a drunken prisoner out of a ditch and saved his life, asked for his reward. “He would have deserved twice as much if he had left me there. What could be better for me than death?” was the reply.

The place was for years a perfect hell. Gambling tables for roulette and rouge et noir had been established by the permission of the presiding authorities and were openly encouraged. General Wirion was a partner and received a large percentage of profit. The rooms were just what may be seen to-day at Monte Carlo; the tables of green cloth covered with coin surrounded by a varied crowd, high and low, English peers and indescribable riff-raff, with loose characters who came in hundreds from Paris. Vice stalked shameless through the throng; high play was incessant, large sums were won and lost, the latter chiefly, and as money could be easily borrowed, ruin, disgrace and death constantly overtook the unfortunate. Napoleon in 1806 very rightly forbade play and abolished the tables, which from the first were only introduced for the English, the French residents not being permitted to gamble.

In such a community as this Wirion and his myrmidons reaped a fine harvest. Fees and fines were levied on the smallest and most trivial grounds; every luxury was taxed by privilege and must be bought at a price. No device was omitted that would put money into Wirion’s pocket. It was said of him that he “persecuted the rich for his profit, the poor for his pleasure.” He had begun life as a police officer and he drew upon his training and experience to establish a system of espionage by which he was kept informed of all that went on; he learned all he wanted to know as to the private means of his prisoners and to what extent he might squeeze money out of them. He began to ill-use them from the moment they appeared in Verdun.

All prisoners on arrival were taken first to the citadel where they gave particulars about themselves—name, age, birthplace, profession and personal description. Then a paper was given them to sign, in which they promised upon honour to conform to the rules of the depot, and to make no attempt to escape, if permitted to reside in the town or beyond it, the latter privilege being extended to a radius of six miles out into the country. This last “parole” was generally kept, but it was evaded by purposely seeking punishment for some trifling offence, as the fact of arrest cancelled the parole.

The privileges purchasable were such as missing the daily roll call, permission to drive or ride for some distance, to belong to clubs, and to organise race meetings. Bills might be drawn on England and would be cashed at twenty-five percent. discount. All wine to be consumed must be obtained from the commandant’s cellars at increased rates. Handicraftsmen or labourers were only allowed to earn wages on accepting a percentage of reduction levied by the governor. The gross total receipts of the governor and commandant were enormous and amounted in a few years to upwards of thirty thousand pounds, secured by the most high-handed and discreditable methods. When in 1809 Wirion was summoned before the minister of war, Marshal Clarke, Duc de Feltre, to give an account of misdeeds and the charges were handed to him, the minister said, “If these things be true, my advice is that you go and shoot yourself immediately.” The wretched general dressed himself in full uniform, went to the Bois de Boulogne and there blew out his brains.

Colonel Courcelles outrivalled his late chief in brutality. He belonged to a respectable family and was passably rich, advantages which neither rendered him sociable nor honest; on the contrary, he was ignorant, wicked, miserly and inhuman; he possessed in an eminent degree every vice and folly of his predecessor without the least particle of his fleeting goodness. Where poverty drove the one, avarice led the other; where passion mastered the first, cruelty triumphed over the second. The former often concealed his exactions under the polite deportment of a gentleman, but the latter disdained such covering and gloried in the exposition of his naked villainy. Courcelles commenced by arraigning the measures of Wirion, whose errors he said he could plainly perceive, but perceived only to plunge deeper into cruelty. He declared that no prisoner should ever obtain the least favour from him, and in this, and this only, he religiously kept his word.

The following extracts from the work of M. Anthony Latreille, who had been at one time a trusted subordinate of Courcelles, but who fell into his bad graces, show the character of this cruel man.

“I was ordered to discontinue my attendance at the appel; my intimacy with the prisoners, it was observed, was too much cemented to entrust me with so important a duty. All persons, without distinction, were required to show themselves daily, and money could no longer exempt from this regulation. If any one missed the appel, he was immediately conducted to the citadel; and fearing that sooner or later he might get into trouble by the masters of merchantmen, he begged of the minister their removal to another town. This request was accorded and with the exception of two hundred and sixty, of whom some were married and others above the age of fifty, the whole class were marched to Auxonne.

“Courcelles obtained from Paris the powerful aid of the examination of letters, which Wirion could never obtain. The peculation spoken of in Wirion’s administration could not be abandoned; it was too profitable and too facile in the collection, easily to be relinquished. Courcelles, with his associate, Massin (lieutenant of gendarmerie), enjoyed the sweets for two years; during which time ninety-six prisoners escaped and the greatest part got clear off. A lieutenant in the royal navy, in gaol for debt, contrived to break his bars and took refuge at a house in the country, where he was speedily betrayed and given up to Courcelles, who marched him through the principal streets of the city, thumb-screwed and loaded with chains; he was then cast into a dungeon. Some months afterwards he effected his liberation, when the commandant, from feelings of revenge, threw his wife, who had remained behind, into confinement from which she only came out by the interference and upon the responsibility of several gentlemen.

“A declaration now appeared that, if any one decamped, the whole class to which he belonged would be immediately arrested; ‘the only proper method,’ as Courcelles observed, ‘of treating Englishmen.’ This threat was afterwards carried into execution but without the desired effect. The desertions still increasing, Napoleon’s famous decree was published, condemning every prisoner taken in the act of breaking their parole to the galleys. Rejoiced at this severity, the commandant knew not how to contain his satisfaction. ‘Let them depart,’ said he, ‘I shall not miss them.’ This savage pleasure was somewhat abated on finding that, between the date of the law, 23rd December, and 30th January, no less than nine had taken flight, two of whom were retaken and had sentence passed; but, in spite of every obstacle that bolts, locks and sentinels could throw in their way, they again delivered themselves and finally reached their own country.

“These continual escapes caused Courcelles the greatest torment. It was in vain that he placed guard upon guard, and patrol upon patrol; the idea of his barbarity had fixed itself so firmly on everybody’s mind, that they were anxious to take advantage of any opportunity to fly from him. There was in the citadel a spacious convent, capable of containing five hundred persons and into this he determined a great part of the depot should be conducted. He wrote accordingly to the Minister of War and after some trouble obtained permission to form a permanent depot of certain persons at the monastery of St. Vannes.

“In a short time, about two hundred persons were lodged there, including about one hundred and forty midshipmen. Innumerable representations were made to the commandant but none were answered. A principal inhabitant of the town interfered and having remarked that the reputable citizens were indignant at the punishment inflicted on the dÉtenus, Courcelles ridiculed the idea of reputable citizens, observing, that he should have very great trouble to find any in Verdun; ‘they were,’ he said, ‘only concerned on account of letting their lodgings and if their interests did not prevent them, they would be the first to favour the prisoners’ escape.’ ‘The plan I have adopted,’ added he, ‘ought long since to have been followed, but the unhappy Wirion, who had accepted money, trembled and dared not pursue it.’

“As was easy to foresee, the midshipmen not infrequently created riot and disorder. Unoccupied and discontented, their accidental friendships generally terminated in disputes—quarrelling and fighting seemed wholly to engross their attention. Their altercations were but too often submitted to Courcelles, who, without any regard to justice (where justice was indeed somewhat difficult to administer) punished indiscriminately and thus added to the evil. Teased with complaints, he on one occasion shut up fourteen of the most noisy in so small a dungeon that they had nearly been suffocated. Complaint being made by the senior officer, he smilingly answered, ‘The more the merrier,’ and that as the weather was cold, they would serve to keep each other warm.

“Courcelles pretended that his orders were to confine the prisoners in the caverns of the citadel, and not in the convent—that appropriating this to their use from motives of humanity, it was but just, he said, that they reimbursed him for the necessary repairs the building had lately undergone. The midshipmen appealed to their commanding officer; this gentleman promised to resist for them the iniquitous claim. At the expiration of the month, Courcelles desired him to retain a certain sum for lodging money. ‘You may, sir,’ replied the officer, ‘lord it over my countrymen, for unhappily they are too much in your power, but you shall never force me to aid you; and no punishment you can inflict would ever induce me to act dishonourably. Your order is unjust and I will not listen to it.’ This firm language so intimidated Courcelles that he did not enforce it.

“The midshipmen finding that he gave way so easily, petitioned the Minister of War, in hopes that a statement of their circumstances might ameliorate their situation. They stated their grievances as follows:—‘That they had been compelled to purchase his wines; that the difference (a small fraction) between the franc and the livre tournois was still withheld; that an attempt had been made to force them to pay for the apartments into which they had been thrust; with other minor things.’

“The petition had the desired effect. The Duc de Feltre, with that justice and humanity which ever distinguished his conduct towards the prisoners, immediately caused the matter to be examined. A general with two British officers were nominated to inquire into it. The general observed to Courcelles that two of the charges were comparatively trifling but that the payment in livres instead of francs could not so easily be surmounted; and he wished to know what he had to say thereon. Courcelles answered, ‘Nothing—I have never had to do with the prisoners’ pay; it is the gendarmerie alone that have been employed in this service; no profit has arisen to me—I am ignorant on the subject.’ ‘Sir,’ said the general, ‘the gendarmerie are under your orders; if they have committed abuses, you are answerable for them.’ I was then sent for; and after answering a number of questions, the following dialogue took place between the two men:

“‘How happens it that, resident in a town where so much money has been spent and yourself one of the principal persons that has been employed, no part of the treasure has come to you?’

“‘I confess that, since my stay in Verdun, I have annually consumed above one hundred pounds more than my pay and that I have received this sum from the generosity of the English.’”

Reference has been made above to the bitter pangs endured by the commandant on the frequency of successful escapes. They were undertaken with remarkable boldness in the teeth of abundant and it might have seemed insurmountable obstacles, and accomplished after facing and surmounting extraordinary hardships and incredible sufferings. This will be best realised by recounting in some detail a few of the most noteworthy evasions of British prisoners of war. One is recorded in a small book, “Prison Scenes,” from the hand of a principal actor in the enterprise, Mr. Seacombe Ellison, the master of a Liverpool merchantman, the brig Rachel, carrying sixteen guns. The ship was captured by a French privateer, off the American coast on her passage home from Honduras, and taken to Bordeaux whence her captain and crew were sent to Verdun. His experiences at that much and rightly abused depot have been largely drawn upon in the following pages.

When the hope of release became more and more vague, Mr. Ellison cast about him to compass his escape. In conference with some of his comrades various plans were debated and dismissed as too hazardous; but at last one was adopted. Mr. Ellison tells us that he always viewed the undertaking with dread “particularly when in the morning he looked out of the window and the weather happened to be wet and cold.” The idea was to get across the French frontier, to pass the Rhine and travelling through Baden, Wurtemburg and Bavaria enter Austria and make for the sea at Trieste. This was in effect the route taken when finally success crowned their efforts. But they were to be sorely tried by misfortune before they regained their liberty. The first aim was to rid themselves of the obligation of parole given. As has been said, it was only necessary to commit some trifling breach of the regulations to secure committal to the citadel, from which the open country might be reached without passing through the gates of the fortress; such an escape, moreover, when shut up in the citadel, would exonerate the bondsmen who were jointly responsible with them for safe custody.

All the necessary preliminaries were completed by the intending runaways at their lodgings in town; they bought very privately all the tools and appliances required to assist them in breaking out—gimlets, small lock saws and a fine saw made of a watch spring and set in a steel handle, to be used in filing through iron bars; they also obtained maps and marked out their projected route. These various articles, with a store of food sufficient for eighteen days, were conveyed during daylight to a secure hiding place in a wood beyond the walls, to which they had access, while the gates were open. At the last moment they secreted the rope to be used in their descent into the ditch, by lapping it round and round their bodies under their waistcoats; it was about the thickness of a log line or a window cord, so that a great length could be conveniently secreted. Carrying all these on their persons they proceeded to the office of the lieutenant of gendarmerie pretending that they were late for roll call. Whereupon the choleric officer promptly ordered them to the citadel under close arrest.

This citadel was familiar ground; from frequent visits they knew all its intricacies and soon saw that the plan they had conceived was perfectly feasible. They had access to the chapel adjoining the citadel and belonging to the convent of St. Vannes. Happily but few prisoners were in confinement in the citadel and no one suspected or spied upon them. A passage through the chapel was effected by taking out one of the panels of the door; a series of holes were bored through with the gimlet but the panel was retained in its place by leaving one bit of wood intact. At the appointed hour the loose panel was broken out, not without noise, but no alarm was given; then all passed through the aperture, although one man stuck fast in the opening and was with difficulty extricated. Once through the body of the church, they groped about seeking a place of exit and came upon an altar above which was a window undefended by bars, through which they climbed and quietly descended into the convent garden. They now gained the open enclosure of the citadel, reached the general’s garden, easily surmounted a low wall to find a descent of twenty feet on the far side, down which they slid, narrowly escaping accident. Here they came upon a sentry box and found a sentinel soundly asleep within. They were now at the inner edge of the rampart but not at the point at which they had originally intended to pass; the drop was at least sixty-five feet, nearly double that which they had expected, but they now unwound the ropes from around their bodies and cast lots as to who should go down first. Three fugitives preceded Ellison and descended safely, but Ellison could not hold the rope, which had become slack and slimy, and let go his hold, finishing with a fall of fifteen to twenty feet.

They were now at the bottom of the ditch, two of them, Ellison and another, in horrible pain from their falls, but not seriously injured, and after a rest they hobbled away to their selected hiding place in the recesses of the wood. At this moment the gun fired announcing the escape, but they crept further in amongst the bushes and were not discovered. Here they lay four whole days and nights, two of them in great bodily pain and all in much discomfort, for rain fell continuously. On the fifth night, when the injured men were somewhat stronger, they left the wood and reached the bank of the Meuse, now closely pursued by villagers who were blowing horns. What was to be done? They had run into the toils, the enemy was before and behind, the river on each side and none of them swimmers. They turned off the road, ran along the bank and to their great joy found a boat, into which they jumped, and were across in a moment and very soon out of hearing of their pursuers. Their situation was by no means secure, but they were undisturbed and at dark resumed their march. Progressing by night, lying in the woods by day, they had still plenty of food and a small supply of brandy, but their chief need was lack of water. By the help of their maps they kept in a pretty direct course, never entering a house or holding any communication with persons they met. On the eleventh day their hiding place was on the edge of a steep hill; one of the party was now exhausted and almost spent, but they would not desert him, being still resolved to sink or swim together. That evening they made a somewhat earlier start and on reaching a village found to their dismay that there were still many people about. One was a gendarme who accosted them, demanding their passports with much insistence; although he could not read, he demurred at accepting the papers put forward, which were not really passports, and while the discussion was proceeding a brigadier of gensdarmes came up and all was lost. “Ah, gentlemen,” he exclaimed, “I am glad to see you; I have been expecting you for above a week,” and pulling out a paper he read out their names and descriptions. Next morning the disappointed fugitives under a strong escort began to retrace their steps towards Verdun, which they re-entered on the second day. “We made,” he relates, “as may readily be imagined, a sorry appearance; our clothes bearing evident signs of what had been the nature of our lodgings, and our linen shewing that it had not lately been in the hands of the laundress. We were paraded through the streets into the citadel and lodged in the Tour d’Angouleme, a small round building with only two apartments, one above the other, with a circular stair outside, leading to the upper one.”

Soon afterwards a posse of gensdarmes appeared and proceeded to make rigorous search. The prisoners were ordered to strip to their shirts, their hats and shoes were examined, their neckerchiefs, coats, waistcoats and pantaloons and stockings were visited and explored, but nothing was found until a button was seen to exceed a regular size and when cut in two was found to contain a double louis d’or. After this every button was disembowelled but no more cash was detected. Yet Ellison managed to retain five double louis sewn inside his flannel waistcoat and one under the arm of his coat. After the search, the prisoners were separated, a sentry placed over them and no communication allowed between them. The only food issued was a loaf of black bread and a pitcher of water. No bedding was given, not even straw.

To have failed brought down on the recaptured runaways the full weight of the commandant’s wrath. They were bullied, brow-beaten, threatened with all manner of pains and penalties, until they would make confession of what had induced them to attempt escape, who first suggested it, who aided and abetted, who procured the tools, who did the actual work of cutting out, and which of the fugitives had first proposed an escape; and no credence was given to the reply that the subject of escape had been the constant theme of conversation with the prisoners, a subject of perennial interest to all captives since they were first deprived of personal liberty. The commandant would believe nothing and in his fury ordered the culprits to be put in irons hand and foot, and kept so continuously day and night, subjecting them to exquisite torture in their damp, dirty, dungeon, unable to cope with the vermin that infested it. The irons were of diabolically ingenious design and very heavy, so that at best those weighted with them could only shuffle about, moving two or three inches at a time as far as the sill of the window for a breath of air.

A still sharper recompense was to be their portion. It was decided to remove them to another prison, Bitche, a gloomy fortress adjudged as the receptacle for the turbulent and disorderly, a place so hideous that it was commonly known as the “Castle of Tears.” En route they met fourteen of their fellows chained together on their way to Metz for trial by court-martial, on a charge of plotting to blow up the powder magazine of the fort in which they were lodged. They had attempted to escape by an underground passage leading out to the open. They had cut through the wooden door, undermined an iron one, and in forcing the third alarmed a sentry who gave the signal, and they were taken red-handed. Their trial was long and patient, and ended in conviction with sentences to the galleys for terms varying from seven to ten years. But after promulgation the president of the court announced that as many of the accused were British officers all would be pardoned out of respect for their cloth.

Our prisoners proceeding to Metz were, contrary to usual custom, often allowed to hire vehicles. The general rule was to march by “correspondence,” passing, that is to say, from town to town, or village, and from the headquarters of one brigade of gendarmerie to the next at a distance of five or six leagues. The machinery existed really for the transfer of conscripts, thirty or forty thousand of whom were continually on the move through the country, either to join their regiments or in durance for having already deserted. It was a common sight to see thirty or forty of these conscripts chained in a string like a lot of horses taken to a fair. It was a dismal procession from brigade to brigade, and prison to prison. The long tramp by day, the night spent under lock and key in cold damp places without fire or special covering, or more than a scanty allowance of straw. Austrian and Prussian prisoners were more harshly treated than the English or the conscripts. One of the gensdarmes who had formed the escort of Prussians into France told Mr. Ellison it was a constant practice to shoot in cold blood any who fell down from fatigue on the road.

This fortress of Bitche which had such an evil reputation was situated some thirty miles north of Strasburg and the same distance from Metz. It stands upon an isolated rocky hill rising a thousand feet above a verdant plain. It dates from the reign of Louis XIV and was so highly esteemed as a frontier defence that vast sums were spent on its construction. The French king, indeed, when called upon for more money, asked whether it was being built of golden bricks. Although excavated out of the solid rock, which was cut down perpendicularly from ninety to a hundred and fifty feet deep, it was faced all round with masonry. The central space was filled with barracks, store-houses and magazines. At each end were two strong works styled respectively the Grosse TÊte and the Petite TÊte, separate, but connected with the main fort by drawbridges. Fifty feet below the Grosse TÊte a mortar battery had been built out and another battery mounting ten heavy guns commanded the approaches to the entrance to the fort. This entrance was on the east side where the carriage road, after winding round and round the hill, ended in a long incline, raised upon arches, ascending to the drawbridge and the main gate. Here began a tunnel, cut into the solid rock, blocked by two other gates, one in the centre and one at the far end. The garrison consisted of seventeen gensdarmes and a hundred veterans, and the place was under the command of a Major Clement who is spoken of as “a worthy, indulgent officer with much of the milk of human kindness in him.” He desired to govern humanely and showed great forbearance, but was very sorely tried by his charges, for the most part the refuse of the other prison depots. At this place were congregated the dissolute, the abandoned, the profligate, the drunken and the reckless.

The Grande Souterrain—the great underground cellar or main dungeon—was a perfect pandemonium, filled with rough, savage sailors, desperate dare-devils, rendered utterly reckless by interminable confinement, untamable, ungovernable, a constant terror to their guardian, who dreaded coming in contact with them. There can be little doubt that if they could have seen their way to leave France finally they would have risen, overpowered the garrison and walked straight out of the fort into the country. They were ripe always for disturbance; the least thing offended them. One of their crowd was an Englishman who bore a colonel’s commission in the Russian service, but who had been arrested in France on suspicion of being a spy. He was a prime favourite with the sailors and when he was committed to the cachot for some prison offence, they combined and rescued him from arrest. Upon this the garrison of veterans intervened, but their appearance on the scene was the signal for a general mutiny. The prisoners tore up the guard beds to provide weapons and armed themselves with great billets of fire wood, bidding defiance to the old soldiers. Their leader, however, cautioned them not to be the assailants. “Let us wait,” he cried, “till blood is drawn from any of us; then we will fall upon the Frenchmen and murder the whole lot.” Their attitude was so imposing, their determination so plain that the authorities practically gave in and on being promised by the prisoners that they would behave peaceably, withdrew their veterans.

Again, it was a standing order in the fort that all lights should be extinguished at eight o’clock, but on occasions when fresh inmates arrived, when drink was on tap and the spirit of rejoicing prevailed, this regulation was openly defied. If the gensdarmes after mildly protesting ventured down into the Souterrain they were met with a storm of missiles, hats, shoes, and logs of wood were thrown at the lantern as a target and then at the gensdarmes themselves, who were compelled to beat a hasty retreat.

Boxing matches and prize fights were of constant occurrence and at first the guards, not understanding them, desired to interfere, thinking the prisoners might injure one another; their interference was fiercely resented and the commandant decided to leave them alone, saying that if they would they might kill each other; that he, for his part, would listen to no more complaints, nor give the injured redress, and henceforth the prisoners must govern themselves. They took him at his word and disposed of all offences by a formal court-martial, chosen from their own body, when accused and accuser were brought face to face and the former, if found guilty, was forthwith flogged with a cat o’ nine tails, which after use was entrusted for safe keeping to the brigadier of gensdarmes. But no gendarme might raise his hand with impunity against a prisoner. One dared to strike a sailor with the scabbard of his sword, which the offended tar snatched out of his hand and threw over the ramparts, adding, “There, you may go and fetch it for yourself.”

All were determined prison breakers at Bitche; attempts at escape were frequent, and kept the poor commandant constantly on the rack to circumvent them. He was greatly blamed for the cruelty employed in enforcing safe custody. One story is told of a ship’s carpenter who had escaped from another depot but was caught and brought to Bitche, where he was lodged in the Grande Souterrain. With active mind and practised hands he contemplated breaking through from the underground into the ditch of the fort and worked steadily, assisted by two more, night after night until they had reached a last door. It was said that their progress had been watched and regularly reported to the commandant by his spies, and that when the final attempt was to be made the commandant was stationed with a party of gensdarmes outside the door to meet the fugitives as they came through. A cowardly attack was at once made on them; they were fired upon and slashed at with sabres, so that two were stabbed to death, but the third saved himself by jumping back into the prison. As a warning to others, the two dead bodies were publicly exposed next day, but so much disfigured by wounds that they were barely recognisable.

Another nearly successful escape ended disastrously. A naval lieutenant and five others, occupying a dungeon beneath the Grosse TÊte, contrived to loosen one of the iron bars of the grating and get through. They had possessed themselves of a rope which they had made fast to another bar and part of its length was left lying across the passage. Unfortunately a sergeant with a relief of sentries, stumbled over the rope, and the prisoners who were already outside, descended the rope in great haste one after the other. It suddenly snapped; the lieutenant who was placed lowest on the rope fractured his skull and the others following were seriously injured. One strained both ankles; a second from concussion of the brain lost his reason, and the remaining two were more or less bruised.

On arrival at Bitche they were consigned to the Little Souterrain, only thirty-one steps down and occupied by the better class of prisoners. Our friends soon became habituated to their new quarters, which were less objectionable than they had expected. They were permitted to hire beds, bedding and linen from the town and purchase cooking utensils. Provisions cheap and plentiful were brought for sale at the gate, but all were marched down in turn under escort to do their shopping in the town. They had been deprived of their watches and money on their first arrival, but all valuables were presently restored to them. Trouble came with the warm weather and with it intermittent fever, when the sufferers were almost distracted with the noises around them,—dancing upon the benches, singing, carousing. One of the party, luckily for himself, had friends at court and was removed into a room upstairs, the inmates of which had matured a plan for escape and were on the point of putting it into execution. He was let into the secret, his coÖperation accepted and in a few days more he was gone; it was one of the first of the successful escapes made.