The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1870-09-13 00:00:00

IN'PRISON AS A SPY.

In the Dago Telegraph. Mr. Grorif" -Aug"ths Has
recounts Ids stiff. rings on being arrested in France on
suspicion of being a spy• lie writes 71
I wag denonne at the Café iii lie er on Saturday
tally unknown to me, as a
night by two petsone . -- an -t-
-" Prt:ssian Spy," and taken to n
tng
I nihi:d Ile °I
he
Rue de Richelieu. Unfortunately ft my
"piper." for safety's sake in to tt bureau of me room
at thz. Grand ; but my applicetion to be allowed
to send a loc....neer ter them was refined. At the
• guardhouse, r. r; I was treat. el with soma di grey
f civility by the ,olil.et's on
to the orniflg a quad oilfus.tydr"..l;,.dhnterutatlia;.td:ahvihnelii:mulmetnufia4tivl,:e.
their sepearanee ; gni,, to my astonishment, I was
the police
,tyrets to tibeti'C'neni,traanl
I. was aapailod by
viph.' at,
duo.dienohinnthnet.
e " Espion Trussien," " Brigand Pruselen,"
with
neil the like and was thrust into a horrible dungeon.
which, at the most, perhaps, would have kde,lo,Ltell,
il six persons standing upright, In this
abornivable den, however, no le.a than seventeen per.
"sae were crammed; and this number, by etiven fielOek,
Was incres,ed to twenty.one. This Cave of Despair
wa lit by one small circular orifice high up in the wall,
heavily grated, and commonicating not •ith the open
air, bat with a lobby. Two boys in Menses had eon.
trived, by hoisting themselves on the shoulders of their
elders, to hang on to the bars of the window, whence
they shrieked unremittingly for air and water. A
broken-down-looking old man by my aide, in • white
blouse, and whom only offence, be said, was that of
selliug newspapers in the streets with a polio, pee.
mit. had been in this Inferno. he told Ine, for thirty-
six hours without one scrap of food; and at int. reale,
when the door of the dungeon was opened to admit fresh
imitators, the sergenta de villa mocked him by Potting
down his name as being "see. palm" but brenglit him
none. For the rest, my companions in captivity wi ri.
ruffians acetioal of crimes of violence, thieves, and
vagabonds of the very lowest description. The heat of
the place was suffocating, the at nch insupportabl.., the
filth amply Malebolgian ; and consequently, in common
lauigesge, indescribable. I fainted no ay, but no
efforts were ripple to succour me. On the °entree,.
when I recovered tionscinuaners—under the impetus .4
• kick from • wooden shoe which ha. cot • triangular
lice out of One of inn anales-1 foam' that I had been
thrust under the long wooden bevels running along one
si e of the cell, and that my pockets Lad been care-
fully turned not. Then monmenced a serious of out-
rages which I shall not forget until my dying day,
which I ahnd ler to recoil, and some of which I cannot
record. I lay huddled in a heap 00th. filthy floor of
the cell, under the beech, the perfectly helpless
victim of the reit •ntt who were art diced together about
1,..' and who, unable prelim.. to get full purchase for
their arra to strike me, satiated their savogery by
apurning Inc with It. ir feet. I did not rec• Inc oise
actual blow, but in throwing up toy left arm to screen
my lase, one cannibal bit inc severely on the back of
the hand. The r..a. wto merely a ayatem of atarnpings
and spurning., bruising tho whole of my left aide
fearfully; but I cannot but feel grateful that I
was coder the beech. At eight o'clock eix of
the most n otabhi ruffians were taken away to
Mem, sad the two boys were remo.eB as I under-
stood, to La Roquette ; but the sergeants de ville con-
temptuously reflood to listen to my complaints or to
my entreaties to be allowed to send • me...oil:or to my
hotel. Sonia more prisoners were removed at nine.
The residue of my companions were merely vagabond.
and beggars, sonic pitiab'y young and others se
pitiably old. It was fully ten o'clock when I was
summoned, and I Was the last animal taken out of thin
den of wild beasts I was given over to • fresh squad
of sergeants de 'die, and marched again, through many
streets, to a large stone hall, full of sergeants de vale—
at leant 100 of them—who were lounging on benches,
or going and taming, shouting out names, brand...hind
slips of paper, wrangling usuth each other, and smoking
short pipes—all, I suppose, in • perfectly official, but.
as it seemed to mi. Ltedlantite fashion. And now the
brig...her commanding the timed which had brought me
from the Ponta of the Bonne Nouvelle' entering into
something like (timidly converse, toll me that there
must be Berns mistake abut my arrest, for neither the
sergeants who had originally "operated" it, nor the
persons who had denounced ma as a spy, had made
their aprearanee. In this dilemma he thought the
heat thing to do was to take mo before a Commissary
of Police. Again was I marched through many vtreets—
this time, however, cob the privilege of walking
between two 'erg lint, ; nor did any exam t follow. The
l'enitieissary's office Was on the second floor of a boos •
In • dirty little street, and in hi. outer office I was kept
waiting about an hour, while an infinity of petty police
businean—solilters demanding railway passes, old ladies
' ireininne after lost dogs, ow k. tromplaining of their
mistresses, and nives—ohe of them with • gorgeous
black eye—complaintag of their hu.banda. At teat the
commissary bad leisure to attend to me, and to listen
to my explanations that I was not in any sense a
Prtwatan spy. lie seemed entirely perplexed and
bewildered to know what to do with me. At last the
tututsary proceeded to say that, to his thinking, the
beet course to hdopt would be to send me to the Pre-
Vetere de Police and put moat the "disproition" of
M. le Piefet. The accusation against me was inlet n
on a actin of miner, and, al my request, read to me. It
was to the eff lit that I hail held " insituous discourse
concerning France." and that I was "vehemently suss
petted of being a Prussian spy." I begged har-I to be
allowed to call at the lintel to fetch my paper', and at the
Britith Etnbas-y on my way to the Prefezture. To the
first request the Coninti•,ary wan good enough tom:cede;
he was civil enough. awl I was at length deli,, red from
the seirsnis de vine, and given over to one of the
l'ouirtaiasary's plain-cOothe, agents, who allowed me, on
leaving the office, to bail an open cab. In tide we ,
drove to ti a Oesn4 Hotel. I wrote on my cardt a few
hurried lines to Mr. Sheffield, at the British Embassy.
saying that I had been arrested as a spy, and hvggina
that lie would nines the Attila...ler at once to effect
my Lberation. With the agent I then drove to the
Prefecture of Police, where I was 'taken into the
cabinent of a tall old gentleman with grey hair and
moustaches. All the tall old trutleinan could do was
to wave his hand tremulously, fill up a printed
bane, and give it, with myself, ales, into the charge of
a fresh agent in plsin clothes. I was takeu through a
course of seeming:y interminable pa•sage., amt over
bridaps skirted by tall hoar lingo, to the di pet or gaol.
Hose, in the centre of an enormous etutte ball, I found
the yeirActire air chief gaoler, sitting at a sk ii. •
spi cies of jr 'ii cage. My mewl, Pocket-book, papers,
trinkets, arid cigars, which had been restored to Ina—
with the exeeptiou of the pocket-book and papers —at
the office of the Conitui-sary of the Police, were
then taken away Irons me ; but, to nay sues
prise, the gaoler called me • few minutes after-
wards ihto a privet, office, mid restored to me
tvory one of the objects of which I had b.. n depthell,
Whim ine that I was to be rut an /a pisfae. which
means solitaiy confinemeut, but with the to ;vitae.. of
pureliasing y •sr own provisions. I Wai taken into
another hall, lined on three of is shies with three tiers
of numbered cells, with the usual iroc bridges, bal-
conies. and staircases. It w a an exceedingly diry
edition of N-wgates. Then I was made to enter a room,
Where the order for my &TOM or iticarceratiou al a spy
was regiatered, and a cell assigned to Silo. After this,
carrying • small black board on which "lti"
written in white characters, I was eonducted across the
ball, and made to too a line with • number of other
priseners, twin brothers, so I thought shudderingly,
to ruffians of the Poste Bonne-Nouvelle. My om.
panionship with them was fortunately to be but ino-
mentary. We were me.elly ranged to receive the ho-pi-
tality of the house in the shape of a lump, a piece
weighing not less than a pound and a half of bread. I
was then marched upstaire to cell "125," and the
warder brought me a light for • cigar, and sitting On
the little table, smoking his own well eidutted pipe,
listened to my story. fie afterwards brought me pens,
ink, and paper, and, under his advise, 1 wro`e a formal
letter to Lord Lyons—in French—as it would have to he
read by the director of the Prison—explaining my
position. I had scarcely despatched this missive by
one of the prison messengers, and hail laid down on my
truckle bed, fully resigned to wait at leant three or four
tieurs for 1113 answer, when my cell door was again
unlocked, and I waa told that I was wanted downstairs
by "a captain." The " captain " turned out to be one
of the secretaries of the British Embassy who had been
despatch d by Lord Lyons the moo-ot he had received
the card I had sent from the hotel to obtain my libera-
tion. This bad at once been granted by the prefect.
M. Pietri, who, too hours afterwards, warp ton el out
Of ffloo' and warrants for whose apprehension have
since been issued.