Connecticut western news., 1873-02-07
A French Prison Scene.

A
 The last forty-one prisoners were re- moved from the. Bagne of Toulon, and that famous establishment, so long the terror of French criminals, and which has been fruitful source of har- rowing subjects to the ablest romancists and poets of France, was closed forever more. The scene when this great place of woe, and, there can be no doubt in many instances, of revolting cruelty, was closed, was interesting and thrilling in the extreme. The prisoners had all been sentencedtopenal servitude forlife, life, and theywore, as an emblem of their doom, the famous green cap, while n chain three feet and half long was fas- tened to their left wrist and ankle. When the prisoners were drawn up in line to prepare for transportation to French penal colony the officer in charge announced that ten of the num- Der would be pardoned. A scene of in- describable excitement ensued. De- spite the admonition of the keepers, the prisoners crowded around M. Duri- wage and his colleagues. Some of them uttered exclamations of intense sus- pense, each hoping against hope that his name would be among the fortunates, while others clasped their hands, there- by causing Q horrible clanking of chains. All eyes were riveted on M. Durivage as he now read off the ten names of those who were destined to the happi- ness of regaining their liberty, which they believed to have lost forevermore. As the names were read off, the happy convicts, with only two or three excep- tions, broke into demonstrations of un- bounded delight. Some danced around like madmen, while others burst into floods of tears, throwing themselves on their knees and praying in loud tones of profound agitation.
 When the ten names had at last been announced, those who were to remain in durance manifested their rage and disappointmentine equally singular ways. There were tears and cries of heart rending despair, and there were also curses too blasphemous to repeat. The keepers, at q sign from the Commission CTS, dragged them to an adjoining cor ridor, beating them with their sticks, and threatening them with moro severe measures in case they should continue violating the rules of the Bagne.
 Meanwhile three blacksmiths began to strike off the shackles from the limbs of the pardoned convicts. This is al- ways somewhat painful operation, and some of the convicts uttered stifed cries as the sledge hammers fell upon the rings of their chains. At last all of them were unfettered. Even the prison officials, hardenend as they were, could not help looking without emotion upon the poor wretches who had suffered so much and so long. There was not one among them but had been an inmate of the Bagne for upward of twenty years. One of them, Andre Freron, had been there since 1925, forty-seven years 8 shackled galley-slave!
 The released prisoners put on the citizens clothes that had been furnish ed to them, and were escorted by large concourse of people to the Lyons depot The excitement of the crowd was as intense as the impressions which the unwonted sights which met the ex- convicts on all sides were remarkable and profound. They seemed to feel awkward in their new clothes, and they held their left arms as if their wrists and ankles were still connected by q chain. They have all reached their old homes by this time. God knows alone what thoir feelings were when they found everything altered there, and met, perhaps, in their birth-places no one that remembered them. In accord ance with the French laws, they will re- main under the surveillance of the po- lice to the end of their days.
 Meanwhile their thirty-one unpar- doned fellow convicts have set out on their long and dreary voyage to the tropical and unhealthy shores of Cayen- ne. Until their arrival in the penal colony they will not be taken from the hold of the man-of-war that conveys them thither. There, almost in the dark, they lie on their pallets, fastened to the walls with heavy chains. The doors to this floating prison are guarded day and night by three marines with loaded muskets, who have orders to shoot on the spot any of them who suc- ceed in freeing themselves from their letters.