Evening star., 1901-04-20
Truth About That Famous Prison
Coming to Light.
UNNAMED HORRORS IN IT'S DEPTHS
What Was Found When the Walls
Were Torn Down.
INSTRUMENTS OF TORTURE



PARIS, April s, 1901
When the mob of Paris patriots, a hund-
red odd years ago, fell on that ancient
prison-castle called the Bastile, killed
its governor and garrison. and set it's VIC
Tins free, they found unnamed horrors in
its dark depths.
OF late years it has been the fashion for
historians to deny the horrors. NJ. Violet
le-Duc discovered that it's famed oubliettes
(whose floors sunk to conical points SO that
those forgotten in them might have no rest
ing place for their feet) were merely ice
houses; another student of the archives, NJ
Funck-Brenatno, has shown that "only
people who would today be counted rich
could afford to feed themselves as the Bas-
tiles prisoners were fed" and an English
apologist, in a work of two bulky volumes,
says that prisoners We're less harshly
treated in the Bastile than in other French
or English prisons;" that 'its courtyards
resembled college play ground in which
prisoners received their friends end played
games" and that 1.-The accusation of pris-
onerS being tortured in the BaStile has no
serious foundation"
These painStakng historians came to
their conclusions from studying the .docu-
ments. Unfortunately for the truth of his
tory, they We're the documents of the Bas-
tile Other documents have come to light
confirming the old tales in all their horror.
More Than q Prison.
The Bastle was more than a prison. 1t
was fortress and a castle, the key of
Paris. Originally a gate in wall of the
city, it grew through the centuries. Just
across the plain the royal residence of
Vincennes, another prison-castle. At the
approach of insurgent force, the king
could signal from his window at Vincennes.
and the guns of both places could be point
ed to sweep the plain between them. While
the kings standard fioated over the eight
towers of the Bastile, Paris and France
were his.
The Bastile was always considered i'm
pregnable. To the people of Paris it rep
resented the tyranny of ages. The ami
versary of it's capture by the Paris mob
is the French Fourth-the 18th of July.
The people had already begun to look the
king and mobiles in the face. The self-con-
stituted national assembly of June II had
met in the dismantled handball court of
Versailles to swear not to separate until it
had given constitution to France. On
June % these same deputies of the third
estate, perSiSting in their resistance to the
vote by order (Which would have left them
in the minority AGAIN., the king sent the
Marquis de Dreux-Breze to summon them
to retire" 1t was then that Mirabeau-
who himself had known imprisonment at
Vincennes under a lettre de cachet-thun-
dcred his famous reply: Tell those who
sent you that we are here by the will of
the people,
Growing Discomfort.
For long time public opinion had been
profoundly irritated at the kings resist
ance to a meeting of the popular assembly,
and famine increased the discomfort. AS
early as April %, report having circu-
lated in the workingmen's quarter of ST.
Antoine that the employees of the Revillon
paper manufactory were to be taxed 3
cents per day, and that bread was too
good for them,'' a mob attacked the manu-
factory.
Detachments, both of French Guards and
Royal Cravats were sent to disperse this
riot, but only the Royal Cravats had orders
to charge the people. The killed and wound
ed were numerous, this being the first blood
shed in the streets of Paris during the
revolution. The French Guards having
sworn to obey no order contrary to that of
the national assembly, We're imprisoned by
their colonel. Liberated by the mob, they
were feasted in the gardens of the Palais
Royal the same day. June 80.
On July II, in the Palais Royal gardens
Camille Desmoulins an unknown young
man, stood on table, pistol in hand, and
cried: ITO arms! The Germans of the