Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-07-02
ten years more, until rescued on July IA,
1853.

Saber and torch in hand the citizens O.
Paris explored every recess of the Clark
fortress. Most of tire living victims they
thus rescued nlistcok their iesccers FOR
eyecutioners. Some wee so weak that
they tainted on seeing armed men. 9th
ers. unused to so much light hid their
eyes from the torches. From tie depths
Of the fortress they brought up horrible
trophies. machines whose use no one
could guess There was che heavy iron
machine Ike a great suit oe 2r1nor that
seemed to have been invented to hold
every joint and riusc.e OF the victim in an
eternal rigidity.
The Comte de Lcges had heen pris-
orer during thirty-two years. PAWN
heavily for It. he had been favored with
a high-ceiled room. in which .aev had
allowed him TO install four-posted bed
drafts While sleening. He had able.
a jug. plate and stool His room was
always in dull twilight that came
through single grated window. Yet he
was the best lodged prisoner found at tbs
taking OF the Bastille.
While they We're throwing the archives
into the moat the forty and more Dris-
oners released by the Faris mob made off
as fast as their legs would cav them,
without giving their names and address IS
Only one others name ene o~ense is
Known. He was the young Cornte re
Solages who had been thrown into the
Bastille on lettrn de cachet procured
from the king by hts family. who con
t'nued to pay his board. It was this
practice of the lettres de cachet, by which
people of influence might use the prison
for their family affairs and private VEN
geances, that most enraeed the people of
Paris against it. The kings lettre de
cachet ran:
Monsieur lie Mqis. de Jumilhac: This
letter is to tell you to receive into my
Chateau of the Bastille -, and to there
detain him Cor herr until new order from
me.
Monsieur lie Mqis. de Jumlhac. l pray
God that He will have YOU in His holy
Keeping (Signed) LOUIS"
Written at Versailles, the = day of -,
and below the name Of the n inter.
During the reign of LOUIS XIV alone,
10000 lettres de cachet We're isrred The
king wrote his name on the blank forms,
a hundred at a time, on rainy afternoons
He and his ministers distributed them
among their friends.
Wives obtained them against their hus-
Eends. husbands against their wives.
fathers against their children, debtors
against their creditors opera dancers
against lovers who had sighted them.
Persons who had ncver been convicted
OF any crimes remained in the Besti!ie
not because anybody in particular is
anxious they should remain. but because
forgotten. and there Is nobody to ask for
their release" as Mi-abeau wrote in his
thunderbolt, "Lettres de Cachet"
The great tribune, while still a young
man, had been imprisoned on the order of
the marquis, his father. who, in the course
of his long and prosperous life, procured
no less than fifty lettres de cachet against
members of his own family, While lying
in prison Mirabeau wrote his great pam
ph,et on scraps of paper torn from books.
on pieces of linen. even. torn from his
shirts. Though often searched. he con-
cealed the growing work with wonderful
ingenuity Later on it's publication was
to electrify France and prepare the revo-
luton.
The historian Rava'sson says that only
two kinds of torture were applied in the
Bastlle-the boot and thu torture by
water.
The ordeal of 1.-The boot needs no de-
scription; in it the leg was crushed by
successiv ely driven wedges. For the tor
ture by water the victim was bound on
trestle and water was poured down his
throat by the gallon until his sufferings
became uncomfortable.
Torture was practced in the Bastile
quite up to the revolution. in spite of the
we'll advertised edct of Louis XVI. The
mutilated archives themselves contain the
full relation of the questions ordinary
and extraordinary" applied to a man