Yet this is so true, that I have scarcely ever observed
even the poor considerate towards each other--and the rich, if they are
frequently charitable, are not always compassionate.*
* Our situation at the Bicetre, though terrible for people unused to
hardships or confinement, and in fact, wretched as personal
inconvenience could make it, was yet Elysium, compared to the
prisons of other departments. At St. Omer, the prisoners were
frequently disturbed at midnight by the entrance of men into their
apartments, who, with the detestable ensign of their order, (red
caps,) and pipes in their mouths, came by way of frolic to search
their pockets, trunks, &c.--At Montreuil, the Maisons d'Arret were
under the direction of a Commissary, whose behaviour to the female
prisoners was too atrocious for recital--two young women, in
particular, who refused to purchase milder treatment, were locked up
in a room for seventeen days.--Soon after I left Arras, every prison
became a den of horror. The miserable inhabitants were subject to
the agents of Le Bon, whose avarice, cruelty, and licentiousness,
were beyond any thing a humane mind can imagine. Sometimes the
houses were suddenly surrounded by an armed force, the prisoners
turned out in the depth of winter for several hours into an open
court, during the operation of robbing them of their pocket-books,
buckles, ear-rings, or whatever article of value they had about
them.
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