It
was confoundedly vexatious. Whilst expostulating with the turnkey, I
caught a glimpse through a barred window of the interior court, athwart
which the chains lay extended, whilst in one railed off even from this
the convicts were crowded, marching round and round--precaution forbade
their remaining still--and uttering from time to time such yells and
imprecations as might deafen and appal a Mohawk. "I have caught a
glimpse at least," thought I, as we were unceremoniously turned out.
My friend, the surgeon, bade us, however, not despair. When the man of
influence arrived he hoped to prevail; and in the mean time he led us to
view the other curiosities of Bicetre. There was the well, the kitchen,
the anatomical theatre. The courts were crowded with aged paupers, who
each well knew that his carcass would undergo what laceration the
scalpel of my friend and his comrades chose to inflict upon it. But the
thought seemed not to affect them so much as it did us. Methought the
business of dissecting dead subjects might have been carried on more
remote from the living candidates; but I was wrong, for mystery and
secrecy always beget fear.
The mad-house was another curiosity. It contains many whose brain the
revolution of July, 1830, had turned. One man, a fine youth, had
travelled on foot from a distant part of the kingdom, to shed his blood
as a sacrifice to the memory of Napoleon.
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