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 Old French Prisons.

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poor creatures who were doomed to pass here their last hours on earth. Turning to the right out of the court-yard, the guide of to-day unlocks a heavy door, descends a few steps, and ushers the visitor into the noble old guard-room of the palace of the kings. Here everything is mediaeval in character. Columns rise from the stone floor and spread themselves out into vaulted, groined, springing arches, extending to the roof. Over a stone wall which rises to about the height of a man's chin, the eye looks in to the euisines de Saint Louis, and into bare hearths and cold fireplaces. The guardchamber is picturesque and imposing in its stately architecture, and vividly suggests CELLS UNDER THE HALL OF THE REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNAL.

and the whole prison had a thoroughly feudal aspect, which was suggestively dismal. The Conciergerie at the time of the Revolution was damp and f1lthy. The majority of the dungeons were below the level of the street, on that of the river, and infested with rats to such an extent that more than one prisoner was nearly killed by them. In the first year of the Republic the Conciergerie was fairly well organized; but from 1792 to 1794 it be came a veritable pandemonium, being liter ally packed with prisoners of both sexes, beds being made up in what had been the chapel and in some of the passages to ac commodate the extraordinary number of

UN CACHOT.

UNE CHAMBRE l)E PISTOLE.

visions of the state and splendor of that feudal royalty which needed ample military watch and guard. Time, which changes so many things, has given up the old palace of the kings to become a palace of justice. From the Salle des Gardes the ancient prison is entered through the rue de Paris — a vast dark corridor, which in Revolution ary days was lined with rows of dismal cells always crowded to excess. It has contained two hundred and fifty prisoners at the same time. A frightful black eouloir, with barred gates, is this memorable passage; and the cell of the queen is to the right where the